1> eBay offers online auction service with its business model well suited for the World Wide Web. It has a fully automated service that helps buyers and sellers trade high end articles , such as fine art ,automobiles, and jewellery and other regular items like clothing and consumer electronic goods. eBay derives its revenues by charging commission for every article auctioned through their website and also charges fees for posting the articles for sale. Ebay also gets revenues through direct advertising on its website and offer services which enable the exchange of money between the payee and the payor that generates additional transaction based fee revenue.
eBay’s growth strategies focus on expanding to newer territories and continue to innovate and enhance the variety and appeal of products on its sites.
Some of its strategic implementations have been the “Buy It Now” feature that provides sales at a fixed mark up bypassing the auctioning process, eBay motors portal that aids sale of bulky items that are expensive to ship. They also acquired
Shopping.com an online comparison site and Skype Technologies for internet telephony to accelerate trade on its website.
eBay’s business model has been very profitable and has attracted 200 million users with billions of articles listed and billions of dollars being exchanged.
Started in 1995 within a decade eBay has created a billion dollar company with operations in 32 countries and with 8000 full time employees.
2> eBay has encountered several issues while implementing its strategic focus to expand into new geographies and offering newer innovative offerings. It has not yet been able to successfully penetrate into China. The increase in its seller fees has hindered its growth rates in America and Germany.
EBay’s growing international market makes it difficult to monitor compliance and abide by a variety of laws and regulation that apply in different countries.
The bigger threat for eBay has been its limited control on the honesty and integrity of its auctions. Articles could be very highly priced more than its worth or sellers could sell fictitious articles or stolen relics.
Ebay users also have been victim to identity theft scams which have resulted in unauthorized use of user accounts triggering thousands of dollars worth fraudulent sales. Several eBay users believe that the company has not taken sufficient measures to curb online fraud.
Competitors such as Yahoo are establishing similar auction sites to capture the Asian market while Google is offering adSense which runs online advertising based on user search criteria similar to eBay’s Adcontext service.
Finally the case also suggest that with high volumes of transaction on the eBay auction site eBay may not be able to provide good customer support and perhaps compromise on its quality of customer support as they may not be able to justify the varying needs of diverse groups of customers namely online sellers and online buyers.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Week 6 Article: LAPD uses wireless surveillance
By: Roberts, Mary Rose. Mobile Radio Technology, May2007, Vol. 25 Issue 5, p12-12, 1p; (AN 25060908)
This short article interested me as it harnessed wireless technology to effectively monitor crime and aid communities with better law enforcement tools. It talks about video surveillance system installed in key active crime zones in the city downtown that would remotely monitor the areas and transmit data through the municipal wireless network to a centralized location. LAPD’s tactical technology unit teamed up with Motorola to develop and install this mesh network. The system also feeds in vehicle mobile units with real time data.
The key advantages of such a system is that it replaces the number of officers needed to patrol the area and officers can get a true situational awareness of the crime from their vehicle as they enter the scene of crime. Finally it also avoids putting officers in life and death situations and helps build a better trust with the local community to counter gang related violence.
This short article interested me as it harnessed wireless technology to effectively monitor crime and aid communities with better law enforcement tools. It talks about video surveillance system installed in key active crime zones in the city downtown that would remotely monitor the areas and transmit data through the municipal wireless network to a centralized location. LAPD’s tactical technology unit teamed up with Motorola to develop and install this mesh network. The system also feeds in vehicle mobile units with real time data.
The key advantages of such a system is that it replaces the number of officers needed to patrol the area and officers can get a true situational awareness of the crime from their vehicle as they enter the scene of crime. Finally it also avoids putting officers in life and death situations and helps build a better trust with the local community to counter gang related violence.
Chapter 8: Case Study
List and describe the security weakness at the Department of Veterans Affairs
There are a number of factors that constitute a weak security at the Dept of Veterans Affair that makes it vulnerable to threats and risk of misuse of its data
The first and foremost important weakness seen at VA information technology department is that employees could have large amounts of critical data on their laptops. Many firms especially that deal with sensitive data do not permit the storage of company data in laptops and recommend all data be in the central database.
The second issue being that the employees could take laptops home and there was no audit trail or approval necessary to do so from the immediate superiors. This put not only the employee taking the company laptop home at risk of being negligent but also exposed the lack of security to monitor data going in and out of the company.
The department had no mechanism of an audit control of all the company hardware and as a result was not aware of the stolen laptop until 13 days after the incident occurred. Ideally hardware issued to employees is tagged with an electronic ID which helps firms take a real-time stock of the company’s inventory
Usually firms install 2 levels of password control to access laptops first being the login access authentication and a hard disk access authentication. This ensures that even if the laptop is stolen the unauthorized user cannot break into the hard disk to access data.
The third major weakness was that VA had no strict IT security policies and service level agreements in place with its IT vendors who dealt with VA’s critical data. Firms like VA should ensure and perform security audits and mandate secured IT workspace from its vendors and also require background check and security clearance for all its contractors and vendors.
Last but not the least VA did not have a central IT security governance and left it to individual departments to oversee and regulate security issues.
How effectively did the VA deal with these problems?
The theft of the company laptop having sensitive veteran’s data from an employee’s home exposed the poor security policies and its mandates.
In October 2005, VA had a major reorganization in which its IT operations to centralize IT programs and activities. Congress also passed a bill that gave a single executive control over the entire department’s IT spending.
Such centralized IT security governance could ensure proper data access rules and maintain better access controls and monitor fraud efficiently and detect intrusions faster.
There are a number of factors that constitute a weak security at the Dept of Veterans Affair that makes it vulnerable to threats and risk of misuse of its data
The first and foremost important weakness seen at VA information technology department is that employees could have large amounts of critical data on their laptops. Many firms especially that deal with sensitive data do not permit the storage of company data in laptops and recommend all data be in the central database.
The second issue being that the employees could take laptops home and there was no audit trail or approval necessary to do so from the immediate superiors. This put not only the employee taking the company laptop home at risk of being negligent but also exposed the lack of security to monitor data going in and out of the company.
The department had no mechanism of an audit control of all the company hardware and as a result was not aware of the stolen laptop until 13 days after the incident occurred. Ideally hardware issued to employees is tagged with an electronic ID which helps firms take a real-time stock of the company’s inventory
Usually firms install 2 levels of password control to access laptops first being the login access authentication and a hard disk access authentication. This ensures that even if the laptop is stolen the unauthorized user cannot break into the hard disk to access data.
The third major weakness was that VA had no strict IT security policies and service level agreements in place with its IT vendors who dealt with VA’s critical data. Firms like VA should ensure and perform security audits and mandate secured IT workspace from its vendors and also require background check and security clearance for all its contractors and vendors.
Last but not the least VA did not have a central IT security governance and left it to individual departments to oversee and regulate security issues.
How effectively did the VA deal with these problems?
The theft of the company laptop having sensitive veteran’s data from an employee’s home exposed the poor security policies and its mandates.
In October 2005, VA had a major reorganization in which its IT operations to centralize IT programs and activities. Congress also passed a bill that gave a single executive control over the entire department’s IT spending.
Such centralized IT security governance could ensure proper data access rules and maintain better access controls and monitor fraud efficiently and detect intrusions faster.
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