The term Internet, as used in this thesis will refer to the network of computers around the world which are able to communicate with one another through the use of telecommunications equipment such as telephone lines, specialised cables and satellites. Porter (1997) states that the Internet "..provides a technological infrastructure for computer-mediated communication."
A computer may be described as ‘online’ when it is being used to connect to another computer (Weiss 1995). The number of computers actually ‘online’ at any time varies and for this reason, Weiss (1995) sees the Internet as "..not a static, unchanging thing" but as "..continually dynamic, reflecting the network of computers connected together at any one time."
There are a number of other terms such as ‘The Net’, ‘World Wide Web’, ‘Information Highway’, and ‘Information Super-Highway’, all of which are used to describe either the physical nature or the functionality of the Internet.
Concepts such as Cyberspace’, ‘Cybermarketing, and ‘Virtual Reality’, refer to the unique cultural interface popularised in literature by the works of William Gibson (Sterling, 1988).
The origins of the myriad E-mail systems available today can be traced back to researchers use of the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency NET) to share news and personal messages, according to Oliver and Kantaris (1997). The ARPANET was a global network of computers developed for defensive purposes by the military of the USA. The computer language developed in order to facilitate the transfer of messages between computers was called ‘Network Computer Protocol’ (NCP) which was soon superseded by the TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol/Internet Protocol).
Although in its simplest form an E-mail system may be described as one which sends text messages from one computer to another, the developments in technology in this area necessitate the use of a broad definition. Fatah (1994) defines an E-mail System thus;
E-mail is the technology that transports electronic objects from a wide variety of applications, including messaging, across heterogeneous computers, applications, and mail systems with store and forward capabilities.
In order to communicate via E-mail one must know the E-mail address of the message’s intended recipient. Several ‘White Pages’ (E-mail directories) exist but are considered to be inadequate and incomplete by Vaughan-Nichols (1993) who posits that the best technique for finding someone’s E-mail address is to simply ask them or have them send a message to your address.
All E-mail systems include at least basic messaging functions for sending and receiving text messages and there are features common to most systems which could be considered as ‘Standard Features’. They are;
There are features which are not common to many E-mail systems and are regarded as ‘advanced features’ by Fatah (1994). They are;
More advanced features provided by an E-mail system rapidly become standard features in the computer industry which is undergoing some incredible changes in both hardware and software according to Fatah (1994) who postulates that "the introduction of new technologies is quickly changing the very nature of E-mail’. Fatah (1994) observes that features such as multimedia E-mail and workflow automation are having "a profound effect on the nature of information exchanged."
Some E-mail systems are developed for a specific and specialised type of communication such as BBS (Bulletin Board System) and IRC (Internet Relay Chat).
A BBS is a specialised E-mail system which acts as a storage facility for the posting and retrieval of messages, files and programs. The first BBS software was developed in 1978 by Ward Christensen and Randy Suess and was designed to have a similar appearance to the kind of cork bulletin board found in a school or office Hedtke (1995). BBSs’ frequently focus on a particular theme or topic. Participants on a BBS firstly subscribe to a particular group and then use their access to the BBS to observe and/or participate in that group. Many BBSs’ are used for the free exchange of technical information and files.
Using IRC enables participants to engage in real-time conversations with one or more people who may be located anywhere in the world. According to Rose (1995), the first IRC which enabled three or more users to converse at the same time was written by Jarkko Oikarinen and became available in 1988. An IRC service is most commonly included as a feature when accessing the Internet via a shell account such as Compuserve, America Online and U-net.
IRC systems gained international fame during the Persian Gulf War in 1991 and the coup against Mikhael Gorbachev in the summer of 1991 when the fast, multi-serve nature of the media was considered to be an uncensored, nearly unbiased source of information.
2.2 The World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW) began in 1989 at CERN (Consseil Europeen pour la Recherché Nucleaire) as a means for allowing scientists to collaborate on projects across vast geographical distances. One of the scientists, Tim Berners-Lee, widely credited as being the inventor of the Web (Bracken, 1998), outlined two phases of the project which Zeltser summarises as;
Today the WWW, or the Web is distinguished from other related and overlapping Internet media by Gilster (1996) as being that collection of interlinked multimedia documents which are searchable through tools like Web Crawler, Lychos and World Wide Web Worm. These documents are viewed using a ‘browser’ program. There are many different browser programs available. The first browser program written was called Mosaic and is still available. The most popular browser programs are Microsoft Explorer and Netscape Navigator.
The ease of publishing documents as web pages on the WWW has led to a plethora of subject matter which can be ‘browsed’. Personal webpages, entertainment, education, and E-commerce (Electronic commerce) web documents can all be accessed from any computer which has access to the Internet.
2.3 E-commerce
Taylor (1996) states that the WWW is becoming increasingly popular for businesses as a forum for advertising their products and services due to the increasing number of people using the Internet as their main source for gathering information.
Marc Phillips, who established the specialist Online Research Division at Australia’s leading market research company, AC Nielsen.Mcnair, emphasises the need for companies to;
...evaluate the Internet as a business opportunity, as a distribution channel for products, information or services, a way to generate leads, or as a mechanism to help reduce the cost of doing business.
A diverse range of businesses have integrated the Internet into their business strategies. Taylor (1996) identifies some of the many benefits that a company can realise with a website;
The number of businesses becoming involved in E-commerce is increasing dramatically. One example of this involvement can be found in The Commonwealth Banks’ Netbank in Australia which, according to Phillips (1998), is designed to be a viable alternate banking service with accounts management services as well as shares brokerage services. Online banking services are becoming available in more countries including the UK and the USA where significant use of Internet services has been recorded.
Other businesses such as Amazon Books conduct all of their business including sales through their Internet website as a means of minimising the cost of selling books. Online sales are most common in businesses which have a product line of either books, music, or computer equipment and software according to Raggett (pers. comm) who suggests that this may have something to do with the nature of quality assessment being less tactile than for assessing for example the value of an item of clothing. Nevertheless, the development of interactive websites and online graphical product portfolios enables a wide range of product and services to be demonstrated on the Internet.
Ahuja (1997) states that "Perhaps the biggest technical challenge for online commerce pertains to securing transactions over the Internet" and identifies four basic types of security issues for online commerce which may be paraphrased thus;
The potential for development of the WWW as a world-wide low-cost marketplace is discussed by Ryans (1996) who asserts that the issue of secure transmissions has already been successfully tackled with the advent of modern encryption technology. However, modern encryption technology is only one tool to be used within a comprehensive strategy which a business needs to employ in order to maximise security.
For a business operating on the WWW, the risk of attacks to its’ data need to be kept within acceptable parameters. The motives commonly found behind security breaches are: industrial espionage, financial gains, or publicity.
The types of security breaches which a business may experience are discussed by Ahuja (1997) and may be summarised thus;
Dyson (1997) believes that as the amount of information used and the amount of business conducted on the Internet increases, so does the importance of developing a kind of electronic identity verification which has similar portability to the credit card.