Distributed Business Application - Essay Example

1. Security, Privacy and Ethical Issues in Information Systems In the modern era, information systems and technology has taken over the business and personal communication. These not only provide bulk of knowledge to users but also contribute towards development of new and value added information systems that have reduced human involvement in business operations to a large extent while ensuring reliability, efficiency and accuracy of data. However, security and privacy of information has been one of the biggest threats to information systems to date. Internet has been used widely as a medium for sharing information and personal data with trusted and reliable parties. But, whenever a person access internet, his/ her computer leaves its identity at each step of the route (Privacy Rights Clearing House, 2006)1. Whether one is signing up for internet service with Internet Service Provider (ISP), sending emails, browsing internet sites, or using a search engine to locate required information, the identity of the machine is being shared, and it can be misused by someone masquerading as someone else (Webliminal.com, 2007) 2. In addition, many businesses gather and store personal information of the potential new and existing customers in their systems which give rise to privacy and information security issues. When anyone attempts to make a payment online using credit cards and other instruments, the security and confidentiality of the transaction is perhaps, the biggest concern. Owing to above, users are reluctant to utilise the full potential of internet and web based application systems. Grimm and Rossnagel (2000)3 have introduced a new standard "The 'Platform for Privacy Preferences Project' (P3P) is a standardisation approach of the World Wide Web Consortium for the privacy protection of the web". It guarantees that a user selects and accepts only those services that satisfy his/ her privacy criteria. This is helpful in reducing incidents of compromise of private information. There are many ways of implementing security over the e-commerce applications. These include encryption, digital certificates, digital signatures and other methods. These ensure that no one receives the message other than the target recipient of any digital message that passes the network. Many organisations now employ encryption mechanism like Secure Socket Layer (SSL) for transmission security and Digital Certificates to ensure non-repudiation and third party assurance in the form of digital certificate (Newmann, 2003) 4. "Unlike privacy protection law, privacy protection technology is effective worldwide and, unlike legislators, its providers and users are fast learning systems which are able to respond quickly to new technical challenges" (Grimm, R., Rossnagel, A. in article "Can P3P Help to Protect Privacy Worldwide" ACM Multimedia Workshop proceedings) In addition to security and privacy, information ethics in the modern electronic commerce environment have become a yardstick to measure the business philosophy and conduct of individuals and organisations. An ethical problem can be defined as the argument with regard to one's values, in selecting one of the two paths based on the pressure and demands of a situation (Charlesworth Sewry, 2002, p.163) 5. "An ethical problem expresses the conflict between the demands and pressures of a given situation and the values of a concerned individual" (Charlesworth, M., Sewry, D. (2002) "Ethical Issues in Enabling Information Technology". Proceedings of SAICIST. Rhodes University) Ethical issues are classified into some categories as follow: Individual responsibility - the ethical responsibilities that are common to all individuals regardless of family, race, ethnic origin etc. Professional responsibility - the responsibilities that various professional associations and individuals have to undertake towards the profession in general. Access and equity - concerns the use of technology on unbiased grounds; that is, free from the biases of gender, economic status, etc. Quality of life - this represents the use of technology to improve or enhance the quality of life of individuals using it. Examples can be of an email system that allows the users to exchange valuable data quickly and reliably. System quality - this includes the reliability, correctness, accuracy, confidentiality and availability of the system itself. Intellectual property - 'includes consideration of the conflicts between society's right to know and the individual's right to privacy' (Charlsworth and Sewry, 2002). Privacy - 'includes consideration of the conflicts between society's right to know and the individual's right to privacy' (Charlsworth and Sewry, 2002). Risk and reliability - includes the inherent risks involved in the development and implementation of the software and the risks to the data and information present in the software system. Use of power - describes the way computer professionals use the knowledge about systems and procedures that they have for the ubiquitous systems, when dealing with other users who are lesser oriented with technology Integrity - refers to the honesty of the computer professionals and requires transparent use of the software without extracting undue advantages. The above groups or categories represent the basic set of ethics that should be found in all computer systems and software for the purpose of ensuring security and privacy of users' information and data that is being maintained, transferred or processed by these applications and systems. 2. Components, Their Technologies and Marketplaces Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) systems include hardware and software that is licensed and sold to general public to carry out a variety of functions. 2.1 COTS Products 2.1.1 Microsoft Visual Studio .Net (i) Functionality: Popular Microsoft Visual Studio .Net package is a COTS software product classified as 'Development Tools' by Jaccheri (n.d.) 6 in the paper 'Classifying COTS Products'. Microsoft Office package provides tools for development of software and applications based on Visual Basic, Visual C, C# and other web service based applications. (ii) Vendor: The vendor for Office suite of products is the industry giant - Microsoft. (iii) Marketing: Microsoft employs a range of marketing techniques to promote its products. It has a website www.microsoft.com that holds complete information about all the products and their features. (iv) Price: The price of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition is $799 (Microsoft Corp, 2007) 7. 2.1.2 Paint Shop Pro Photo XI (i) Functionality: The tool is used to develop professional photos. It has a number of controls for automatic precision fixing, editing and publishing. (ii) Vendor: The product is developed by Corel8. (iii) Marketing: The product is marketed through internet on the company website www.corel.com and also in several related news and magazines. (iv) Price: The product is priced at US$89.99 if downloaded from the internet online. If the customer wants the product to be shipped in a CD package, the cost is US$99.99. 2.2 Open Source Software (OSS) An Open Source Software is available for free use and distribution. A few examples of OSS are provided below: 2.2.1 Jigsaw - the Advanced Web Server (i) Functionality: Jigsaw is an advanced web server written in Java. It not only supportd HTTP 1.1 but also provides various other features like traditional file base resources, and CGI scripting. The main strength of the software lies in its resource based architecture on which it supports advance features like proxy caching, servlets and collaborative authoring. (ii) Vendor: The software is developed and supported by W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium) 9. W3C develops and implements standards for web development, web authoring and other internet related technologies. (iii) Marketing: The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) uses its monopolistic position in the market to market its products. The products are not only available online over the internet for free downloads, but these also feature in various web based magazines and news items. The purpose is to enhance awareness about the Jigsaw software for web server development. 2.2.2 Jasper Reports - Java Reporting (i) Functionality: The Jasper Reports is business intelligence software. It is a powerful reporting tool that has the ability to deliver rich contents. The contents can be delivered on screen, on printer and into PDF, HTML, XLS, CSV and XML files. Written in Java, this is a very helpful tool to manage business documents and their portability. (ii) Vendor: The vendor for the Jasper Reports software is Jasper Forge.org10 (iii) Marketing: Most of the marketing is done through internet using referral sites, and forums. The company has a website where the users can download the code. In addition, the code is also available at other sites like Source Forge.net which have relatively more traffic than the actual company's website. 2.3 Canary's Component Factory Framework Component based development is a software development technique where all phases of the development of software are carried out by using existing components and codes of software and interfacing them to develop an integrated product. Canary's Component Factory is a framework of such solutions. It takes into account the requirements of the end users and then attempts to develop a solution entirely developed using the existing components for design, modelling, development, testing and implementation stages of the system. "Component Factory encompasses a large variety of reusable software components, addressing the need of various business domains catering for different technology frameworks like CORBA, J2EE and .NET" (Canary, n.d.) 11. The framework that is adopted is similar to a fountain like structure as shown below: Using the above framework model, the company provides a number of services ranging from enterprise solutions, architectural services and migration services from one technology to other in a fast, reliable and efficient way. References 1. Privacy Rights Clearing House. (2006). Privacy and the Internet: Traveling in Cyberspace Safely. Retrieved February 17, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs18-cyb.htm 2. Webliminal.com. (2007). Legal Issues, Ethical Issues, Privacy, and Security. Retrieved February 16, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://www.webliminal.com/Lrn-web09.html 3. Grimm, R., Rossnagel, A. (2000) "Can P3P Help to Protect Privacy Worldwide" ACM Multimedia Workshop proceedings, p.157-160. 4. Neumann, G. P. (2003). Risks in Trusting Untrustworthiness. Communications of the ACM. Vol 46 No. 9. 5. Charlesworth, M., Sewry, D. (2002) "Ethical Issues in Enabling Information Technology". Proceedings of SAICIST. Rhodes University, p.163-171. 6. Jaccheri, L. and Torchiano, M. (n.d.). Classifying COTS Products. Department of Computer and Information Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Retrieved June 14, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://softeng.polito.it/torchiano/papers/ECSQ2002.pdf 7. Microsoft Corporation. (2007). Microsoft Details Pricing and Licensing for Visual Studio 2005 and Simplifies Microsoft Developer Network Subscriptions. Retrieved June 15, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/mar05/03-21VS2005PR.mspx 8. Corel. (n.d.). Paint Shop Pro Photo XI. Retrieved June 14, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://store.corel.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplaypartNumber=OL_PR11&srcid=&pculicenseid=&promocode=0&countryCode=US&storeId=10302&catalogId=10103&langId=-1 9. W3C. (n.d.). Jigsaw Features List. Retrieved June 13, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://www.w3.org/Jigsaw/features.html 10. Jasper Forge.org (n.d.). Jasper Reports Project Home. Retrieved June 12, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://jasperforge.org/sf/projects/jasperreports 11. Canary. (n.d.) Component Factory. Retrieved June 11, 2007 from the World Wide Web: http://www.ecanarys.com/componentbasedsolutions.htm Read More