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{"title":"E-commerce and security","authors":"W. Diffie","doi":"10.1145/324042.324047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/324042.324047","url":null,"abstract":"■ Commerce and security are inseparable. The reason for wanting to buy, sell, trade, and rent goods is that they are valuable, and valuable items, tangible or intangible, always need protection. ot only does commerce require security; it usually requires the best security. Until just over a century ago, merchant ships carried cannon to protect their cargos, and medieval towns often had fortified market squares. Today, the shops on Main Street are watched by video cameras; warehouses boast some of the strongest locks available; and the safes in most grocery stores are stronger than those used to store classified documents. Commercial security may be a constant, but the mechanisms of security change over time. The merchantman’s cannon have gone. Today, radios, aircraft, and the fact that oil-burning ships must come into port for fuel have made big-ship piracy a thing of the past. As new commercial environments develop, new security mechanisms appear to protect them, and inappropriate older ones dissappear. Mechanisms are rarely separable from objectives. The relationship between buyer and seller is not an entirely harmonious one; their aims are different, leading them as much to compete as to cooperate. Under the circumstances, providers of security arrangements are rarely neutral. It is therefore essential in considering the security of a novel commercial medium to take into account the interests of the various participants, and to analyze the impact of proposed security measures on all parties. This is all the more true because security is a word that, in the jargon of diplomacy, stands for legitimacy. It is hard to argue that an organization is not entitled to security, and someone who opposes an action taken in the name of security generally starts from the weaker position. What does security provide to the participants in a transaction? It guarantees to the seller that no one will be able to acquire the goods without paying the price the seller demands. The corresponding expectation on the part of the buyer is that the goods paid for will be delivered in a timely manner and will be as represented. Although this is rarely seen as a security issue and usually goes under the name of consumer protection, a broad analysis of security concerns must take into account the needs of the consumer. There may also be tangential concerns of both parties, particularly the privacy of the transaction and the anonymity or lack thereof of the participants.","PeriodicalId":270594,"journal":{"name":"ACM Stand.","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115836185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"XML: not a silver bullet, but a great pipe wrench","authors":"B. T. Usdin, Tony Graham","doi":"10.1145/324042.324049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/324042.324049","url":null,"abstract":"■ XML (Extensible Markup Language) provides both a standards-based way to identify the information that is of importance in a particular application, and the ability to process information tagged according to highly user-specific requirements with general-purpose software, such as editing tools, composition engines, and electronic browsers. The power of XML comes in part from principles that guide the design of good XML applications: separation of format and presentation information from document markup; consistent and clear text tagging; context-dependent processing; and hierarchical structures. But these alone do not explain the real power of XML, which lies in the ability to create tag sets and markup languages customized to the needs of the particular application. A custom XML tag set allows the user to identify all of the types of information that are needed for search and retrieval, formatting, and tracking. Any type of information your end users may want to find, or not find, can be identified, and expensive distinctions among types of information that are not important to you are not made. Note, however, these phrases from the preceding paragraph: “way to identify”; “ability to create”; and “can be identified.” XML provides a way to do these things, but does not do them. XML should be thought of as a useful tool, but not as a solution to any problem. here seems to be as much excitement about XML as there has been on any related technology since the Web went public. The hype surrounding XML has created such unreasonable expectations that there are already people trumpeting its failure, primarily because it hasn’t become instantly ubiquitous. XML is being hailed as the future of the Web, the replacement for HTML, the replacement for Java, and the technology that will create precise Web searching. XML will be easier to use than SGML, more powerful than HTML, and will enable secure electronic commerce. XML is the Internet’s Silver Bullet—such is the hype. XML will not leap tall buildings at a single bound, nor will it solve all of the problems of retrieval on the Web. XML will transform the Web in much the same way barbed wire transformed the American West. Barbed wire didn’t do anything. But using barbed wire, a lot of people did a lot of hard work and changed the culture from one of open ranges to one of farms and property rights. XML is an enabling technology; well designed XML can provide a valuable tool in the effort to provide more precise and more powerful searching on the Web. XML will replace HTML in those situations in which HTML is insufficient to meet a need. XML software is easier to build than SGML software and more appropriate for Web environments, but authoring documents in XML is unlikely to be any easier than authoring in SGML. The ease of authoring in both XML and SGML is dependent on how well the document structure meets the author’s needs and on how graceful the authoring application is. And interchange of information in ","PeriodicalId":270594,"journal":{"name":"ACM Stand.","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128525218","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"E-commerce: a market analysis and prognostication","authors":"Sherrie Bolin","doi":"10.1145/324042.324044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/324042.324044","url":null,"abstract":"■ Foreword by Carl Cargill: This article examines the market potential for e-commerce from an analyst’s point of view. I asked Sherrie Bolin for a copy of a report that she had provided to clients for their use in market analysis and market potential sizing. I have made some changes to the format of that report, to ensure that the identity of the clients for whom the report was prepared cannot easily be determined. The report fairly summarizes the potential for the e-commerce market; in light of recent advances it may understate the size and speed of that market. This is the kind of study that managers considering embarking on an e-commerce expansion or e-commerce activity use to begin their planning. The firms to which Sherrie Bolin provided this information have acted upon it, and have initiated/expanded e-commerce (Web-based) sites. It is this type of report that drives many in the industry to action. You will note that standards are never explicitly called out in the report—it is expected that they will be there, for security, for the Web, for presentation, for privacy. The point of commerce on the Web is to make money; standards to support such initiatives are part of the necessary infrastructure. In the absence of activity on the part of the consortia and Standards Developing Organizations to provide them, the market will put something in place because of the tremendous amounts of money involved. This is one of the most important lessons in this article— that the market will drive to success/completion, with or without active participation by technologists to structure it with standards. lectronic Data Interchange is a safe and secure means of exchanging standardized business forms electronically. Since the late 1970s, it has been used to automate the procurement process and reduce costs. Analysts estimate that businesses trade in excess of $150 billion over EDI and obtain savings of 5–10% (US Department of Commerce). However, because EDI is usually run over Value-Added Networks, the costs are high. For example, the cost to add one trading partner can exceed $50,000. While the value of EDI transactions are currently 14 times higher than business-tobusiness transactions over the Internet/ Web, a transition is occurring. The Gartner Group predicts that 80% of current EDI users will implement extranets by 2003. This transition will allow small businesses that traditionally conduct business via fax and phone to cost-effectively participate in the procurement process and become suppliers to larger companies. Companies such as WebEDI are already developing software that can turn EDI purchase forms into Web forms for smaller suppliers.","PeriodicalId":270594,"journal":{"name":"ACM Stand.","volume":"37 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133415335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The need for standards in multistate transaction taxes","authors":"Kaye Caldwell","doi":"10.1145/324042.324048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/324042.324048","url":null,"abstract":"■ The growth of global electronic commerce has highlighted the need for standards in the taxation of transactions as those taxes are applied to interstate commerce. Multistate standardization is necessary as a precursor to even beginning the discussion of international standardization. elecommunications taxes are perhaps the most glaring example of the desperate need to simplify tax systems. AT&T files more than 39,000 tax returns annually to states, cities, towns, schools, and even mosquito abatement districts. That’s a tax return filed every three minutes. Nor are those tax returns all alike. Each state, and sometimes each local jurisdiction, has different forms, registration requirements, filing deadlines, rules, and even different types of taxes. State transaction taxes (sales and use taxes) are even worse. Such taxes apply to nearly every purchase of tangible personal property made in the US, as well as many services. While most states have imposed some centralized structure on the tax collection process, there are still some in which tax reporting must be done in each local jurisdiction. This can mean three returns for a single sale (city, county, and state). Each state, and sometimes each local jurisdiction, has different laws on what is and is not taxable. In some states, some clothing is exempt—but the exemption turns on such issues as whether or not a pair of gloves are sports gloves, dress gloves, or a necessity for weather protection. Hay can be taxable or exempt, depending on whether it is fed to a cow or a horse. (The cow produces milk, while the horse is just used around the ranch—it doesn’t really produce anything.) What about ostrich meat—is that food consumed by humans? And what determines whether an edible product is non-taxable food or a taxable snack? The states, which have created this mess, readily admit that collection of the tax is much too hard for the states to do themselves—so they impose the collection obligation on the seller. And not on just the local seller, who after all might be able to learn all the laws of its own state, but also on the “remote” (out-","PeriodicalId":270594,"journal":{"name":"ACM Stand.","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121605635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Representing compatibility and standards: a case study of Web browsers","authors":"G. Succi, P. Predonzani, A. Valerio, T. Vernazza","doi":"10.1145/301688.301690","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/301688.301690","url":null,"abstract":"We present a notational system to represent compatibility relations for products, standards, and, when necessary, the converters implementing compatibility. The notation is graphical and objectoriented. We apply this notation to the domain of web browsers. We analyze the compliance of some of the most popular web browsers to standards and the compatibility of their bookmarks. From this analysis, different approaches to compatibility emerge, depending on the relevance of the products in the marketplace. ntroduction Compatibility plays a significant role in many markets: products are often no more than large systems made of smaller par t s that plug and fit into each other according t o some compatibility scheme. Companies have control over their own compatibil i ty schemes, and often also know the compatibility schemes of their competitors. Compatibility is a strong consideration for those looking to purchase products that interoperate wi th other products. Users are concerned with compatibility internally--when they assemble systems--and externally--when they communicate with other users who use similar products. The world telephony system is a good example of this concept. It allows communication between any two phones on the planet. In addition, it is an example of complex systems, i.e., systems made of several components and offering complex features that live with mixed values of compatibility and incompatibility. Software faces the same issues of compatibility as other kinds of products---camera systems, modular furniture, etc.--but software offers an extraordinary degree of freedom in the type and level of compatibility. In this paper, w e focus on web browsers, an application domain meant to provide interoperability between users. We analyze compatibility with standards and compatibility of bookmarks between browsers.","PeriodicalId":270594,"journal":{"name":"ACM Stand.","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116333288","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Standards and standardization on the eve of a new century","authors":"E. Zaninotto","doi":"10.1145/301688.301694","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/301688.301694","url":null,"abstract":"· This paper surveys some problems of standard sett ing and adoption in a highly f lex ib le economic society which demands new and di f ferent iated products (postfordist organization). In part icular , i t shows how adopting a nonhierarchical standard could cause problems w h e n making laroe s c a l e co-ordination la ter on. Unpredictabil i ty and path dependency are c lear ly the common features of technolooical adoption patterns. When the technolooy adopted is supported by the majority, i t i s difficult to change, which makes it crucial for f i rms and other decision makers to make the right choices in the ear ly phase of technolooical development. ost-fordism and standards Managers always need new buzzwords. They fill the market with them. Postfordism is one of the new words that may help us understand our changing environment. It tries to capture what is new in industrial societies as a consequence of the diffusion of information and communication technologies. It defines the new (post-) contrasts it with the old (fordism): Flexibility versus rigidity; adaptive and evolutionary versus planned and fixed relations with the environment; variety and differentiation versus standardization and homogeneity. Two main forces are at work in creating a post-fordist organization. The first, driven by demand, is a new attitude toward variety and differentiation. A higher disposable income and new cultural attitudes that stress individual behavior increase the value consumers place on variety. The second comes from the corporate side in the form of new technologies, especially applications of information and communication technologies to production processes, which have dramatically lowered the cost of producing varieties of products. Multipurpose workstations, industrial robots, and numerically controlled machines reduced setup costs; automated materials-handling systems and local area networks reduced the cost of co-ordinating complex materials flows, and so on. While previously, operations needed simpler production flows and required working with nonchangeable systems, it is now possible to cope with more complex and variable flows. Is it possible to separate post-fordism from standardization? Stated differently, is a post-fordist society a place in which there is no room for homogeneity, fixed norms, variety, and variability reduction? The author feels that post-fordism needs standardization, but one different than in the past. Standardization in a post-fordist society can be seen by contrasting it with that in a fordist society:","PeriodicalId":270594,"journal":{"name":"ACM Stand.","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127761519","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The business benefit of standards","authors":"G. Bird","doi":"10.1145/301688.301691","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/301688.301691","url":null,"abstract":"· An interesting chal lenge is currently in vogue : \" Is there a business benef i t to standards?\" First, a resounding a n s w e r to the question: Yes! Then a n assertion: \"for most people and organizations in the va lue chain, the business benef i t of open standards is , and remains , l a t e n t . \" Turning the benef i t from latent to rea l i s up to you. I f you don't do that, i t i s like m collecting only part of your company's outstanding invo ices . Now for the quest ions: Who benef i ts? How do they benefit? Why is there s o much skeptic ism about standards? Where does it a l l go wrong? What should w e do to really gain business benefit from standards? The purpose of this ar t ic le i s to offer convincing, and possibly compel l ing, answers to these questions. irst the standard definition. All standards articles, good or bad, seem to require an opening definition in order to begin. I join in the craze only because it is necessary (which is probably why all of the other articles do the same). The reason that it is needed is simple: public perceptions and available definitions are so widely varying that both international standards AND proprietary interfaces, along with every possible variant in between, are believed to be \"standards.\" As an aside, we should ask ourselves who is to blame for this appalling state of affairs? We--the entire information technology industry--are. We allow the label \"standard'' to be applied, often blatantly misapplied, to any product, without question or challenge. (While it is easy--and appealing--to blame \"marketing\" for this, it is just as true of the technical side of the house.) We will continue to confuse buyers of our products and services---or even our concepts--as long as we allow it to continue. Let's get a grip on the problem and make a strong start. I offer the following (and oft cited) definition.","PeriodicalId":270594,"journal":{"name":"ACM Stand.","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126586748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Standards and innovation in technological dynamics","authors":"D. Foray","doi":"10.1145/301688.301692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/301688.301692","url":null,"abstract":"· I f the wor ld of industry h a d only one s ingle system, wi th one s e t of standards, d imensions, ru les , and techniques, i t w o u l d be eas ie r , cheaper , and faster to handle the progress of any project. However, if that w e r e the case, any shortcoming in this system would h i n d e r the progress of projects made in response to the evolving wor ld of industry. In short, var ie ty i s not only the spice of l ife but also the immunity that any system, not only industrial, should have to ensure survival. But var ie ty i s e x p e n s i v e to maintain and track. I s there a trade-off? Definitely. What is the trade-off that w i l l guarantee maximal performance both spatially and temporal ly? e know that standardization--i.e., unification, simplification and consistency of technique--always accompanies the installation of a new technical system. It was tree during the start of the \"American system of manufacture,\" which was based on the design of standardized machines; it was true during the installation of the modern technical system based on the availability of electricity; and, it is still true today with the intense standardization that accompanies the production and diffusion of new information technologies. Powerful standardization almost certainly represents a change of technological system. It is interesting to reflect on this paradox, generated today by coincidence between the increasingly standardized nature of production, exchange, and consumption and the advent of an economy within which innovation, learning, and change are becoming predominant. How to explain this concomitance between two apparently contradictory logics: that of freedom, creativity, and dynamics related to innovation and that of stability, order, and routine associated with standardization? In this paper, w e will explain first of all that the coincidence of standardization and innovation is not at all paradoxical. In fact, fast-changing economies have a greater need for standards and norms. We will then very quickly develop the concept of \"fast change,\" to explain the new economic mode, and finally, describe some components of the complementarity of standardization and innovation.","PeriodicalId":270594,"journal":{"name":"ACM Stand.","volume":"341 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122752206","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"User participation in standards setting—the panacea?","authors":"K. Jakobs, R. Procter, Robin Williams","doi":"10.1145/301688.301693","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/301688.301693","url":null,"abstract":"· Voluntary standardization bodies regularly issue calls for increased user part icipation in their w o r k groups. This paper challenges such calls. It suggests that users are not normal ly in a position to provide meaningful requirements for a new IT service from the outset because of a lack of necessary experience. Second, the paper argues that such a n uncondit ional 'ca l l for users,' even i f i t w e r e answered , would probably be counterproductive, in that a s imple increase of the number of users on the committees would not necessarily increase the number of user representa t ives , but of c o m p a n y de legates . This i s explained by drawing upon evidence from innovation theory and survey results compi led through a number of interviews wi th representatives of both large companies and standards-sett ing organizat ions. The case of electronic mai l i s used to illustrate the arguments. tandardization processes adopted by the 'official' bodies (e.g., ITU and ISO) are facing an increasing amount of criticism. Typically, these bodies are reproached with operating far too slowly, and thus with not being able to cope with the pace of technological progress, especially in the field of information technology. As a consequence, a large number of more informally operating industry consortia and fora have been established in recent years, and are about to take on some of the tasks that used to be within the domain of the official bodies. Having seen the writing on the wall, and in an attempt to recover some of the lost ground, the official standardization bodies are trying to improve their standing, for instance by streamlining their procedures, by opening up the process to specifications generated by some external entity (e.g., a company or a consortium), and by establishing liaisons with other specification-producing organizations. In particular, they have regularly been issuing calls for increased user participation. In most cases this was an unconditional call, motivated by the perceived high risk of a standard's failure in the open market if no users were involved in its development. This perception is pretty much fn line with the commonly held belief, frequently echoed by standards theorists, that increased user .participation is the panacea to many problems ITU and ISO are facing. Yet, in the light of the results of a recently conducted survey and drawing upon lessons that can be learned from the literature on technical innovations, this claim appears to be in need of critical review. Regarding the former, we will link the corporate 'introduction strategy' typically to be observed in the cases of e-mail (as a sample high-level communication service) to users' inability to contribute to standardization from the outset. Regarding the latter we argue that user participation at all costs does not achieve very much; in fact, it may be counterproductive due to the environment-specific requirements that each single user is likely to contribu","PeriodicalId":270594,"journal":{"name":"ACM Stand.","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127709946","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Objects in healthcare—focus on standards","authors":"V. Jagannathan, Kent Wreder, R. Glicksman, Yasser al Safadi","doi":"10.1145/293376.293392","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/293376.293392","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":270594,"journal":{"name":"ACM Stand.","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1998-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129701769","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}