Abstract
Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is booming with the increasing accessibility of the Internet. E-commerce is revolutionizing the concept of carrying out business functions. By using a Web browser, buyers are able to access numerous e-commerce Web sites, where they can make purchases within a reasonable price range. Suppliers realize that e-commerce is essential to the success and competitiveness of their businesses. The benefits of conducting business online include reduction of the cost for many transactions and streamlining of operations. However, there are also some obstacles to the success of e-commerce. Firstly, buyers may be lost in the ocean of the items available. Secondly, it is a tedious task to search for a specific product through the Internet and it is difficult to bargain within the current infrastructure. Thirdly, some transactions are so complicated that they are too difficult to be dealt with. For instance, merchants often negotiate transactions with multiple issues of concern such as price, quantity, and method of delivery. Many strategies are adopted to accomplish these tasks, and both the negotiating counterparts and the environment can affect the choice of the strategies. However, in many existing auction Web sites, price is the main focus for both bidders and sellers. Bidders and sellers are seldom given a chance to negotiate the other issues, and many commercial opportunities are neglected. This chapter discusses SAFER for e-commerce (secure agent fabrication, evolution & roaming for e-commerce), which uses secure agents to alleviate problems in e-commerce
Key Terms in this Chapter
E-Commerce: The act of conducting business transactions over networks and through computers.
Authentication: The process of ensuring that an individual is one who he or she claims to be.
Anonymity: The degree to which a software system or component allows for or supports anonymous transactions.
Security: The effort to create a secure computing platform, designed so that agents (users or programs) can only perform actions that have been allowed.
Client: In this work, it refers to customers who pay for good and services.
Integrity: Regarding the protection of data or program code from being modified by unauthorized parties.
Digital Certificate: A certificate that uses a digital signature to bind together a public key with an identity—information such as the name of a person or an organization, the address, and so forth. The certificate can be used to verify an agent’s identity, for example.
Agents: A piece of software, which acts to accomplish tasks on behalf of its user.