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                                                XXX  .  V  Electronic business 



Online Business or e-business is a term which can be used for any kind of business or commercial transaction that includes sharing information across the internet. Commerce constitutes the exchange of products and services between businesses, groups and individuals and can be seen as one of the essential activities of any business. Electronic commerce focuses on the use of ICT to enable the external activities and relationships of the business with individuals, groups and other businesses or e business refers to business with help of internet i.e. doing business with the help of internet network. The term "e-business" was coined by IBM's marketing and Internet team in 1996 .

In 1994, IBM, with its agency Ogilvy & Mather, began to use its foundation in IT solutions and expertise to market itself as a leader of conducting business on the Internet through the term "e-business." Then CEO Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. was prepared to invest $1 billion to market this new brand.
After conducting worldwide market research in October 1997, IBM began with an eight-page piece in the Wall Street Journal that would introduce the concept of "e-business" and advertise IBM's expertise in the new field. IBM decided not to trademark the term "e-business" in the hopes that other companies would use the term and create an entire new industry. However, this proved to be too successful and by 2000, to differentiate itself, IBM launched a $300 million campaign about its "e-business infrastructure" capabilities. Since that time, the terms, "e-business" and "e-commerce" have been loosely interchangeable and have become a part of the common vernacular .

Business model

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When organizations go online, they have to decide which e-business models best suit their goals. A business model is defined as the organization of product, service and information flows, and the source of revenues and benefits for suppliers and customers. The concept of e-business model is the same but used in the online presence.

Revenue model

A key component of the business model is the revenue model, which is a framework for generating revenues. It identifies which revenue source to pursue, what value to offer, how to price the value, and who pays for the value. It is a key component of a company's business model. It primarily identifies what product or service will be created in order to generate revenues and the ways in which the product or service will be sold.
Without a well defined revenue model, that is, a clear plan of how to generate revenues, new businesses will more likely struggle due to costs which they will not be able to sustain. By having a clear revenue model, a business can focus on a target audience, fund development plans for a product or service, establish marketing plans, begin a line of credit and raise capital.

E-commerce

E-commerce (short for "electronic commerce") is trading in products or services using computer networks, such as the Internet. Electronic commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, Internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web for at least one part of the transaction's life cycle, although it may also use other technologies such as e-mail.

Concerns

While much has been written of the economic advantages of Internet-enabled commerce, there is also evidence that some aspects of the internet such as maps and location-aware services may serve to reinforce economic inequality and the digital divide. Electronic commerce may be responsible for consolidation and the decline of mom-and-pop, brick and mortar businesses resulting in increases in income inequality.[9][10][11] Author Andrew Keen, a long-time critic of the social transformations caused by the Internet, has recently focused on the economic effects of consolidation from Internet businesses. Keen cites a 2013 Institute for Local Self-Reliance report saying brick-and-mortar retailers employ 47 people for every $10 million in sales, while Amazon employs only 14. Similarly, the 700-employee room rental start-up Airbnb was valued at $10 billion in 2014, about half as much as Hilton Hotels, which employs 152,000 people. And car-sharing Internet startup Uber employs 1,000 full-time employees and is valued at $18.2 billion, about the same valuation as Avis and Hertz combined, which together employ almost 60,000 people.

Security

E-business systems naturally have greater security risks than traditional business systems, therefore it is important for e-business systems to be fully protected against these risks. A far greater number of people have access to e-businesses through the internet than would have access to a traditional business. Customers, suppliers, employees, and numerous other people use any particular e-business system daily and expect their confidential information to stay secure. Hackers are one of the great threats to the security of e-businesses. Some common security concerns for e-Businesses include keeping business and customer information private and confidential, authenticity of data, and data integrity. Some of the methods of protecting e-business security and keeping information secure include physical security measures as well as data storage, data transmission, anti-virus software, firewalls, and encryption to list a few.

Privacy and confidentiality

Confidentiality is the extent to which businesses makes personal information available to other businesses and individuals. With any business, confidential information must remain secure and only be accessible to the intended recipient. However, this becomes even more difficult when dealing with e-businesses specifically. To keep such information secure means protecting any electronic records and files from unauthorized access, as well as ensuring safe transmission and data storage of such information. Tools such as encryption and firewalls manage this specific concern within e-business.

Authenticity

E-business transactions pose greater challenges for establishing authenticity due to the ease with which electronic information may be altered and copied. Both parties in an e-business transaction want to have the assurance that the other party is who they claim to be, especially when a customer places an order and then submits a payment electronically. One common way to ensure this is to limit access to a network or trusted parties by using a virtual private network (VPN) technology. The establishment of authenticity is even greater when a combination of techniques are used, and such techniques involve checking "something you know" (i.e. password or PIN), "something you need" (i.e. credit card), or "something you are" (i.e. digital signatures or voice recognition methods). Many times in e-business, however, "something you are" is pretty strongly verified by checking the purchaser's "something you have" (i.e. credit card) and "something you know" (i.e. card number).

Data integrity

Data integrity answers the question "Can the information be changed or corrupted in any way?" This leads to the assurance that the message received is identical to the message sent. A business needs to be confident that data is not changed in transit, whether deliberately or by accident. To help with data integrity, firewalls protect stored data against unauthorized access, while simply backing up data allows recovery should the data or equipment be damaged.

Non-repudiation

This concern deals with the existence of proof in a transaction. A business must have assurance that the receiving party or purchaser cannot deny that a transaction has occurred, and this means having sufficient evidence to prove the transaction. One way to address non-repudiation is using digital signatures. A digital signature not only ensures that a message or document has been electronically signed by the person, but since a digital signature can only be created by one person, it also ensures that this person cannot later deny that they provided their signature.

Access control

When certain electronic resources and information is limited to only a few authorized individuals, a business and its customers must have the assurance that no one else can access the systems or information. Fortunately, there are a variety of techniques to address this concern including firewalls, access privileges, user identification and authentication techniques (such as passwords and digital certificates), Virtual Private Networks (VPN), and much more.

Availability

This concern is specifically pertinent to a business' customers as certain information must be available when customers need it. Messages must be delivered in a reliable and timely fashion, and information must be stored and retrieved as required. Because availability of service is important for all e-business websites, steps must be taken to prevent disruption of service by events such as power outages and damage to physical infrastructure. Examples to address this include data backup, fire-suppression systems, Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) systems, virus protection, as well as making sure that there is sufficient capacity to handle the demands posed by heavy network traffic.[14]

Cost

The business internet which supports e-business has a cost to maintain of about $2 trillion in outsourced IT dollars just in the United States alone. With each website custom crafted and maintained in code, the maintenance burden is enormous. In the twenty-first century, look for new businesses that will help standardize the look and feel of the internet presence of a business to be more uniform in nature to help reduce the cost of maintenance. Expect maintenance by graphical software tools instead of directly by code as a key business proposition that will revolutionize the internet once again.

Security solutions

When it comes to security solutions, sustainable electronic business requires support for data integrity, strong authentication, and privacy. IT can be done by the legal Way of getting a Hacker for the company.Put him in the work can protect and preserve the confidentiality of data.

Access and data integrity

There are several different ways to prevent access to the data that is kept online. One way is to use anti-virus software. This is something that most people use to protect their networks regardless of the data they have. E-businesses should use this because they can then be sure that the information sent and received to their system is clean. A second way to protect the data is to use firewalls and network protection. A firewall is used to restrict access to private networks, as well as public networks that a company may use. The firewall also has the ability to log attempts into the network and provide warnings as it is happening. They are very beneficial to keep third-parties out of the network. Businesses that use Wi-Fi need to consider different forms of protection because these networks are easier for someone to access. They should look into protected access, virtual private networks, or internet protocol security. Another option they have is an intrusion detection system. This system alerts when there are possible intrusions. Some companies set up traps or "hot spots" to attract people and are then able to know when someone is trying to hack into that area.

Encryption

Encryption, which is actually a part of cryptography, involves transforming texts or messages into a code which is unreadable. These messages have to be decrypted in order to be understandable or usable for someone. There is a key that identifies the data to a certain person or company. With public key encryption, there are actually two keys used. One is public and one is private. The public one is used for encryption, and the private for decryption. The level of the actual encryption can be adjusted and should be based on the information. The key can be just a simple slide of letters or a completely random mix-up of letters. This is relatively easy to implement because there is software that a company can purchase. A company needs to be sure that their keys are registered with a certificate authority.

Digital certificates

The point of a digital certificate is to identify the owner of a document. This way the receiver knows that it is an authentic document. Companies can use these certificates in several different ways. They can be used as a replacement for user names and passwords. Each employee can be given these to access the documents that they need from wherever they are. These certificates also use encryption. They are a little more complicated than normal encryption however. They actually used important information within the code. They do this in order to assure authenticity of the documents as well as confidentiality and data integrity which always accompany encryption.[14] Digital certificates are not commonly used because they are confusing for people to implement. There can be complications when using different browsers, which means they need to use multiple certificates. The process is being adjusted so that it is easier to use.

Digital signatures

A final way to secure information online would be to use a digital signature. If a document has a digital signature on it, no one else is able to edit the information without being detected. That way if it is edited, it may be adjusted for reliability after the fact. In order to use a digital signature, one must use a combination of cryptography and a message digest. A message digest is used to give the document a unique value. That value is then encrypted with the sender's private key.




                                     XXX  . V0 Very Large Business Applications 

A Very Large Business Application (VLBA) is a Business Application, which can be implemented through different types of Business Application Systems as well as through System Landscapes. They support one or more processes of business application fields like accounting, human resources, logistic, distribution or marketing, in which at least one of those processes is a business process. According to that, a VLBA is directly successfully effective and has a strategic relevance through the support of possibly inter-company business processes.
An organization might not be able to fulfill its core businesses efficiently without the help of a VLBA. It is a strategic dependency of the constituted organization, which is given by an application of a VLBA. That is because changing or turning the system away is associated with big financial, organizational and personnel-related costs. Furthermore, VLBAs do not have any spatial, organizational, cultural or technical limits.
VLBAs are similar to a Business Information System in the manner that they can support several Business Application Fields and in this case, they are based on several types of Business Application Systems.
VLBAs are found in different fields within the different organizations regardless of their size. Systems of Enterprise-Resource-Planning (ERP), Supply-Chain-Management (SCM) and Customer-Relationship-Management (CRM) are examples of a VLBA. Within a Supply-Chain, small and middle organizations can participate in a VLBA.
Furthermore, VLBA indicates a field of research. The present-day heterogeneous and grown System Landscapes - like those usually discovered in business practice - suffer from the symptom of Spaghetti-Integration. Therefore, it seems to be practical to raise principles of the Software-Engineering to the level of the System Landscapes and to establish such a Design Theory in the sense of a System-Landscape-Engineering. However, some problems emerge through operating such landscapes, which are to be repaired through research and development. Those arise for example from the necessity of the automation, missing of a theoretical consolidation and from strategic decisions, which break off the technical limits of a VLBA so that they make the execution ability under constant requirements impossible. Target-Models originate from the solution of consisting problems. Equally, the technological limit takes on a wider meaning in a way that the following generations of the VLBAs move over into the focus. The dynamic character of the development of VLBAs is to be identified therein.


                                             XXX  . V00  Digital economy

Digital economy refers to an economy that is based on digital computing technologies. The digital economy is also sometimes called the Internet Economy, the New Economy, or Web Economy. Increasingly, the "digital economy" is intertwined with the traditional economy making a clear delineation harder.

Definition

The term 'Digital Economy' was coined in Don Tapscott's 1995 book The Digital Economy  : Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence. The Digital Economy was among the first books to consider how the Internet would change the way we did business.
According to Thomas Mesenbourg (2001), three main components of the 'Digital Economy' concept can be identified:
  • e-business infrastructure (hardware, software, telecoms, networks, human capital, etc.),
  • e-business (how business is conducted, any process that an organization conducts over computer-mediated networks),
  • e-commerce (transfer of goods, for example when a book is sold online).
But, as Bill Imlah comments, new applications are blurring these boundaries and adding complexity; for example, consider social media and Internet search.
In the last decade of the 20th century. Nicholas Negroponte (1995) used a metaphor of shifting from processing atoms to processing bits. "The problem is simple. When information is embodied in atoms, there is a need for all sorts of industrial-age means and huge corporations for delivery. But suddenly, when the focus shifts to bits, the traditional big guys are no longer needed. Do-it-yourself publishing on the Internet makes sense. It does not for a paper copy."
In this new economy, digital networking and communication infrastructures provide a global platform over which people and organizations devise strategies, interact, communicate, collaborate and search for information. More recently, Digital Economy has been defined as the branch of economics studying zero marginal cost intangible goods over the Net.

Impact

The Digital Economy is worth three trillion dollars today. This is about 30% of the S&P 500, six times the U.S.’ annual trade deficit or more than the GDP of the United Kingdom. What is impressive is the fact that this entire value has been generated in the past 20 years since the launch of the Internet.
It is widely accepted that the growth of the digital economy has widespread impact on the whole economy. Various attempts at categorizing the size of the impact on traditional sectors have been made.
The Boston Consulting Group discussed “four waves of change sweeping over consumer goods and retail”, for instance.
In 2012, Deloitte ranked six industry sectors as having a “short fuse” and to experience a "big bang” as a result of the digital economy.
Telstra, a leading Australian telecommunications provider, describes how competition will become more global and more intense as a result of the digital economy.

Response

Given its expected broad impact, traditional firms are actively assessing how to respond to the changes brought about by the digital economy. For corporations, the timing of their response is of the essence. Banks are trying to innovate and use digital tools to improve their traditional business. Governments are investing in infrastructure. In 2013, the Australian National Broadband Network, for instance, aimed to provide a 1 GB/sec download speed fiber-based broadband to 93% of the population over ten years . 



                                            XXX  .  V000  Industry 4.0 

Industry 4.0 is a name for the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies. It includes cyber-physical systems, the Internet of things, cloud computing[1][2][3][4] and cognitive computing.
Industry 4.0 creates what has been called a "smart factory". Within the modular structured smart factories, cyber-physical systems monitor physical processes, create a virtual copy of the physical world and make decentralized decisions. Over the Internet of Things, cyber-physical systems communicate and cooperate with each other and with humans in real time, and via the Internet of Services, both internal and cross-organizational services are offered and used by participants of the value chain . 

 
Industrial revolutions and future view  
 

Name

The term "Industrie 4.0" originates from a project in the high-tech strategy of the German government, which promotes the computerization of manufacturing.
The term "Industrie 4.0" was revived in 2011 at the Hannover Fair. In October 2012 the Working Group on Industry 4.0 presented a set of Industry 4.0 implementation recommendations to the German federal government. The Industry 4.0 workgroup members are recognized as the founding fathers and driving force behind Industry 4.0.
Industry 4.0 Workgroups
Co-Chair Henning Kagermann and Siegfried Dais
WG 1 – The Smart Factory: Manfred Wittenstein
WG 2 – The Real Environment: Siegfried Russwurm
WG 3 – The Economic Environment: Stephan Fische
WG 4 – Human Beings and Work: Wolfgang Wahlster
WG 5 – The Technology Factor: Heinz Derenbach
Industry 4.0 Workgroup members
Reinhold Achatz, Heinrich Arnold, Klaus Träger, Johannes Helbig, Wolfram Jost, Peter Leibinger, Reinhard Floss, Volker Smid, Thomas Weber, Eberhard Veit, Christian Zeidler, Reiner Anderl, Thomas Bauernhansl, Michael Beigl, Manfred Brot, Werner Damm, Jürgen Gausemeier, Otthein Herzog, Fritz Klicke, Gunther Reinhart, Bernd Scholz-Reiter, Bernhard Diener, Rainer Platz, Gisela Lanza, Karsten Ortenberg, August Wilhelm Scheer, Henrik von Scheel, Dieter Schwer, Ingrid Sehrbrock, Dieter Spatz, Ursula M. Staudinger, Andreas Geerdeter, Wolf-Dieter Lukas, Ingo Rühmann, Alexander Kettenborn and Clemens Zielinka.
On 8 April 2013 at the Hannover Fair, the final report of the Working Group Industry 4.0 was presented.[8]

Design principles

There are four design principles in Industry 4.0. These principles support companies in identifying and implementing Industry 4.0 scenarios.[1]
  • Interoperability: The ability of machines, devices, sensors, and people to connect and communicate with each other via the Internet of Things (IoT) or the Internet of People (IoP)
    • Adding IoT will further automate the process to a large extent[9]
  • Information transparency: The ability of information systems to create a virtual copy of the physical world by enriching digital plant models with sensor data. This requires the aggregation of raw sensor data to higher-value context information.
  • Technical assistance: First, the ability of assistance systems to support humans by aggregating and visualizing information comprehensibly for making informed decisions and solving urgent problems on short notice. Second, the ability of cyber physical systems to physically support humans by conducting a range of tasks that are unpleasant, too exhausting, or unsafe for their human co-workers.
  • Decentralized decisions: The ability of cyber physical systems to make decisions on their own and to perform their tasks as autonomously as possible. Only in the case of exceptions, interferences, or conflicting goals, are tasks delegated to a higher level.

Meaning

Current usage of the term has been criticised as essentially meaningless, in particular on the grounds that technological innovation is continuous and the concept of a "revolution" in technology innovation is based on a lack of knowledge of the details.
The characteristics given for the German government's Industry 4.0 strategy are: the strong customization of products under the conditions of highly flexible (mass-) production. The required automation technology is improved by the introduction of methods of self-optimization, self-configuration, self-diagnosis, cognition and intelligent support of workers in their increasingly complex work. The largest project in Industry 4.0 as of July 2013 is the BMBF leading-edge cluster "Intelligent Technical Systems Ostwestfalen-Lippe (it's OWL)". Another major project is the BMBF project RES-COM,[13] as well as the Cluster of Excellence "Integrative Production Technology for High-Wage Countries".[14] In 2015, the European Commission started the international Horizon 2020 research project CREMA[15] (Providing Cloud-based Rapid Elastic Manufacturing based on the XaaS and Cloud model) as a major initiative to foster the Industry 4.0 topic.

Effects

In June 2013, consultancy firm McKinsey[16] released an interview featuring an expert discussion between executives at Robert Bosch - Siegfried Dais (Partner of the Robert Bosch Industrietreuhand KG) and Heinz Derenbach (CEO of Bosch Software Innovations GmbH) - and McKinsey experts. This interview addressed the prevalence of the Internet of Things in manufacturing and the consequent technology-driven changes which promise to trigger a new industrial revolution. At Bosch, and generally in Germany, this phenomenon is referred to as Industry 4.0. The basic principle of Industry 4.0 is that by connecting machines, work pieces and systems, businesses are creating intelligent networks along the entire value chain that can control each other autonomously.
Some examples for Industry 4.0 are machines which can predict failures and trigger maintenance processes autonomously or self-organized logistics which react to unexpected changes in production.
According to Dais, "it is highly likely that the world of production will become more and more networked until everything is interlinked with everything else". While this sounds like a fair assumption and the driving force behind the Internet of Things, it also means that the complexity of production and supplier networks will grow enormously. Networks and processes have so far been limited to one factory. But in an Industry 4.0 scenario, these boundaries of individual factories will most likely no longer exist. Instead, they will be lifted in order to interconnect multiple factories or even geographical regions.
There are differences between a typical traditional factory and an Industry 4.0 factory. In the current industry environment, providing high-end quality service or product with the least cost is the key to success and industrial factories are trying to achieve as much performance as possible to increase their profit as well as their reputation. In this way, various data sources are available to provide worthwhile information about different aspects of the factory. In this stage, the utilization of data for understanding current operating conditions and detecting faults and failures is an important topic to research. e.g. in production, there are various commercial tools available to provide overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) information to factory management in order to highlight the root causes of problems and possible faults in the system. In contrast, in an Industry 4.0 factory, in addition to condition monitoring and fault diagnosis, components and systems are able to gain self-awareness and self-predictiveness, which will provide management with more insight on the status of the factory. Furthermore, peer-to-peer comparison and fusion of health information from various components provides a precise health prediction in component and system levels and force factory management to trigger required maintenance at the best possible time to reach just-in-time maintenance and gain near-zero downtime.

Challenges

Challenges in implementation of Industry 4.0
  • IT security issues, which are greatly aggravated by the inherent need to open up those previously closed production shops
  • Reliability and stability needed for critical machine-to-machine communication (M2M), including very short and stable latency times
  • Need to maintain the integrity of production processes
  • Need to avoid any IT snags, as those would cause expensive production outages
  • Need to protect industrial know how (contained also in the control files for the industrial automation gear)
  • Lack of adequate skill-sets to expedite the march towards fourth industrial revolution
  • Threat of redundancy of the corporate IT department
  • General reluctance to change by stakeholders
  • Loss of many jobs to automatic processes and IT-controlled processes, especially for lower educated parts of society
  • Low top management commitment
  • Unclear legal issues and data security
  • Unclear economic benefits/ Excessive investment
  • Lack of regulation, standard and forms of certifications
  • Insufficient qualification of employees

Role of big data and analytics

Modern information and communication technologies like cyber-physical system, big data analytics and cloud computing, will help early detection of defects and production failures, thus enabling their prevention and increasing productivity, quality, and agility benefits that have significant competitive value.
Big data analytics consists of 6Cs in the integrated Industry 4.0 and cyber physical systems environment. The 6C system comprises:
  1. Connection (sensor and networks)
  2. Cloud (computing and data on demand)
  3. Cyber (model & memory)
  4. Content/context (meaning and correlation)
  5. Community (sharing & collaboration)
  6. Customization (personalization and value)
In this scenario and in order to provide useful insight to the factory management, data has to be processed with advanced tools (analytics and algorithms) to generate meaningful information. Considering the presence of visible and invisible issues in an industrial factory, the information generation algorithm has to be capable of detecting and addressing invisible issues such as machine degradation, component wear, etc. in the factory floor.

Impact of Industry 4.0

Proponents of the term claim Industry 4.0 will affect many areas, most notably:
  1. Services and business models
  2. Reliability and continuous productivity
  3. IT security: Companies like Symantec, Cisco, and Penta Security have already begun to address the issue of IoT security
  4. Machine safety
  5. Product lifecycles
  6. Industry value chain
  7. Workers' education and skills
  8. Socio-economic factors
  9. Industry Demonstration: To help industry understand the impact of Industry 4.0, Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley, signed a proclamation to state "Cincinnati to be Industry 4.0 Demonstration City".
  10. An article published in February 2016 suggests that Industry 4.0 may have a beneficial effects for emerging economies such as India.

Technology Roadmap for Industry 4.0

From both strategic and technological perspectives, the Industry 4.0 roadmap visualizes every further step on the route towards an entirely digital enterprise. In order to achieve success in the digital transformation process, it is necessary to prepare the technology roadmap in the most accurate way. In today’s business, Industry 4.0 is driven by digital transformation in vertical/horizontal value chains and product/service offerings of the companies. The required key technologies for Industry 4.0 transformation such as artificial intelligence, internet of things, machine learning, cloud systems, cybersecurity, adaptive robotics cause radical changes in the business processes of organizations




                                                         XXX  .  V0000  Cyber manufacturing 


Cybermanufacturing is a concept derived from cyber-physical systems (CPS). Basically, it refers to a modern manufacturing system that offers an information-transparent environment to facilitate asset management, provide reconfigurability, and maintain productivity. Compared with conventional experience-based management systems, cyber manufacturing provides an evidence-based environment to keep equipment users aware of networked asset status, and transfer raw data into possible risks and actionable information. Driving technologies include design of cyber-physical systems, combination of engineering domain knowledge and computer sciences, as well as information technologies. Among them, mobile applications for manufacturing is an area of specific interest to industries and academia .

Motivation

The idea of cyber manufacturing mainly stems from the fact that Internet-enabled services have released great business values in economic sectors such as retail, music, consumer products, transportation, and healthcare. However, compared to existing Internet-enabled sectors, manufacturing assets are less connected and less accessible in real-time. Besides, current manufacturing enterprises make decisions following a top-down approach: from overall equipment effectiveness to assignment of production requirements, without considering the condition of machines. This will usually lead to inconsistency in operation management due to lack of linkage between factories, possible overstock in spare part inventory, as well as unexpected machine downtime. Such situation calls for connectivity between machines as a foundation, and analytics on top of that as a necessity to translate raw data into information that actually facilitates user decision making. Expected functionalities of cybermanufacturing systems include machine connectivity and data acquisition, machine health prognostics, fleet-based asset management, and manufacturing reconfigurability.

Technology

CPS for Manufacturing.png
Several technologies are involved in developing cyber-manufacturing solutions. The following is a short description of these technologies and their involvement in cyber-manufacturing.
  • Cyber-physical system is the foundation of cyber-manufacturing. Tools and methods within CPS enables possibility of reaching cyber-manufacturing goals. For example, the recently proposed “5C”[2] architecture for implementing cyber-physical systems in manufacturing, utilizes cyber-twins to overcome geographical boundaries of local models and enable a comprehensive fleet-based monitoring and prognostics of the manufacturing enterprise.
  • Big Data Analytics is the other significant technology participating in design and development of cyber-manufacturing systems. Connected machines in every industry raise the issue of proper data handling and processing and cyber-manufacturing is not an exemption. Customized developments in cloud computing, artificial intelligence and predictive analytics are applicable in cyber-manufacturing.

Development

In 2013 the Office of Naval Research in the US Military has issued a proposal solicitation subjected for cyber-manufacturing.[3] Later in 2015, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a research project for developing cyber-manufacturing system to the Center for Intelligent Maintenance Systems (IMS) at the University of Cincinnati



                                       XXX  .  V00000  OFFICE TECHNOLOGY 

Changing technologiesincluding personal computers (PCs), slide projectors, movie projectors, overhead projectors, television monitors, videocassettes, videodisc players, multimedia systems, and the Internethave had a major impact on the office environment since the start of the twentieth century. The ability to use technology is an essential skill in the ever changing workforce of the twenty-first century.
The modern office has changed dramatically since the 1990s. Offices in today's society are transmitting information via electronic mail (e-mail), electronic calendars, and teleconferencing, as well as other electronic devices. Communication via technology is just as important as oral and written communication in the work environment. Technology continues to play a vital role in transforming the business environment.
Advances in technology have transformed the world of work. As the work environment has changed, individual workers see how their work connects not only to their particular work place, but to the entire value chain.
The backbone of technology is the local area network (LAN), a single-site computer network, or the wide area network (WAN), which supports worldwide work groups. Both of these networks provide tools for users to transmit data, graphics, mail, and voice across the network. LANs and WANs enable distributed work teams to complete projects using groupware and decision support systems.
 
 
super-highway of the twenty-first century world of work, faster information systems, blink-of-an-eye access to the global marketplace, virtual offices, virtual teams, and virtual organizations are coming into existence. The impetus is technology. The technology explosion has transformed every level of business environmentfrom the typical office worker to the chief executive officer (CEO), providing a challenge for all. Technology is creating whole new genres of content. Office technology focuses upon office information functions such as word processing, data processing, graphics, desktop publishing, and communication.

OFFICE SYSTEMS

The invention of the PC in the 1980s altered the way computing power was distributed within an organizationchanging how companies were run, the ways in which information was created, and the ways in which information was used by individuals in carrying out their jobs. The use of word processing and spreadsheet packages made it possible for professional staffs to create their own reports without having to go to a central typing pool or computer center. Prior to the advent of the PC, secretaries typed letters, created reports, and organized information in files. The nature of secretarial positions changed with the arrival of the PC, from a focus on document creation and production to a focus on other kinds of administrative functions, as reflected in the changing work patterns of the office.
Office systems consist of tasks to be performed, procedures to complete the tasks, sets of automated technologies designed to enhance productivity, and personnel working within the framework of a business organizational structure. Office systems exist in facilitating and retaining communications, and creating, processing, and distributing information. Integrated hardware components and integrated software applications enhance the productivity and efficiency of the overall organization to the success of the business.

TYPES OF TECHNOLOGIES

The variety of technologies available continues to change. Some of the technologies used in today's offices are:

Intranets and Internets

Messages can be transmitted electronically within an office (intranet) as well as around the universe (Internet, or Net). Workers are able to exchange information over the computer via the Net through e-mail. E-mails can be sent simultaneously to many individuals around the world.
The intranet is an internal computer network that is used within a company, whereby pertinent informationsuch as telephone directories, calendars of events, procedure manuals, job postings, and human resources informationcan be posted and updated. With the intranet, one is able to communicate online with individuals within a designated work environment.The Internet is a global computer network that permits millions of computers around the world to communicate via telephone systems and other communication lines. It is also known as the digital information super-highway and is a part of the World Wide Web. With the Internet one can communicate to anyone online throughout the world. The Internet is a public worldwide computer network full of information comprising inter-connected networks that span the globe.

Web Pages

Web pages make it possible for businesses, organizations, and anyone who wishes to post information or sell products to do so on the World Wide Web. Web page programssuch as Macromedia, Dream-weaver, and Site Rackenable users to create their own Web pages.

Web-Based E-Mail

Web mail is a popular Internet service that allows one to send messages and files to anyone around the world from any computer that is connected to the Internet. With an account, users can send and receive messages, images, and any other type of information. Users can access e-mail even if they do not have a computer, simply by using small, inexpensive devices that fit in the palm of one's hand.
E-mail is keyed messages sent from one computer screen to another, using a network linking the units. Transmitting messages from one computer to another offers office workers the ability to communicate quickly through written messages with colleagues, coworkers, and friends.

Voice Mail

Voice mail is an outgrowth of e-mail. Information is spoken into the phone. Words are converted or digitized into electronic computer language. This form of communication is transmitted electronically by phone lines for immediate delivery or can be stored in a computer mailbox. The recipient is able to retrieve the message by dialing a code number to access the mailbox. The computer reconverts the message to the caller's voice and the recipient is able to hear the voice message.

Electronic Calendars

Office tasks are being accomplished and redefined by computers. Computers can keep a calendar of appointments. The computer stores the files of employees' schedules, forthcoming meetings, calendars of events, and conferences, thereby enabling employees to check their central file. Everyone in a particular office has access to electronic calendars and is able to choose a time and place that is available and open on everyone's schedule. Each office employee can be tied into the system by having access to a central electronic file.

Office Suites

Office suites are a group of programs. In the mid-1990s the term office suite was considered to be a group of programs that allowed for word processing, spreadsheets, and sometimes data entry. Now office suite includes Web design software, presentation software, page layout design, and, in some instances, graphics editors. They are key pieces of productivity software, used in most businesses.

Portable PCs

Portable PCs include personal digital assistants (PDAs), laptop computers, and notebook computers. PDAs are proliferating. Among the most popular PDAs are the Palm and BlackBerry. Laptop computers are used by business travelers to make multimedia presentations, create and send reports and spreadsheets, and do research on the Internet. Notebook computers are similar to laptops, but usually smaller.

Groupware and Decision Support Systems

Groupware is a work group software, such as Lotus Notes. It enables members of a team to share information on a project that they are working on together. Some of the functions of groupware are document formatting, information management, and communication. The group is kept informed via an electronic calendar. It runs an e-mail network that links the work group with remote operations. It also includes an information system that handles all data relevant to the business and provides instant accessibility throughout the organization. Decision support systems facilitate group decisions by providing a formalized process for brainstorming, distilling key concepts, prioritizing or ranking topics, and achieving group consensus.

Teleconferencing

In the business world, many companies hold meetings via teleconferences. Teleconferencing is a method of conducting meetings via telephone lines and/or satellites connecting participants' terminals at two or more locations, with one or more participants per location. There are three types of teleconferences:
  1. Computer conferencing Terminals that are connected to a mainframe computer are used by all the participants. Comments or questions can be keyed in on their screens, which are arranged on an inter-connected network. Messages are displayed on the participants' screens.
  2. Audio conferencing Participants make comments over the phone. They cannot see each other, and they are not able to read body language. Audio conferences are connected by telephone and/or speaker-phone.
  3. Videoconferencing A CEO in Los Angeles could have a sales conference or interview with a person in Washington, D.C. Both individuals are shown simultaneously or alternately on the screen. The advantage of videoconferencing over audio conferencing is that individuals can see as well as hear each other.

Voice Recognition and Videoconferencing

With the advent of voice recognition, a day may come when human translators are no longer needed. The future of videoconferencing is not only multilingual, but 100 percent real-timewith no delays. Voice recognition software allows humans to talk to a computer. Computers understand the voice. It is an electronic process in which information is printed from voice input, thereby bypassing the keyboarding operations.
At one time, videoconferencing used large, expensive pieces of equipment that provided "room"-based video-conferencing. Participants gathered at a central site in a specially equipped conference room, looking at monitors displaying similar rooms at remote sites.
Computer-based videoconferencing is a new paradigm for videoconferencing. Participants sit at their desk or in a videoconferencing room calling up other participantssimilar to making a telephone call. It is a form of communication that uses bandwidth. Bandwidth is interpreted as the speed at which information flows, and communication is the transfer of information from one place to another. The connection between these two remote sites is called communication channels.

Multimedia System

A multimedia system presents information by using a combination of sound, graphics, animation, and video. Multimedia applications are used for business and education. Marketing presentations are developed to advertise and sell products using multimedia. Sales representatives use a computer, a video projector, and a display screen to make their presentations to the audience. Interactive advertisements as well as job applications and training applications can be published on the Internet or in a kiosk display.

Electronic Whiteboard

An interactive "smart" white-board with "electronic ink" and touch-sensitive screen can be hooked up to a computer and a projector. The board magnifies images clearly and colorfully. The board has annotation capabilities and notes can be jotted down directly over the projected images, then printed instantly. Thus, there is no need for individuals to take any notes.
The advantage that a whiteboard offers over a simple projection system is that it can be used as a projection screen and a writing surface through its connection with the PC, from which images can be printed out. A white-board allows trainers and instructors to operate the computer as if they were using a mouse, moving the cursor around on the computer just by touching a point on the whiteboard. A projector is mounted on the ceiling. The screen should be centered so that all participants have a clear view of the screen.

Smart Board

A smart board is a tool that improves the way people meet, share ideas, and teach. It looks and feels like a regular whiteboard combined with the power of the computer. It lets users save and print notes, collaborate on documents, share information, and run multimedia materialsvideo or data conferencing across distances. The smart board becomes a large, touch-sensitive screen when combined with a liquid crystal display panel or projector. It can control Windows or Macintosh applications or multimedia by touching the board with one's finger. By picking up a pen, presenters can draw over their applications in electronic ink to obtain the attention of the audience. Users can e-mail notes to participants and even cut and paste them into other applications.

RECORDS MANAGEMENT

The processing capabilities and storage capacity of computers have made electronic storage and retrieval of information a common practice in business. Computer-generated document management, records management software, and imaging systems assist businesses with large volumes of records. Imaging systems convert all types of documents to digitized electronic data that can be stored and retrieved quickly. With the advent of super high-density magnetic storage and online storage, this will be much less of an issue in the future.
A scanner is used in converting paper documents into a digitized form. A processor compresses the image. A retrieval mechanism converts the image for viewing on a monitor, and output devices process the image to a hardcopy format. Laser optical disks are suited for high-volume record management because of their high capacity and durability.

COMMUNICATION IN ORGANIZATIONS

In the business world, technology links employees working in teams; employees are expected to be competent in various software applications and be able to make decisions and multitask. The impetus of newer office technology has transformed the way businesses function in the worldwide marketplace.
In the past, workers acquired a set of skills that became their tools of the trade. Since the mid-1970s, workplace technology has changed swiftly; new technologies have been introduced and replaced. Computer applications are updated continuously. In the twenty-first century, people who work in offices need to be well versed on the use and application of the many emerging technologies. Workers need to adapt to this ever-changing technology. In an increasingly technological world, the expansion of American workers' skills depends upon commitments from the workers themselves, industries, workplaces, and educational and training institutions.
All of these office technologies facilitate communication among people in organizations. All businesses need workers who possess critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills, interpersonal skills, and the ability to communicate effectivelywhether in writing or orally. Appropriate choices of communication lead to increased productivity and positive social effects. Workers need to be technologically literate in order to compete in a world that continues to change faster than one can imagine.


                                            XXX  .  V000000  Data integrity 

Data integrity is the maintenance of, and the assurance of the accuracy and consistency of, data over its entire life-cycle, and is a critical aspect to the design, implementation and usage of any system which stores, processes, or retrieves data. The term is broad in scope and may have widely different meanings depending on the specific context – even under the same general umbrella of computing. It is at times used as a proxy term for data quality,while data validation is a pre-requisite for data integrity. Data integrity is the opposite of data corruption. The overall intent of any data integrity technique is the same: ensure data is recorded exactly as intended (such as a database correctly rejecting mutually exclusive possibilities,) and upon later retrieval, ensure the data is the same as it was when it was originally recorded. In short, data integrity aims to prevent unintentional changes to information. Data integrity is not to be confused with data security, the discipline of protecting data from unauthorized parties.
Any unintended changes to data as the result of a storage, retrieval or processing operation, including malicious intent, unexpected hardware failure, and human error, is failure of data integrity. If the changes are the result of unauthorized access, it may also be a failure of data security. Depending on the data involved this could manifest itself as benign as a single pixel in an image appearing a different color than was originally recorded, to the loss of vacation pictures or a business-critical database, to even catastrophic loss of human life in a life-critical system

Integrity types

Physical integrity

Physical integrity deals with challenges associated with correctly storing and fetching the data itself. Challenges with physical integrity may include electromechanical faults, design flaws, material fatigue, corrosion, power outages, natural disasters, acts of war and terrorism, and other special environmental hazards such as ionizing radiation, extreme temperatures, pressures and g-forces. Ensuring physical integrity includes methods such as redundant hardware, an uninterruptible power supply, certain types of RAID arrays, radiation hardened chips, error-correcting memory, use of a clustered file system, using file systems that employ block level checksums such as ZFS, storage arrays that compute parity calculations such as exclusive or or use a cryptographic hash function and even having a watchdog timer on critical subsystems.
Physical integrity often makes extensive use of error detecting algorithms known as error-correcting codes. Human-induced data integrity errors are often detected through the use of simpler checks and algorithms, such as the Damm algorithm or Luhn algorithm. These are used to maintain data integrity after manual transcription from one computer system to another by a human intermediary (e.g. credit card or bank routing numbers). Computer-induced transcription errors can be detected through hash functions.
In production systems, these techniques are used together to ensure various degrees of data integrity. For example, a computer file system may be configured on a fault-tolerant RAID array, but might not provide block-level checksums to detect and prevent silent data corruption. As another example, a database management system might be compliant with the ACID properties, but the RAID controller or hard disk drive's internal write cache might not be.

Logical integrity

This type of integrity is concerned with the correctness or rationality of a piece of data, given a particular context. This includes topics such as referential integrity and entity integrity in a relational database or correctly ignoring impossible sensor data in robotic systems. These concerns involve ensuring that the data "makes sense" given its environment. Challenges include software bugs, design flaws, and human errors. Common methods of ensuring logical integrity include things such as a check constraints, foreign key constraints, program assertions, and other run-time sanity checks.
Both physical and logical integrity often share many common challenges such as human errors and design flaws, and both must appropriately deal with concurrent requests to record and retrieve data, the latter of which is entirely a subject on its own.

Databases

Data integrity contains guidelines for data retention, specifying or guaranteeing the length of time data can be retained in a particular database. To achieve data integrity, these rules are consistently and routinely applied to all data entering the system, and any relaxation of enforcement could cause errors in the data. Implementing checks on the data as close as possible to the source of input (such as human data entry), causes less erroneous data to enter the system. Strict enforcement of data integrity rules causes the error rates to be lower, resulting in time saved troubleshooting and tracing erroneous data and the errors it causes algorithms.
Data integrity also includes rules defining the relations a piece of data can have, to other pieces of data, such as a Customer record being allowed to link to purchased Products, but not to unrelated data such as Corporate Assets. Data integrity often includes checks and correction for invalid data, based on a fixed schema or a predefined set of rules. An example being textual data entered where a date-time value is required. Rules for data derivation are also applicable, specifying how a data value is derived based on algorithm, contributors and conditions. It also specifies the conditions on how the data value could be re-derived.

Types of integrity constraints

Data integrity is normally enforced in a database system by a series of integrity constraints or rules. Three types of integrity constraints are an inherent part of the relational data model: entity integrity, referential integrity and domain integrity:
  • Entity integrity concerns the concept of a primary key. Entity integrity is an integrity rule which states that every table must have a primary key and that the column or columns chosen to be the primary key should be unique and not null.
  • Referential integrity concerns the concept of a foreign key. The referential integrity rule states that any foreign-key value can only be in one of two states. The usual state of affairs is that the foreign-key value refers to a primary key value of some table in the database. Occasionally, and this will depend on the rules of the data owner, a foreign-key value can be null. In this case, we are explicitly saying that either there is no relationship between the objects represented in the database or that this relationship is unknown.
  • Domain integrity specifies that all columns in a relational database must be declared upon a defined domain. The primary unit of data in the relational data model is the data item. Such data items are said to be non-decomposable or atomic. A domain is a set of values of the same type. Domains are therefore pools of values from which actual values appearing in the columns of a table are drawn.
  • User-defined integrity refers to a set of rules specified by a user, which do not belong to the entity, domain and referential integrity categories.
If a database supports these features, it is the responsibility of the database to ensure data integrity as well as the consistency model for the data storage and retrieval. If a database does not support these features, it is the responsibility of the applications to ensure data integrity while the database supports the consistency model for the data storage and retrieval.
Having a single, well-controlled, and well-defined data-integrity system increases
  • stability (one centralized system performs all data integrity operations)
  • performance (all data integrity operations are performed in the same tier as the consistency model)
  • re-usability (all applications benefit from a single centralized data integrity system)
  • maintainability (one centralized system for all data integrity administration).
Modern databases support these features (see Comparison of relational database management systems), and it has become the de facto responsibility of the database to ensure data integrity. Companies, and indeed many database systems, offer products and services to migrate legacy systems to modern databases.

Examples

An example of a data-integrity mechanism is the parent-and-child relationship of related records. If a parent record owns one or more related child records all of the referential integrity processes are handled by the database itself, which automatically ensures the accuracy and integrity of the data so that no child record can exist without a parent (also called being orphaned) and that no parent loses their child records. It also ensures that no parent record can be deleted while the parent record owns any child records. All of this is handled at the database level and does not require coding integrity checks into each application.

File systems

Various research results show that neither widespread filesystems (including UFS, Ext, XFS, JFS and NTFS) nor hardware RAID solutions provide sufficient protection against data integrity problems.
Some filesystems (including Btrfs and ZFS) provide internal data and metadata checksumming, what is used for detecting silent data corruption and improving data integrity. If a corruption is detected that way and internal RAID mechanisms provided by those filesystems are also used, such filesystems can additionally reconstruct corrupted data in a transparent way. This approach allows improved data integrity protection covering the entire data paths, which is usually known as end-to-end data protection

Data storage

Apart from data in databases, standards exist to address the integrity of data on storage devices


Message authentication

   
In information security, message authentication or data origin authentication is a property that a message has not been modified while in transit (data integrity) and that the receiving party can verify the source of the message.[1] Message authentication does not necessarily include the property of non-repudiation.
Message authentication is typically achieved by using message authentication codes (MACs), authenticated encryption (AE) or digital signatures.
Some cryptographers distinguish between "message authentication without secrecy" systems -- which allow the intended receiver to verify the source of the message, but don't bother hiding the plaintext contents of the message -- from authenticated encryption systems. A few cryptographers have researched subliminal channel systems that send messages that appear to use a "message authentication without secrecy" system, but in fact also transmit a secret message.

Deniable authentication

   
In cryptography, deniable authentication refers to message authentication between a set of participants where the participants themselves can be confident in the authenticity of the messages, but it cannot be proved to a third party after the event.
In practice, deniable authentication between two parties can be achieved through the use of message authentication codes (MACs) by making sure that if an attacker is able to decrypt the messages, they would also know the MAC key as part of the protocol, and would thus be able to forge authentic-looking messages.  For example, in the Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) protocol, MAC keys are derived from the asymmetric decryption key through a cryptographic hash function. In addition to that, the OTR protocol also reveals used MAC keys as part of the next message, when they have already been used to previously received messages and will not be re-used . 


 

Deniable encryption

   
In cryptography and steganography, plausibly deniable encryption describes encryption techniques where the existence of an encrypted file or message is deniable in the sense that an adversary cannot prove that the plaintext data exists.
The users may convincingly deny that a given piece of data is encrypted, or that they are able to decrypt a given piece of encrypted data, or that some specific encrypted data exists. Such denials may or may not be genuine. For example, it may be impossible to prove that the data is encrypted without the cooperation of the users. If the data is encrypted, the users genuinely may not be able to decrypt it. Deniable encryption serves to undermine an attacker's confidence either that data is encrypted, or that the person in possession of it can decrypt it and provide the associated plaintext


Function

Deniable encryption makes it impossible to prove the existence of the plaintext message without the proper encryption key. This may be done by allowing an encrypted message to be decrypted to different sensible plaintexts, depending on the key used. This allows the sender to have plausible deniability if compelled to give up his or her encryption key. The notion of "deniable encryption" was used by Julian Assange and Ralf Weinmann in the Rubberhose filesystem and explored in detail in a paper by Ran Canetti, Cynthia Dwork, Moni Naor, and Rafail Ostrovsky in 1996.

Scenario

Deniable encryption allows the sender of an encrypted message to deny sending that message. This requires a trusted third party. A possible scenario works like this:
  1. Bob suspects his wife Alice is engaged in adultery. That being the case, Alice wants to communicate with her secret lover Carl. She creates two keys, one intended to be kept secret, the other intended to be sacrificed. She passes the secret key (or both) to Carl.
  2. Alice constructs an innocuous message M1 for Carl (intended to be revealed to Bob in case of discovery) and an incriminating love letter M2 to Carl. She constructs a cipher-text C out of both messages M1, M2 and emails it to Carl.
  3. Carl uses his key to decrypt M2 (and possibly M1, in order to read the fake message, too).
  4. Bob finds out about the email to Carl, becomes suspicious and forces Alice to decrypt the message.
  5. Alice uses the sacrificial key and reveals the innocuous message M1 to Bob. Since it is impossible for Bob to know for sure that there might be other messages contained in C, he might assume that there are no other messages.
Another possible scenario involves Alice sending the same ciphertext (some secret instructions) to Bob and Carl, to whom she has handed different keys. Bob and Carl are to receive different instructions and must not be able to read each other's instructions. Bob will receive the message first and then forward it to Carl.
  1. Alice constructs the ciphertext out of both messages, M1 and M2, and emails it to Bob.
  2. Bob uses his key to decrypt M1 and isn't able to read M2.
  3. Bob forwards the ciphertext to Carl.
  4. Carl uses his key to decrypt M2 and isn't able to read M1.

Forms of deniable encryption

Normally, ciphertexts decrypt to a single plaintext that is intended to be kept secret. However, one form of deniable encryption allows its users to decrypt the ciphertext to produce a different (innocuous but plausible) plaintext and plausibly claim that it is what they encrypted. The holder of the ciphertext will not be able to differentiate between the true plaintext, and the bogus-claim plaintext. In general, decrypting one ciphertext to multiple plaintexts is not possible unless the key is as large as the plaintext,[4] so this is not practical for most purposes.[5] However, some schemes allow decryption to decoy plaintexts that are close to the original in some metric (such as edit distance). [6]
Modern deniable encryption techniques exploit the fact that without the key, it is infeasible to distinguish between ciphertext from block ciphers and data generated by a cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator (the cipher's pseudorandom permutation properties).[7]
This is used in combination with some decoy data that the user would plausibly want to keep confidential that will be revealed to the attacker, claiming that this is all there is. This is a form of steganography.
If the user does not supply the correct key for the truly secret data, decrypting it will result in apparently random data, indistinguishable from not having stored any particular data there.
One example of deniable encryption is a cryptographic filesystem that employs a concept of abstract "layers", where each layer can be decrypted with a different encryption key. Additionally, special "chaff layers" are filled with random data in order to have plausible deniability of the existence of real layers and their encryption keys. The user can store decoy files on one or more layers while denying the existence of others, claiming that the rest of space is taken up by chaff layers. Physically, these types of filesystems are typically stored in a single directory consisting of equal-length files with filenames that are either randomized (in case they belong to chaff layers), or cryptographic hashes of strings identifying the blocks. The timestamps of these files are always randomized. Examples of this approach include Rubberhose filesystem and PhoneBookFS.
Another approach used by some conventional disk encryption software suites is creating a second encrypted volume within a container volume. The container volume is first formatted by filling it with encrypted random data,[8] and then initializing a filesystem on it. The user then fills some of the filesystem with legitimate, but plausible-looking decoy files that the user would seem to have an incentive to hide. Next, a new encrypted volume (the hidden volume) is allocated within the free space of the container filesystem which will be used for data the user actually wants to hide. Since an adversary cannot differentiate between encrypted data and the random data used to initialize the outer volume, this inner volume is now undetectable. LibreCrypt[9] and BestCrypt can have many hidden volumes in a container; TrueCrypt is limited to one hidden volume.

Detection

The existence of hidden encrypted data may be revealed by flaws in the implementation. It may also be revealed by a so-called 'watermarking attack' if an inappropriate cipher mode is used. The existence of the data may be revealed by it 'leaking' into non-encrypted disk space  where it can be detected by forensic tools.[
Doubts have been raised about the level of plausible deniability in 'hidden volumes' – the contents of the "outer" container filesystem have to be 'frozen' in its initial state to prevent the user from corrupting the hidden volume (this can be detected from the access and modification timestamps), which could raise suspicion. This problem can be eliminated by instructing the system not to protect the hidden volume, although this could result in lost data.

Drawbacks

Deniable encryption has been criticized because it does not defend users from revealing keys under coercion or torture. Possession of deniable encryption tools could lead attackers to continue torturing a user even after the user has revealed all his keys, because the attackers could not know whether the user had revealed his last key or not.

Deniable authentication

Some in-transit encrypted messaging suites, such as off-the-Record Messaging, offer deniable authentication which gives the participants plausible deniability of their conversations. While deniable authentication is not technically "deniable encryption" in that the encryption of the messages is not denied, its deniability refers to the inability of an adversary to prove that the participants had a conversation or said anything in particular.
This is achieved by the fact that all information necessary to forge messages is appended to the encrypted messages – if an adversary is able to create digitally authentic messages in a conversation (see hash-based message authentication code (HMAC)), he is also able to forge messages in the conversation. This is used in conjunction with perfect forward secrecy to assure that the compromise of encryption keys of individual messages does not compromise additional conversations or messages.

Software

  • OpenPuff, freeware semi-open-source steganography for MS Windows.
  • EDS, a mobile encryption app available on Android, includes plausible-deniability encryption.
  • Espionage, shareware for Mac OS X. Source code is available to security researchers.
  • Fuyoal, an open-source tool that provides plausible deniability based on indiscernibility between encrypted files which contain and do not contain hidden content.
  • LibreCrypt, opensource transparent disk encryption for MS Windows and PocketPC PDAs that provides both deniable encryption and plausible deniability. Offers an extensive range of encryption options, and doesn't need to be installed before use as long as the user has administrator rights.
  • Off-the-Record Messaging, a cryptographic technique providing true deniability for instant messaging.
  • PhoneBookFS, another cryptographic filesystem for Linux, providing plausible deniability through chaff and layers. A FUSE implementation. No longer maintained.
  • Rubberhose, defunct project (last release in 2000, not compatible with modern Linux distributions)
  • StegFS, the current successor to the ideas embodied by the Rubberhose and PhoneBookFS filesystems
  • TrueCrypt, which was (now discontinued) on-the-fly disk encryption software for Windows, Mac and Linux providing limited deniable encryption and to some extent (due to limitations on the number of hidden volumes which can be created) plausible deniability, without needing to be installed before use as long as the user had full administrator rights
  • VeraCrypt, a successor to TrueCrypt with similar features, including plausible-deniability encryption.
  • Vanish, a research prototype implementation of self-destructing data storage
  • ScramDisk 4 Linux, a free software suite of tools, for GNU/Linux systems, which can open and create scramdisk and truecrypt container.


   
                                XXX  .  V000000  Chaffing and winnowing 

Chaffing and winnowing is a cryptographic technique to achieve confidentiality without using encryption when sending data over an insecure channel. The name is derived from agriculture: after grain has been harvested and threshed, it remains mixed together with inedible fibrous chaff. The chaff and grain are then separated by winnowing, and the chaff is discarded. The technique was conceived by Ron Rivest and published in an on-line article on 18 March 1998. Although it bears similarities to both traditional encryption and steganography, it cannot be classified under either category.
This technique allows the sender to deny responsibility for encrypting their message. When using chaffing and winnowing, the sender transmits the message unencrypted, in clear text. Although the sender and the receiver share a secret key, they use it only for authentication. However, a third party can make their communication confidential by simultaneously sending specially crafted messages through the same channel.

How it works

secure channelinsecure channel
AliceCharlesBob
constructs 4 packets, each containing one bit of her message and a valid MAC
SerialBitMAC
11234
20890
30456
41678
adds 4 chaff packets with inverted bits and invalid MAC, shown in italics (chaffing)
SerialBitMAC
10321
11234
20890
21987
30456
31543
40765
41678
discards packets with invalid MAC to recover the message (winnowing)

In this example, Alice wishes to send the message "1001" to Bob. For simplicity, assume that all even MAC are valid and odd ones are invalid.
The sender (Alice) wants to send a message to the receiver (Bob). In the simplest setup, Alice enumerates the symbols (usually bits) in her message and sends out each in a separate packet. In general the method requires each symbol to arrive in-order and to be authenticated by the receiver. When implemented over networks that may change the order of packets, the sender places the symbol's serial number in the packet, the symbol itself (both unencrypted), and a message authentication code (MAC). Many MACs use a secret key Alice shares with Bob, but it is sufficient that the receiver has a method to authenticate the packets. Charles, who transmits Alice's packets to Bob, interleaves the packets with corresponding bogus packets (called "chaff") with corresponding serial numbers, arbitrary symbols, and a random number in place of the MAC. Charles does not need to know the key to do that (real MAC are large enough that it is extremely unlikely to generate a valid one by chance, unlike in the example). Bob uses the MAC to find the authentic messages and drops the "chaff" messages. This process is called "winnowing".
An eavesdropper located between Alice and Charles can easily read Alice's message. But an eavesdropper between Charles and Bob would have to tell which packets are bogus and which are real (i.e. to winnow, or "separate the wheat from the chaff"). That is infeasible if the MAC used is secure and Charles does not leak any information on packet authenticity (e.g. via timing).
If a fourth party, Dave, (anyone other than Alice, Charles, or Bob) requires Alice to disclose her secret key, she can defend with the argument that she used the key merely for authentication and did not intend to make the message confidential. If Dave cannot force Alice to disclose an authentication key (the knowledge of which would enable him to forge messages from Alice), then her messages will remain confidential. On the other hand, Charles does not even possess any secret keys that he could be ordered to disclose.

Variations

The simple variant of the chaffing and winnowing technique described above adds many bits of overhead per bit of original message. To make the transmission more efficient, Alice can process her message with an all-or-nothing transform and then send it out in much larger chunks. The chaff packets will have to be modified accordingly. Because the original message can be reconstructed only by knowing all of its chunks, Charles needs to send only enough chaff packets to make finding the correct combination of packets computationally infeasible.
Chaffing and winnowing lends itself especially well to use in packet-switched network environments such as the Internet, where each message (whose payload is typically small) is sent in a separate network packet. In another variant of the technique, Charles carefully interleaves packets coming from multiple senders. That eliminates the need for Charles to generate and inject bogus packets in the communication. However, the text of Alice's message cannot be well protected from other parties who are communicating via Charles at the same time. This variant also helps protect against information leakage and traffic analysis.

Implications for law enforcement

Ron Rivest suggests that laws related to cryptography, including export controls, would not apply to chaffing and winnowing because it does not employ any encryption at all.
The power to authenticate is in many cases the power to control, and handing all authentication power to the government is beyond all reason
— Ronald L. Rivest, 1998
The author of the paper proposes that the security implications of handing everyone's authentication keys to the government for law-enforcement purposes would be far too risky, since possession of the key would enable someone to masquerade and communicate as another entity, such as an airline controller. Furthermore, Ron Rivest contemplates the possibility of rogue law enforcement officials framing up innocent parties by introducing the chaff into their communications, concluding that drafting a law restricting chaffing and winnowing would be far too difficult.

Trivia

The term winnowing was suggested by Ronald Rivest's father. Before the publication of Rivest's paper in 1998 other people brought to his attention a 1965 novel, Rex Stout's The Doorbell Rang, which describes the same concept and was thus included in the paper's references.


Null cipher

A null cipher, also known as concealment cipher, is an ancient form of encryption where the plaintext is mixed with a large amount of non-cipher material. Today it is regarded as a simple form of steganography, which can be used to hide ciphertext. .

Classical cryptography

In classical cryptography, a null is intended to confuse the cryptanalyst. In a null cipher, the plaintext is included within the ciphertext and one needs to discard certain characters in order to decrypt the message. Most characters in such a cryptogram are nulls, only some are significant, and some others can be used as pointers to the significant ones.
Examples of messages containing null ciphers:
News Eight Weather: Tonight increasing snow. Unexpected precipitation smothers eastern towns. Be extremely cautious and use snowtires especially heading east. The [highway is not] knowingly slippery. Highway evacuation is suspected. Police report emergency situations in downtown ending near Tuesday.
Taking the first letter in each word successively yields the real message: "Newt is upset because he thinks he is President."
You can also choose to instead use the last letter of every word, or something like a pattern such as:
Susan sAys GaIl Lies. MAtt leTs Susan fEel joVial. Elated (or) aNgry?
Using the pattern (1,2,3,1,2,3 [each letter in each word]) gives the message: "Sail at seven."
Other options include positioning of the significant letters next to or at certain intervals from punctuation marks or particular characters. Historically, users of concealment ciphers often used substitution and transposition ciphers on the data prior to concealment. For example, Cardinal Richelieu is said to have used a grille to write secret messages, after which the blank spaces were filled out with extraneous matter to create the impression of a continuous text.

Usage

It is difficult and time-consuming to produce encapsulating messages that feel natural and wouldn't raise suspicions. The message may read clumsily, and suspected messages can be detected by mail filters. More importantly, the security of the message relies entirely on the secrecy of the concealment method. Null ciphers are no longer in serious use

                                                    Transposition cipher 

In cryptography, a transposition cipher is a method of encryption by which the positions held by units of plaintext (which are commonly characters or groups of characters) are shifted according to a regular system, so that the ciphertext constitutes a permutation of the plaintext. That is, the order of the units is changed (the plaintext is reordered). Mathematically a bijective function is used on the characters' positions to encrypt and an inverse function to decrypt.
Following are some implementations.

  

Rail Fence cipher

The Rail Fence cipher is a form of transposition cipher that gets its name from the way in which it is encoded. In the rail fence cipher, the plaintext is written downwards on successive "rails" of an imaginary fence, then moving up when we get to the bottom. The message is then read off in rows. For example, using three "rails" and a message of 'WE ARE DISCOVERED. FLEE AT ONCE', the cipherer writes out:
W . . . E . . . C . . . R . . . L . . . T . . . E
. E . R . D . S . O . E . E . F . E . A . O . C .
. . A . . . I . . . V . . . D . . . E . . . N . .
Then reads off:
WECRL TEERD SOEEF EAOCA IVDEN
(The cipherer has broken this ciphertext up into blocks of five to help avoid errors. This is a common technique used to make the cipher more easily readable. The spacing is not related to spaces in the plaintext and so does not carry any information about the plaintext.)
The rail fence cipher was used by the ancient Greeks in the scytale, a mechanical system of producing a transposition cipher. The system consisted of a cylinder and a ribbon that was wrapped around the cylinder. The message to be encrypted was written on the coiled ribbon. The letters of the original message would be rearranged when the ribbon was uncoiled from the cylinder. However, the message was easily decrypted when the ribbon was recoiled on a cylinder of the same diameter as the encrypting cylinder.

Route cipher

In a route cipher, the plaintext is first written out in a grid of given dimensions, then read off in a pattern given in the key. For example, using the same plaintext that we used for rail fence:
W R I O R F E O E 
E E S V E L A N J 
A D C E D E T C X 
The key might specify "spiral inwards, clockwise, starting from the top right". That would give a cipher text of:
EJXCTEDECDAEWRIORFEONALEVSE
Route ciphers have many more keys than a rail fence. In fact, for messages of reasonable length, the number of possible keys is potentially too great to be enumerated even by modern machinery. However, not all keys are equally good. Badly chosen routes will leave excessive chunks of plaintext, or text simply reversed, and this will give cryptanalysts a clue as to the routes.
A variation of the route cipher was the Union Route Cipher, used by Union forces during the American Civil War. This worked much like an ordinary route cipher, but transposed whole words instead of individual letters. Because this would leave certain highly sensitive words exposed, such words would first be concealed by code. The cipher clerk may also add entire null words, which were often chosen to make the ciphertext humorous .

Columnar transposition.

In a columnar transposition, the message is written out in rows of a fixed length, and then read out again column by column, and the columns are chosen in some scrambled order. Both the width of the rows and the permutation of the columns are usually defined by a keyword. For example, the keyword ZEBRAS is of length 6 (so the rows are of length 6), and the permutation is defined by the alphabetical order of the letters in the keyword. In this case, the order would be "6 3 2 4 1 5".
In a regular columnar transposition cipher, any spare spaces are filled with nulls; in an irregular columnar transposition cipher, the spaces are left blank. Finally, the message is read off in columns, in the order specified by the keyword. For example, suppose we use the keyword ZEBRAS and the message WE ARE DISCOVERED. FLEE AT ONCE. In a regular columnar transposition, we write this into the grid as follows:
6 3 2 4 1 5
W E A R E D
I S C O V E 
R E D F L E 
E A T O N C 
E Q K J E U 
providing five nulls (QKJEU), these letters can be randomly selected as they just fill out the incomplete columns and are not part of the message. The ciphertext is then read off as:
EVLNE ACDTK ESEAQ ROFOJ DEECU WIREE
In the irregular case, the columns are not completed by nulls:
6 3 2 4 1 5
W E A R E D 
I S C O V E 
R E D F L E 
E A T O N C 
E 
This results in the following ciphertext:
EVLNA CDTES EAROF ODEEC WIREE
To decipher it, the recipient has to work out the column lengths by dividing the message length by the key length. Then he can write the message out in columns again, then re-order the columns by reforming the key word.
In a variation, the message is blocked into segments that are the key length long and to each segment the same permutation (given by the key) is applied. This is equivalent to a columnar transposition where the read-out is by rows instead of columns.
Columnar transposition continued to be used for serious purposes as a component of more complex ciphers at least into the 1950s.

Double transposition

A single columnar transposition could be attacked by guessing possible column lengths, writing the message out in its columns (but in the wrong order, as the key is not yet known), and then looking for possible anagrams. Thus to make it stronger, a double transposition was often used. This is simply a columnar transposition applied twice. The same key can be used for both transpositions, or two different keys can be used.
As an example, we can take the result of the irregular columnar transposition in the previous section, and perform a second encryption with a different keyword, STRIPE, which gives the permutation "564231":
5 6 4 2 3 1 
E V L N A C
D T E S E A
R O F O D E
E C W I R E
E
As before, this is read off columnwise to give the ciphertext:
CAEEN SOIAE DRLEF WEDRE EVTOC
If multiple messages of exactly the same length are encrypted using the same keys, they can be anagrammed simultaneously. This can lead to both recovery of the messages, and to recovery of the keys (so that every other message sent with those keys can be read).
During World War I, the German military used a double columnar transposition cipher, changing the keys infrequently. The system was regularly solved by the French, naming it Übchi, who were typically able to quickly find the keys once they'd intercepted a number of messages of the same length, which generally took only a few days. However, the French success became widely known and, after a publication in Le Matin, the Germans changed to a new system on 18 November 1914.
During World War II, the double transposition cipher was used by Dutch Resistance groups, the French Maquis and the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), which was in charge of managing underground activities in Europe.[3] It was also used by agents of the American Office of Strategic Services[4] and as an emergency cipher for the German Army and Navy.
Until the invention of the VIC cipher, double transposition was generally regarded as the most complicated cipher that an agent could operate reliably under difficult field conditions.
In late 2013, the double transposition problem was solved by George Lasry.

Myszkowski transposition

A variant form of columnar transposition, proposed by Émile Victor Théodore Myszkowski in 1902, requires a keyword with recurrent letters. In usual practice, subsequent occurrences of a keyword letter are treated as if the next letter in alphabetical order, e.g., the keyword TOMATO yields a numeric keystring of "532164."
In Myszkowski transposition, recurrent keyword letters are numbered identically, TOMATO yielding a keystring of "432143."
4 3 2 1 4 3
W E A R E D
I S C O V E
R E D F L E
E A T O N C
E
Plaintext columns with unique numbers are transcribed downward; those with recurring numbers are transcribed left to right:
ROFOA CDTED SEEEA CWEIV RLENE

Disrupted transposition

In a disrupted transposition, certain positions in a grid are blanked out, and not used when filling in the plaintext. This breaks up regular patterns and makes the cryptanalyst's job more difficult.

Grilles

Another form of transposition cipher uses grilles, or physical masks with cut-outs. This can produce a highly irregular transposition over the period specified by the size of the grille, but requires the correspondents to keep a physical key secret. Grilles were first proposed in 1550, and were still in military use for the first few months of World War One.

Scytale

A cipher from ancient Greek times that was used to make encryptions. The device used to make these ciphers was a rod with a polygon base, which was wrapped in paper. People then, could write on the paper horizontally. When the paper was removed from the device, it would make a strip of letters that seemed randomized. The only way to read the message would be to have a Scytale machine of your own.

Detection and cryptanalysis

Since transposition does not affect the frequency of individual symbols, simple transposition can be easily detected by the cryptanalyst by doing a frequency count. If the ciphertext exhibits a frequency distribution very similar to plaintext, it is most likely a transposition. This can then often be attacked by anagramming—sliding pieces of ciphertext around, then looking for sections that look like anagrams of English words, and solving the anagrams. Once such anagrams have been found, they reveal information about the transposition pattern, and can consequently be extended.
Simpler transpositions also often suffer from the property that keys very close to the correct key will reveal long sections of legible plaintext interspersed by gibberish. Consequently, such ciphers may be vulnerable to optimum seeking algorithms such as genetic algorithms.
A detailed description of the cryptanalysis of a German transposition cipher can be found in chapter 7 of Herbert Yardley's "The American Black Chamber."

Combinations

Transposition is often combined with other techniques such as evaluation methods. For example, a simple substitution cipher combined with a columnar transposition avoids the weakness of both. Replacing high frequency ciphertext symbols with high frequency plaintext letters does not reveal chunks of plaintext because of the transposition. Anagramming the transposition does not work because of the substitution. The technique is particularly powerful if combined with fractionation (see below). A disadvantage is that such ciphers are considerably more laborious and error prone than simpler ciphers.

Fractionation

Transposition is particularly effective when employed with fractionation - that is, a preliminary stage that divides each plaintext symbol into several ciphertext symbols. For example, the plaintext alphabet could be written out in a grid, then every letter in the message replaced by its co-ordinates Another method of fractionation is to simply convert the message to Morse code, with a symbol for spaces as well as dots and dashes.
When such a fractionated message is transposed, the components of individual letters become widely separated in the message, thus achieving Claude E. Shannon's diffusion. Examples of ciphers that combine fractionation and transposition include the bifid cipher, the trifid cipher, the ADFGVX cipher and the VIC cipher.
Another choice would be to replace each letter with its binary representation, transpose that, and then convert the new binary string into the corresponding ASCII characters. Looping the scrambling process on the binary string multiple times before changing it into ASCII characters would likely make it harder to break. Many modern block ciphers use more complex forms of transposition related to this simple idea.  



                                                           hartley (unit) 

The hartley (symbol Hart), also called a ban, or a dit (short for decimal digit), is a logarithmic unit which measures information or entropy, based on base 10 logarithms and powers of 10, rather than the powers of 2 and base 2 logarithms which define the bit, or shannon. One ban or hartley is the information content of an event if the probability of that event occurring is 1/10.[1] It is therefore equal to the information contained in one decimal digit (or dit), assuming a priori equiprobability of each possible value.
As a bit corresponds to a binary digit, a ban corresponds to a decimal digit. A deciban is one tenth of a ban; the name is formed from ban by the SI prefix deci-.
One hartley corresponds to log2(10) bit = ln(10) nat, or approximately 3.322 Sh,[a] or 2.303 nat. A deciban is about 0.332 Sh.
Though not an SI unit, the hartley is part of the International System of Quantities, defined by International Standard IEC 80000-13 of the International Electrotechnical Commission. It is named after Ralph Hartley.

The ban and the deciban were invented by Alan Turing with I. J. Good in 1940, to measure the amount of information that could be deduced by the codebreakers at Bletchley Park using the Banburismus procedure, towards determining each day's unknown setting of the German naval Enigma cipher machine. The name was inspired by the enormous sheets of card, printed in the town of Banbury about 30 miles away, that were used in the process.[2]
Jack Good argued that the sequential summation of decibans to build up a measure of the weight of evidence in favour of a hypothesis, is essentially Bayesian inference.[2] Donald A. Gillies, however, argued the ban is, in effect, the same as Karl Popper's measure of the severity of a test.[3]
The term hartley is after Ralph Hartley, who suggested in 1928 to measure information using a logarithmic base equal to the number of distinguishable states in its representation, which would be the base 10 for a decimal digit.[4][5]

Usage as a unit of odds

The deciban is a particularly useful unit for log-odds, notably as a measure of information in Bayes factors, odds ratios (ratio of odds, so log is difference of log-odds), or weights of evidence. 10 decibans corresponds to odds of 10:1; 20 decibans to 100:1 odds, etc. According to I. J. Good, a change in a weight of evidence of 1 deciban (i.e., a change in the odds from evens to about 5:4) is about as finely as humans can reasonably be expected to quantify their degree of belief in a hypothesis.[6]
Odds corresponding to integer decibans can often be well-approximated by simple integer ratios; these are collated below. Value to two decimal places, simple approximation (to within about 5%), with more accurate approximation (to within 1%) if simple one is inaccurate:


decibansexact
value
approx.
value
approx.
ratio
accurate
ratio
probability
0100/1011:150%
1101/101.265:456%
2102/101.583:28:561%
3103/102.002:167%
4104/102.515:271.5%
5105/103.163:119:6, 16:576%
6106/103.984:180%
7107/105.015:183%
8108/106.316:119:3, 25:486%
9109/107.948:189%
101010/101010:191%



                                                                    Bit 

The bit (a portmanteau of binary digit) is a basic unit of information used in computing and digital communications. A binary digit can have only one of two values, and may be physically represented with a two-state device. These state values are most commonly represented as either a 0or1.
The two values of a binary digit can also be interpreted as logical values (true/false, yes/no), algebraic signs (+/−), activation states (on/off), or any other two-valued attribute. The correspondence between these values and the physical states of the underlying storage or device is a matter of convention, and different assignments may be used even within the same device or program. The length of a binary number may be referred to as its bit-length.
In information theory, one bit is typically defined as the information entropy of a binary random variable that is 0 or 1 with equal probability, or the information that is gained when the value of such a variable becomes known.
In quantum computing, a quantum bit or qubit is a quantum system that can exist in superposition of two classical (i.e., non-quantum) bit values.
The symbol for binary digit is either simply bit (recommended by the IEC 80000-13:2008 standard) or lowercase b (recommended by the IEEE 1541-2002 and IEEE Std 260.1-2004 standards). A group of eight binary digits is commonly called one byte, but historically the size of the byte is not strictly defined.
As a unit of information in information theory, the bit has alternatively been called a shannon, named after Claude Shannon, the founder of field of information theory. This usage distinguishes the quantity of information from the form of the state variables used to represent it. When the logical values are not equally probable or when a signal is not conveyed . information from the form of the state variables used to represent it. When the logical values are not equally probable or when a signal is not conveyed perfectly through a communication system, a binary digit in the representation of the information will convey less than one bit of information. However, the shannon unit terminology is uncommon in practice.

The encoding of data by discrete bits was used in the punched cards invented by Basile Bouchon and Jean-Baptiste Falcon (1732), developed by Joseph Marie Jacquard (1804), and later adopted by Semen Korsakov, Charles Babbage, Hermann Hollerith, and early computer manufacturers like IBM. Another variant of that idea was the perforated paper tape. In all those systems, the medium (card or tape) conceptually carried an array of hole positions; each position could be either punched through or not, thus carrying one bit of information. The encoding of text by bits was also used in Morse code (1844) and early digital communications machines such as teletypes and stock ticker machines (1870).
Ralph Hartley suggested the use of a logarithmic measure of information in 1928.[6] Claude E. Shannon first used the word bit in his seminal 1948 paper A Mathematical Theory of Communication.[7] He attributed its origin to John W. Tukey, who had written a Bell Labs memo on 9 January 1947 in which he contracted "binary information digit" to simply "bit". Interestingly, Vannevar Bush had written in 1936 of "bits of information" that could be stored on the punched cards used in the mechanical computers of that time.[8] The first programmable computer, built by Konrad Zuse, used binary notation for numbers.

Physical representation[edit]

A bit can be stored by a digital device or other physical system that exists in either of two possible distinct states. These may be the two stable states of a flip-flop, two positions of an electrical switch, two distinct voltage or current levels allowed by a circuit, two distinct levels of light intensity, two directions of magnetization or polarization, the orientation of reversible double stranded DNA, etc.
Bits can be implemented in several forms. In most modern computing devices, a bit is usually represented by an electrical voltage or current pulse, or by the electrical state of a flip-flop circuit.
For devices using positive logic, a digit value of 1 (or a logical value of true) is represented by a more positive voltage relative to the representation of 0. The specific voltages are different for different logic families and variations are permitted to allow for component aging and noise immunity. For example, in transistor–transistor logic (TTL) and compatible circuits, digit values 0 and 1 at the output of a device are represented by no higher than 0.4 volts and no lower than 2.6 volts, respectively; while TTL inputs are specified to recognize 0.8 volts or below as 0 and 2.2 volts or above as 1.

Transmission and processing[edit]

Bits are transmitted one at a time in serial transmission, and by a multiple number of bits in parallel transmission. A bitwise operation optionally process bits one at a time. Data transfer rates are usually measured in decimal SI multiples of the unit bit per second (bit/s), such as kbit/s.

Storage[edit]

In the earliest non-electronic information processing devices, such as Jacquard's loom or Babbage's Analytical Engine, a bit was often stored as the position of a mechanical lever or gear, or the presence or absence of a hole at a specific point of a paper card or tape. The first electrical devices for discrete logic (such as elevator and traffic light control circuits, telephone switches, and Konrad Zuse's computer) represented bits as the states of electrical relays which could be either "open" or "closed". When relays were replaced by vacuum tubes, starting in the 1940s, computer builders experimented with a variety of storage methods, such as pressure pulses traveling down a mercury delay line, charges stored on the inside surface of a cathode-ray tube, or opaque spots printed on glass discs by photolithographic techniques.
In the 1950s and 1960s, these methods were largely supplanted by magnetic storage devices such as magnetic core memory, magnetic tapes, drums, and disks, where a bit was represented by the polarity of magnetization of a certain area of a ferromagnetic film, or by a change in polarity from one direction to the other. The same principle was later used in the magnetic bubble memory developed in the 1980s, and is still found in various magnetic strip items such as metro tickets and some credit cards.
In modern semiconductor memory, such as dynamic random-access memory, the two values of a bit may be represented by two levels of electric charge stored in a capacitor. In certain types of programmable logic arrays and read-only memory, a bit may be represented by the presence or absence of a conducting path at a certain point of a circuit. In optical discs, a bit is encoded as the presence or absence of a microscopic pit on a reflective surface. In one-dimensional bar codes, bits are encoded as the thickness of alternating black and white lines.

Unit and symbol[edit]

The bit is not defined in the International System of Units (SI). However, the International Electrotechnical Commission issued standard IEC 60027, which specifies that the symbol for binary digit should be bit, and this should be used in all multiples, such as kbit, for kilobit.[9] However, the lower-case letter b is widely used as well and was recommended by the IEEE 1541 Standard (2002). In contrast, the upper case letter B is the standard and customary symbol for byte.
Multiples of bits
Decimal
ValueSI
1000103kbitkilobit
10002106Mbitmegabit
10003109Gbitgigabit
100041012Tbitterabit
100051015Pbitpetabit
100061018Ebitexabit
100071021Zbitzettabit
100081024Ybityottabit
Binary
ValueIECJEDEC
1024210KibitkibibitKbitkilobit
10242220MibitmebibitMbitmegabit
10243230GibitgibibitGbitgigabit
10244240Tibittebibit-
10245250Pibitpebibit-
10246260Eibitexbibit-
10247270Zibitzebibit-
10248280Yibityobibit-

Multiple bits

Multiple bits may be expressed and represented in several ways. For convenience of representing commonly reoccurring groups of bits in information technology, several units of information have traditionally been used. The most common is the unit byte, coined by Werner Buchholz in June 1956, which historically was used to represent the group of bits used to encode a single character of text (until UTF-8 multibyte encoding took over) in a computer[10][11][12][13][14] and for this reason it was used as the basic addressable element in many computer architectures. The trend in hardware design converged on the most common implementation of using eight bits per byte, as it is widely used today. However, because of the ambiguity of relying on the underlying hardware design, the unit octet was defined to explicitly denote a sequence of eight bits.
Computers usually manipulate bits in groups of a fixed size, conventionally named "words". Like the byte, the number of bits in a word also varies with the hardware design, and is typically between 8 and 80 bits, or even more in some specialized computers. In the 21st century, retail personal or server computers have a word size of 32 or 64 bits.
The International System of Units defines a series of decimal prefixes for multiples of standardized units which are commonly also used with the bit and the byte. The prefixes kilo (103) through yotta (1024) increment by multiples of 1000, and the corresponding units are the kilobit (kbit) through the yottabit (Ybit).

Information capacity and information compression

When the information capacity of a storage system or a communication channel is presented in bits or bits per second, this often refers to binary digits, which is a computer hardware capacity to store binary code (0 or 1, up or down, current or not, etc.). Information capacity of a storage system is only an upper bound to the actual quantity of information stored therein. If the two possible values of one bit of storage are not equally likely, that bit of storage will contain less than one bit of information. Indeed, if the value is completely predictable, then the reading of that value will provide no information at all (zero entropic bits, because no resolution of uncertainty and therefore no information). If a computer file that uses n bits of storage contains only m < n bits of information, then that information can in principle be encoded in about m bits, at least on the average. This principle is the basis of data compression technology. Using an analogy, the hardware binary digits refer to the amount of storage space available (like the number of buckets available to store things), and the information content the filling, which comes in different levels of granularity (fine or coarse, that is, compressed or uncompressed information). When the granularity is finer (when information is more compressed), the same bucket can hold more.
For example, it is estimated that the combined technological capacity of the world to store information provides 1,300 exabytes of hardware digits in 2007. However, when this storage space is filled and the corresponding content is optimally compressed, this only represents 295 exabytes of information. When optimally compressed, the resulting carrying capacity approaches Shannon information or information entropy.

Bit-based computing

Certain bitwise computer processor instructions (such as bit set) operate at the level of manipulating bits rather than manipulating data interpreted as an aggregate of bits.
In the 1980s, when bitmapped computer displays became popular, some computers provided specialized bit block transfer ("bitblt" or "blit") instructions to set or copy the bits that corresponded to a given rectangular area on the screen.
In most computers and programming languages, when a bit within a group of bits, such as a byte or word, is referred to, it is usually specified by a number from 0 upwards corresponding to its position within the byte or word. However, 0 can refer to either the most or least significant bit depending on the context.

Other information units

Other units of information, sometimes used in information theory, include the natural digit also called a nat or nit and defined as log2 e (≈ 1.443) bits, where e is the base of the natural logarithms; and the dit, ban, or hartley, defined as log2 10 (≈ 3.322) bits.[6] This value, slightly less than 10/3, may be understood because 103 = 1000 ≈ 1024 = 210: three decimal digits are slightly less information than ten binary digits, so one decimal digit is slightly less than 10/3 binary digits. Conversely, one bit of information corresponds to about ln 2 (≈ 0.693) nats, or log10 2 (≈ 0.301) hartleys. As with the inverse ratio, this value, approximately 3/10, but slightly more, corresponds to the fact that 210 = 1024 ~ 1000 = 103: ten binary digits are slightly more information than three decimal digits, so one binary digit is slightly more than 3/10 decimal digits. Some authors also define a binit as an arbitrary information unit equivalent to some fixed but unspecified number of bits



                                                   Ternary numeral system 

The ternary numeral system (also called base-3) has three as its base. Analogous to a bit, a ternary digit is a trit (trinary digit). One trit is equivalent to log23 (about 1.58496) bits of information.
Although ternary most often refers to a system in which the three digits are all non-negative numbers, specifically 0, 1, and 2, the adjective also lends its name to the balanced ternary system, comprising the digits −1, 0 and +1, used in comparison logic and ternary computers.


Comparison to other radices

A ternary multiplication table
×12101112202122100
112101112202122100
22112022101110112121200
1010201001101202002102201000
111122110121202220100110121100
12121011202022211010102211111200
202011020022010101100112012102000
2121112210100110221120121120022100
2222121220101211111210200221012200
10010020010001100120020002100220010000
Representations of integer numbers in ternary do not get uncomfortably lengthy as quickly as in binary. For example, decimal 365 corresponds to binary 101101101 (nine digits) and to ternary 111112 (six digits). However, they are still far less compact than the corresponding representations in bases such as decimal – see below for a compact way to codify ternary using nonary and septemvigesimal.
Numbers from 1 to 27 in standard ternary
Ternary12101112202122100
Binary1101110010111011110001001
Decimal123456789
Ternary101102110111112120121122200
Binary101010111100110111101111100001000110010
Decimal101112131415161718
Ternary2012022102112122202212221000
Binary100111010010101101101011111000110011101011011
Decimal192021222324252627
Powers of 3 in ternary
Ternary1101001 00010 000
Binary11110011 1011101 0001
Decimal1392781
Power3031323334
Ternary100 0001 000 00010 000 000100 000 0001 000 000 000
Binary1111 001110 1101 10011000 1000 10111 1001 1010 0001100 1100 1110 0011
Decimal2437292 1876 56119 683
Power3536373839
As for rational numbers, ternary offers a convenient way to represent 1/3 (as opposed to its cumbersome representation as an infinite string of recurring digits in decimal); but a major drawback is that, in turn, ternary does not offer a finite representation for 1/2 (neither for 1/4, 1/8, etc.), because 2 is not a prime factor of the base; as with base-2, 1/10 is not representable exactly (that would need e.g. base-10); nor is 1/6.
Fractions in ternary
Fraction1/21/31/41/51/61/71/81/91/101/111/121/13
Ternary0.10.10.020.01210.010.0102120.010.010.00220.002110.0020.002
Binary0.10.010.010.00110.0010.0010.0010.0001110.000110.00010111010.00010.000100111011
Decimal0.50.30.250.20.160.1428570.1250.10.10.090.0830.076923

Sum of the digits in ternary as opposed to binary

The value of a binary number with n bits that are all 1 is 2n − 1.
Similarly, for a number N(b, d) with base b and d digits, all of which are the maximal digit value b − 1, we can write:
N(b, d) = (b − 1) bd−1 + (b − 1) bd−2 + … + (b − 1) b1 + (b − 1) b0,
N(b, d) = (b − 1) (bd−1 + bd−2 + … + b1 + 1),
N(b, d) = (b − 1) M.
bM = bd + bd−1 + … + b2 + b1, and
M = −bd−1 − bd−2 − … − b1 − 1, so
bM − M = bd − 1, or
M = (bd − 1)/(b − 1).
Then
N(b, d) = (b − 1)M,
N(b, d) = (b − 1) (bd − 1)/(b  − 1), and
N(b, d) = bd − 1.
For a three-digit ternary number, N(3, 3) = 33 − 1 = 26 = 2 × 32 + 2 × 31 + 2 × 30 = 18 + 6 + 2.

Compact ternary representation: base-9 and -27

Nonary (base-9, each digit is two ternary digits) or septemvigesimal (base-27, each digit is three ternary digits) can be used for compact representation of ternary, similar to how octal and hexadecimal systems are used in place of binary.

Practical usage

In certain analog logic, the state of the circuit is often expressed ternary. This is most commonly seen in CMOS circuits, and also in Transistor–transistor logic logic with totem-pole output. The output is said to either be low (grounded), high, or open (high-Z). In this configuration the output of the circuit is actually not connected to any voltage reference at all. Where the signal is usually grounded to a certain reference, or at a certain voltage level, the state is said to be high impedance because it is open and serves its own reference. Thus, the actual voltage level is sometimes unpredictable.
A rare "ternary point" is used to denote fractional parts of an inning in baseball. Since each inning consists of three outs, each out is considered one third of an inning and is denoted as .1. For example, if a player pitched all of the 4th, 5th and 6th innings, plus 2 outs of the 7th inning, his Innings pitched column for that game would be listed as 3.2, meaning 3⅔. In this usage, only the fractional part of the number is written in ternary form.
Ternary numbers can be used to convey self-similar structures like the Sierpinski triangle or the Cantor set conveniently. Additionally, it turns out that the ternary representation is useful for defining the Cantor set and related point sets, because of the way the Cantor set is constructed. The Cantor set consists of the points from 0 to 1 that have a ternary expression that does not contain any instance of the digit 1.[1][2] Any terminating expansion in the ternary system is equivalent to the expression that is identical up to the term preceding the last non-zero term followed by the term one less than the last nonzero term of the first expression, followed by an infinite tail of twos. For example: .1020 is equivalent to .1012222... because the expansions are the same until the "two" of the first expression, the two was decremented in the second expansion, and trailing zeros were replaced with trailing twos in the second expression.
Ternary is the integer base with the lowest radix economy, followed closely by binary and quaternary. It has been used for some computing systems because of this efficiency. It is also used to represent three-option trees, such as phone menu systems, which allow a simple path to any branch.
A form of redundant binary representation called balanced ternary or signed-digit representation is sometimes used in low-level software and hardware to accomplish fast addition of integers because it can eliminate carries.

Binary-coded ternary

Simulation of ternary computers using binary computers, or interfacing between ternary and binary computers, can involve use of binary-coded ternary (BCT) numbers, with two bits used to encode each trit.BCT encoding is analogous to binary-coded decimal encoding. If the trit values 0, 1 and 2 are encoded 00, 01 and 10, conversion in either direction between binary-coded ternary and binary can be done in logarithmic time.[6] A library of C code supporting BCT arithmetic is available.[7]

Tryte

Some ternary computers such as the Setun defined a tryte to be six trits[8] or approximately 9.5 bit (holding more information than the de facto binary byte



                XXX  .  V0000000  The Many Uses of Gold in business and business strategy


The Most Useful Metal


Of all the minerals mined from the Earth, none is more useful than gold. Its usefulness is derived from a diversity of special properties. Gold conducts electricity, does not tarnish, is very easy to work, can be drawn into wire, can be hammered into thin sheets, alloys with many other metals, can be melted and cast into highly detailed shapes, has a wonderful color and a brilliant luster. Gold is a memorable metal that occupies a special place in the human mind.
When Spanish explorers first arrived in the "New World" they met the native South Americans. These two cultures had been separated by a vast ocean, they had never touched one another, they spoke different languages and lived entirely different lives. Yet they had one thing in common - they both held gold in highest esteem and used it to make some of their most important objects.
Throughout the history of our planet, almost every established culture has used gold to symbolize power, beauty, purity, and accomplishment. Today we continue to use gold for our most significant objects: wedding rings, Olympic medals, Oscars, Grammys, money, crucifixes and ecclesiastical art. No other substance of the same rarity holds a more visible and prominent place in our society.



 

gold ring
Gold ring: Gold ring with colored stone. © iStockphoto.com / Krzysztof Gorski.
gold rings
Gold rings: Gold rings of different color. © iStockphoto.com / Martin McCarthy.
colors of gold-silver-copper alloys
Colors of gold-silver-copper alloys: Different metal colors that can be produced by alloying different amounts of gold, silver, and copper. Image by Metallos, used here under a GNU Free Documentation License.

Jewelry: The Primary Use of Gold

Gold has been used to make ornamental objects and jewelry for thousands of years. Gold nuggets found in a stream are very easy to work and were probably one of the first metals used by humans. Today, most of the gold that is newly mined or recycled is used in the manufacture of jewelry. About 78% of the gold consumed each year is used in the manufacture of jewelry.
Special properties of gold make it perfect for manufacturing jewelry. These include: very high luster; desirable yellow color; tarnish resistance; ability to be drawn into wires, hammered into sheets, or cast into shapes. These are all properties of an attractive metal that is easily worked into beautiful objects. Another extremely important factor that demands the use of gold as a jewelry metal is tradition. Important objects are expected to be made from gold.
Pure gold is too soft to stand up to the stresses applied to many jewelry items. Craftsmen learned that alloying gold with other metals such as copper, silver, and platinum would increase its durability. Since then most gold used to make jewelry is an alloy of gold with one or more other metals.
The alloys of gold have a lower value per unit of weight than pure gold. A standard of trade known as "karatage" was developed to designate the gold content of these alloys. Pure gold is known as 24 karat gold and is almost always marked with "24K". An alloy that is 50% gold by weight is known as 12 karat gold (12/24ths) and is marked with "12K". An alloy that contains 75% gold by weight is 18 karat (18/24 = 75%) and marked "18K". In general, high-karat jewelry is softer and more resistant to tarnish, while low-karat jewelry is stronger and less resistant to tarnish - especially when in contact with perspiration.
Alloying gold with other metals changes the color of the finished products (see illustration). An alloy of 75% gold, 16% silver and 9% copper yields yellow gold. White gold is an alloy of 75% gold, 4% silver, 4% copper and 17% palladium. Other alloys yield pink, green, peach and even black-colored metals.




gold bullion
Gold bullion: Fine gold metal is usually cast into small bars for easy handling, exchange, and storage. USDOJ Image.
gold coins
Gold coins: United States Gold Coins. © iStockphoto / Donald Swartz.

Financial Gold: Coinage, Bullion, Backing

Because gold is highly valued and in very limited supply, it has long been used as a medium of exchange or money. The first known use of gold in transactions dates back over 6000 years. Early transactions were done using pieces of gold or pieces of silver. The rarity, usefulness, and desirability of gold make it a substance of long-term value. Gold works well for this purpose because it has a high value, is durable, portable, and easily divisible.
Some early printings of paper money were backed by gold held in safekeeping for every unit of money that was placed in circulation. The United States once used a "gold standard" and maintained a stockpile of gold to back every dollar in circulation. Under this gold standard, any person could present paper currency to the government and demand in exchange an equal value of gold. The gold standard was once used by many nations, but it eventually became too cumbersome and is no longer used by any nation.
2011 Gold Production
Country
Metric Tons
China355
Australia270
United States237
Russia200
South Africa190
Peru150
Canada110
Indonesia100
Ghana100
Uzbekistan90
Mexico85
Papua New Guinea70
Brazil55
Chile45
Other Countries630
The values above are estimated gold production in metric tons. Data from USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries.
The gold used as a financial backing for currency was most often held in the form of gold bars, also known as "gold bullion." The use of gold bars kept manufacturing costs to a minimum and allowed convenient handling and storage. Today many governments, individuals, and institutions hold investments of gold in the convenient form of bullion.
The first gold coins were minted under the order of King Croesus of Lydia (a region of present-day Turkey) in about 560 BC. Gold coins were commonly used in transactions up through the early 1900s, when paper currency became a more common form of exchange. Gold coins were issued in two types of units. Some were denominated in units of currency, such as dollars, while others were issued in standard weights, such as ounces or grams.
Today gold coins are no longer in wide use for financial transactions. However, gold coins issued in specific weights are popular ways for people to purchase and own small amounts of gold for investment. Gold coins are also issued as "commemorative" items. Many people enjoy these commemorative coins because they have both a collectable value and a precious metal value.

gold use in electronics
Gold use in electronics: Gold parts are used in cell phones and many other electronics. © iStockphoto / Matjaz Boncina.
Mineral collection
The best way to learn about minerals is to study with a collection of small specimens that you can handle, examine, and observe their properties. Inexpensive mineral collections are available in the Geology.com Store.

Uses of Gold in Electronics

The most important industrial use of gold is in the manufacture of electronics. Solid state electronic devices use very low voltages and currents which are easily interrupted by corrosion or tarnish at the contact points. Gold is the highly efficient conductor that can carry these tiny currents and remain free of corrosion. Electronic components made with gold are highly reliable. Gold is used in connectors, switch and relay contacts, soldered joints, connecting wires and connection strips.
A small amount of gold is used in almost every sophisticated electronic device. This includes cell phones, calculators, personal digital assistants, global positioning system (GPS) units, and other small electronic devices. Most large electronic appliances such as television sets also contain gold.
One challenge with the use of gold in very small quantities in very small devices is loss of the metal from society. Nearly one billion cell phones are produced each year, and most of them contain about fifty cents worth of gold. Their average lifetime is under two years, and very few are currently recycled. Although the amount of gold is small in each device, their enormous numbers translate into a lot of unrecycled gold.

gold computer connections
Gold computer connections: Gold in a computer memory chip. © iStockphoto / Teresa Azevedo.

Use of Gold in Computers

Gold is used in many places in the standard desktop or laptop computer. The rapid and accurate transmission of digital information through the computer and from one component to another requires an efficient and reliable conductor. Gold meets these requirements better than any other metal. The importance of high quality and reliable performance justifies the high cost.
Edge connectors used to mount microprocessor and memory chips onto the motherboard and the plug-and-socket connectors used to attach cables all contain gold. The gold in these components is generally electroplated onto other metals and alloyed with small amounts of nickel or cobalt to increase durability.

dental gold
Dental gold: A crown made from dental gold alloy. © iStockphoto / choicegraphx.
Use of Gold in Dentistry
How would iron work as a dental filling? Not very well... your dentist would need blacksmithing tools, your smile would be rusty a few days after a filling, and you would need to get used to the taste of iron. Even at much higher expense, gold is used in dentistry because of its superior performance and aesthetic appeal. Gold alloys are used for fillings, crowns, bridges, and orthodontic appliances. Gold is used in dentistry because it is chemically inert, nonallergenic, and easy for the dentist to work.
Gold is known to have been used in dentistry as early as 700 B.C. Etruscan "dentists" used gold wire to fasten replacement teeth into the mouths of their patients. Gold was probably used to fill cavities in ancient times; however, there is no documentation or archaeological evidence for this use of gold until a little over 1000 years ago.
Gold was much more generously used in dentistry up until the late 1970s. The sharp run-up of gold prices at that time motivated the development of substitute materials. However, the amount of gold used in dentistry is starting to rise again. Some motivation for this comes from concerns that less inert metals might have an adverse effect on long-term health.

medical uses of gold
Medical uses of gold: Gold is used in some surgical instruments. © iStockphoto / atbaei.

Medical Uses of Gold

Gold is used as a drug to treat a small number of medical conditions. Injections of weak solutions of sodium aurothiomalate or aurothioglucose are sometimes used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. Particles of a radioactive gold isotope are implanted in tissues to serve as a radiation source in the treatment of certain cancers.
Small amounts of gold are used to remedy a condition known as lagophthalmos, which is an inability of a person to close their eyes completely. This condition is treated by implanting small amounts of gold in the upper eyelid. The implanted gold "weights" the eyelid, and the force of gravity helps the eyelid close fully.
Radioactive gold is used in diagnosis. It is injected in a colloidal solution that can be tracked as a beta emitter as it passes through the body. Many surgical instruments, electronic equipment, and life-support devices are made using small amounts of gold. Gold is nonreactive in the instruments and is highly reliable in the electronic equipment and life-support devices.

gold use in aerospace
Gold use in aerospace: Gold is used in satellite components. © iStockphoto / pete stopher.
gold-coated telescope mirror
Gold-coated telescope mirror: Photo of one of the James Webb Space Telescope's primary mirror segments being coated with gold by Quantum Coating Incorporated. Photo by Drew Noel, NASA.

Uses of Gold in Aerospace

If you are going to spend billions of dollars on a vehicle that when launched will travel on a voyage where the possibility of lubrication, maintenance and repair is absolutely zero, then building it with extremely dependable materials is essential. This is exactly why gold is used in hundreds of ways in every space vehicle that NASA launches.
Gold is used in circuitry because it is a dependable conductor and connector. In addition, many parts of every space vehicle are fitted with gold-coated polyester film. This film reflects infrared radiation and helps stabilize the temperature of the spacecraft. Without this coating, dark colored parts of the spacecraft would absorb significant amounts of heat.
Gold is also used as a lubricant between mechanical parts. In the vacuum of space, organic lubricants would volatilize and they would be broken down by the intense radiation beyond Earth's atmosphere. Gold has a very low shear strength, and a thin film of gold between critical moving parts serves as a lubricant - the gold molecules slip past one another under the forces of friction and that provides a lubricant action.

gold use in awards
Gold use in awards: Gold Medal. © iStockphoto / Olivier Blondeaui.

Uses of Gold Awards & Status Symbols

What metal is used to make the crown worn by a king? Gold! This metal is selected for use because gold is THE metal of highest esteem. It would make no sense to make a king's crown out of steel - even though steel is the strongest metal. Gold is chosen for use in a king's crown because it is the metal associated with highest esteem and status.
Gold is associated with many positive qualities. Purity is another quality associated with gold. For this reason, gold is the metal of choice for religious objects. Crosses, communion ware, and other religious symbols are made with gold for this reason.
Gold is also used as the first place winner's medal or trophy in almost any type of contest. First-place winners at the Olympic Games are given gold medals. The Academy Awards Oscars are gold awards. Music's Grammy Awards are made of gold. All of these important achievements are honored with awards made of gold.

gold used in glass
Gold used in glass: Gold is used in specialty building glass. © iStockphoto / Cezar Serbanescu.

Uses of Gold in Glassmaking

Gold has many uses in the production of glass. The most basic use in glassmaking is that of a pigment. A small amount of gold, if suspended in the glass when it is annealed, will produce a rich ruby color.
Gold is also used when making specialty glass for climate-controlled buildings and cases. A small amount of gold dispersed within the glass or coated onto the glass surface will reflect solar radiation outward, helping the buildings stay cool in the summer, and reflect internal heat inward, helping them stay warm in winter.
The visor on the helmet of an astronaut's space suit is coated with a very thin film of gold. This thin film reflects much of the very intense solar radiation of space, protecting the astronaut's eyes and skin.

gold church dome
Gold church dome: Gold dome of a church. © iStockphoto / Constantine Vishnevsky.

Gold Gilding and Gold Leaf

Gold has the highest malleability of any metal. This enables gold to be beaten into sheets that are only a few millionths of an inch thick. These thin sheets, known as "gold leaf" can be applied over the irregular surfaces of picture frames, molding, or furniture.
Gold leaf is also used on the external and internal surfaces of buildings. This provides a durable and corrosion-resistant covering. One of the most eye-catching uses of gold leaf is on the domes of religious buildings and other important structures. The cost of this "roofing material" is very high per square foot; however, the cost of the gold is only a few percent of the total project cost. Most of the cost goes to the labor of highly skilled artisans who apply the gold leaf.
Prague Astronomical Clock
Prague orloj: Prague Astronomical Clock in the Czech Republic. © iStockphoto / Kelly Borsheim.

Future Uses of Gold

Gold is too expensive to use by chance. Instead it is used deliberately and only when less expensive substitutes cannot be identified. As a result, once a use is found for gold it is rarely abandoned for another metal. This means that the number of uses for gold have been increasing over time.
Most of the ways that gold is used today have been developed only during the last two or three decades. This trend will likely continue. As our society requires more sophisticated and reliable materials, our uses for gold will increase. This combination of growing demand, few substitutes, and limited supply will cause the value and importance of gold to increase steadily over time. It is truly a metal of the future.


Substitutes for Gold and Reductions in Use

Because of its rarity and high price, manufacturers are always looking for ways to reduce the amount of gold required to make an object or substitute a less expensive metal in its place. Base metals clad with gold alloys have long been used as a way to reduce the amount of gold used in jewelry and electrical connections. These items are constantly being redesigned to reduce the amount of gold required and to maintain their utility standards. Palladium, platinum, and silver are the most common substitutes for gold that closely retain its desired properties.


                           XXX  .  V00000000 e-Business Strategy and Process 

1. Business Planning and Strategy

  • Business Structure - determine business structure
  • Legal Research - determine business legal requirements, prerequisite and implications
  • Business Concept - determine business concept, practicability and prospects
  • Business Strategy - determine business direction, , income requirements, customer or user acquisition
  • Operational Strategy - determine business operations requirements and prerequisite

2. Market Research, Planning and Strategy

  • Market Research - research market landscape and audience demographics
  • Design and Usability Research - research audience landscape and brand and usability requirements
  • Competitive Research - research competitive landscape and your competitive approach, brand and marketting strategy
  • Brand Strategy - determine brand direction based on audience and market landscape
  • Marketing Research and Strategy - Research and determine available marketing options. For example: SEO, SEM, Social Networking, PR, Advertising

3. Design, Development, SEO, SEM

  • Project Management - Select and assign project manager(s)
  • Technology Selection - Technology and platform selection
  • SEO, SEM and other marketing strategy implementation - Plan and determine the marketing options and tailor the site structure and design to accomodate different online marketing options
  • Wireframing - Create site structure, navigation and how it intract with the users or clients
  • Design and Development - Hire a design and development firm (or team) to create the site design and branding and develop (program) the site

4. e-Business Deployment and Maintenance

  • Beta Launch, Bug Fixing and Usability testing - Launch the site in beta mode and have testers (or volunteer users) to test your site for bugs and usability issues
  • Hosting and Security - Select hosting and security componets (such as SSL certificate, etc.) for your site
  • Go Live - Deploy the site and go live
  • Maintanance - Hire a design and development team to maintain and manage your development, backup and other site management needs
  • Version Control and Upgrades - Hire a development team to implement upgrades or version control systems


  Web Development Cost / Rate Comparison - Different Types of Custom Web Application Companies 

There are different types of development companies with different business models, which creates different cost structures. Below are a few examples:

"Extravagant Class" Custom Web Development Companies

I cannot classify these companies based on the number of employees or company sales or finances; however, I can classify them based on their luxurious building, excessive spending and highly paid employees or executives.
These types of companies tend to only do business with a certain class of clients who are willing to spent at least $200K on any project. Their average web application development cost is around $500K and their staff or contractors' salary is in the six figure plus range.
Their proposals are usually based on a lot of fluff with the development rate ranging from $400 - $800 per hour.
These types of companies focus on custom development. Although they are highly organized and it is almost guaranteed that your project is going to be completed, they tend to maneuver or progress slowly and their development process requires an immense amount of fluff.
For large companies who have lots of extra money to waste, these types of development companies will be a perfect fit.
In addition, the persons who help make the decision to select the large development company do not have to worry about their job or the decision they made; if the project goes wrong, they can always say, "We picked them because they were the largest in the field like us so we did not expect to experience any sort of issues!"

"Moderate Class" Custom Development Companies

These types of companies tend to have a moderate and reasonable spending and operation. Their average number of employees are in the 10-20 range.
Their proposals are usually based on the estimated hours at the development rate ranging from $100 - $200 per hour.
These types of companies may or may not be organized, depending on the quality of their company management. They tend to be able to move quickly on any project with a faster development process.
When you hire this type of company, the result of your project is based on the company owners or management's ethical standards or honesty, experience in development, design ability, usability awareness, SEO practices, development specialty and other relating factors.
In my opinion, a web development company in this category makes a perfect choice as a long term developer and supporting partner for a company's project, small to large, as long as the company has the following dynamics:
  • Has set forth high ethical standards
  • Has considerable experience in large scale development projects (with quality programming)
  • Has considerable experience in design, usability and search engine optimization

"Small Class" Development Companies

These types of businesses run their operation on a very low budget and usually has only 2-3 workers including the business owners / partners in the company.
Their proposals are usually based on estimated hours at the development rate ranging from $75 - $180 per hour.
These types of businesses are usually not organized. They cannot take on a large development project.
When you hire this type of company, the result of your project is based on the company owners or management's ethical standards or honesty, experience in development, design ability, usability awareness, SEO practices, development specialty and other relating factors.
These types of development companies are a perfect fit for servicing small budget business clients, for example, a small one location - mom and pop ice cream shop.

Independent Contractor Developers

Independent contractors have their own different class of financial expectations, and their rate is based on their knowledge and experience and / or other factors such as cost of living, financial needs and spending habits.
Their rate can range anywhere from $50 - $250 per hour.
The level of organization and / or the ultimate result of a project engagement varies based on the person's development and business experience, and years in the business. It also highly depends on the developer's ethical standards.
If an independent contractor already has a salaried job and provides development on the side, there is a good possibility that he / she will get burned out or run into time constraints, and will quit the contract work in the middle of the project. In these types of circumstances, contacting the developer can become difficult and sometimes result in even the loss of the project files.
Many designers and developers start their independent contracting business and end up quitting their business within the first year or two because they either become burned out or realize and encounter the usual challenges of running a small business.
In my experience, if an independent contractor does not have at least five years of experience in his / her independent contracting business, there is a good chance that the business and the pending projects will end up in limbo.
An experienced independent contractor developer will not be able to take on a large development project single handedly; however, if he / she is experienced in the development field, he / she may be a good candidate for consulting.

Low Cost, Mass Producing Template Level Off-shore Development Companies

These types of development companies concentrate on mass producing template type web sites.
Their rate can range anywhere from $35 - $90 per hour.
In my opinion, these types of development companies in many cases do not practice high ethical standards. Their business model is based on mass production with very little focus on their client's success.
These companies would not make a good choice for developing a custom web application. Their ideal clients are the speculators who just need to put together a quick web application without doing any homework or planning. In most cases, those projects end up failing because there was not a lot of business and marketing intelligence and / or due diligence that went into the concept and planning of the project in the first place.
Usually there isn't any project support or maintenance available from the massproducing development companies.
Many of those companies may use quick and easy resources available in order to mass produce projects. This includes patching together any available code libraries (good or bad) and / or outsourcing to low cost off-shore companies.




                               What is a Content Management System (CMS)? 

Content Management System (CMS) and other spin-off terms definition(s)

CMS became a buzz word in the web development industry because of its benefits.

CMS stands for Content Management System. It is a term and has not been endorsed with a solid definition. A CMS can have multiple meanings depending on the scenarios and the person's or project objectives.

To add to the confusion, an organization named AIIM (Association for Information and Image Management) claimed the acronym ECM (Enterprise Content Management) and WCM (Web Content Management) as their creation and came up with their own definition that suites their organization's services. AIIM changed their definition of ECM a few times and submitted their definitions to Wikipedia, which is now published.

At the time of this writing, for most scenarios, when someone in the web development industry is talking about CMS (Content Management System), or ECMS (Enterprise Content Management System), he / she is more likely referring to either the first or second definition below.

In this article, I'll put the emphasis on the common CMS definitions and not the one created by AIIM. The detail of the purpose, use, and examples are all in the area of the commonly used definition.

Content Management System (CMS) common definition #1

The definition of a CMS is an application (more likely web-based), that provides capabilities for multiple users with different permission levels to manage (all or a section of) content, data or information of a website project, or internet / intranet application.

Managing content refers to creating, editing, archiving, publishing, collaborating on, reporting, distributing website content, data and information.
An example of a CMS application is a Web Application that provides the following administration, control panel or website management functionalities:
  • Create, Edit, Publish, Archive web pages
  • Create, Edit, Publish, Archive articles
  • Create, Edit, Publish, Archive press releases
  • Create, Edit, Publish, Archive blogs
  • Add / Edit events into an Event Calendar
  • Add / Edit Inventory (products), description, product specifications, prices, photos, etc.
  • Enter, Edit, or View orders and print packing slips and invoices
  • View reports and statistics site data
  • Create and Edit system users which have different permission levels to different section(s) of the above administration

Comentum CMS and eCommerce Example


Content Management System  definition #2

(This definition is similar to the definition of WCM (Web Content Management System) which is set forth by AIIM. )

In this definition, when someone refers to CMS, he / she is referring to a web application that provides capabilities for multiple users with different permission levels to manage web page (content) without the need to have HTML knowledge.
Below is an example of a simple CMS Application which provides web page editing capabilities:

Administration or Control Panel:
  • Create, Edit, Publish, Archive web pages
  • Create, Edit, Publish, Archive articles
  • Create, Edit, Publish, Archive press releases


Enterprise Content Management System (ECM / ECMS)

When someone refers to Enterprise Content Management System (ECM / ECMS), he / she may be talking about any of the following definitions:

1. A Content Management System (CMS) application with a credible track record designed to serve and support the needs of a large size organization or a large scale Content Management System.

2. An application with multiple functionalities that provides a full-scale Content Management System tailored for a company's organization and processes.

3. An application that provides the tools and capabilities to manage, store, and deliver content and documents tailored for a company's internal organization, workflow and processes. (AIIM's definition in brief)

Content Management System (CMS) Purpose

The main purpose of a Content Management System (relating to web) is to provide the capability for multiple users with different permission levels to manage a website or a section of the content.

For example, you can take a website which has Articles, Blogs, Press Releases, Store, Events and assign each section or a part of a section to user(s) to create, edit, and archive.

Content Management System (CMS) Pitfalls and Misconceptions

1. One of the largest misconceptions about CMS is that it is the main ingredient for a website's success. That is completely untrue. A CMS should make it easy for a website owner or webmaster(s) to manage and distribute content, but a website's success has nothing to do with CMS; it has to do with the quality of content, quality of services, marketing and many other factors that are outside of the realm of this article.

2. The second misconception about CMS is that it will eliminate a need for hiring a web developer or programmer to make changes to a website. That is not true in many cases.

Most CMS systems especially the Open Source CMS systems that are bloated to cover every possible functionality (whether needed or not) will require an experienced web programmer to make any customizations for tailoring to one's business objectives and for maintaining a large scale project.

A very good example of a bloated open source CMS system is Drupal. Most end-users are told that Drupal is the best and most cost effective solution for any website. That is completely untrue. It requires a web programmer to setup and customize a Drupal project, and due to its complexity and bloated nature, it will require an experienced webmaster or web developer to maintain and manage a Drupal site.

So, if you are a small business and the cost is a factor in developing your website, you may consider a CMS application that does not require a substantial number of programming hours for set up and on-going maintenance.

3. One of the important ingredients for a website's success is to build a brand that users can remember, revisit and tell their friends.

Unfortunately, most CMS systems are written by programmers. Programmers usually do not have the design, branding and usability experience. That is why most of the out-of-the-box open source CMS sites that have not been customized have no branding and personality.


     
                XXX  .  V0000000  Competitive Advantage: Security, Privacy & Usability

The shift in a business models from a one-time sales event to a longer product lifecycle, providing add-on digital services over time drives up customers’ expectations around usability, privacy and security.
That makes these priorities for digital services a must-have for any business attempting to stay competitive in a digital industry.
In a 2016 survey of emerging consumer risks over the next five years, the Traveler’s Risk Index found that 32 percent of Americans are concerned about cyber risk and the Internet of Things (IoT), second to global political and social unrest. Top overall concerns include financial, personal safety, privacy loss and identity theft, mainly related to the threat of bank or financial accounts getting hacked.
Similarly, the same survey found that 54 percent of businesses are concerned with cyber, computer/technology risks and data breaches, among other top concerns about medical cost inflation and increasing employee benefit costs. Another 25 percent feel unprepared to deal with cyber risks.

Business Security Spending Priorities

According to PwC, business spending priorities for the next year include improved collaboration among business, digital and IT (51%), and spending on new security needs related to evolving business models (46%). Another 43% are spending on biometrics and advanced authentication.
Those new security needs include technology like encryption, next-generation firewalls, network segmentation and identity and access management. As Tom Puthiyamadam, Global Digital Services Leader of PwC stated:
Leading companies are integrating cybersecurity, privacy and digital ethics from the outset. And that enables them to better engage with existing customers and attract new ones. Many also see efficiencies in operations, business processes and IT investments.

Multi-Factor Authentication as a Differentiator

The top managed security service used is authentication, at 64 percent, followed by data loss prevention (61 percent) and identity and access management (61 percent).
Respondents reported that advanced authentication (PwC uses this term in reference to multi-factor authentication) technologies have made online transactions more secure, boosted consumer confidence in company security and privacy capabilities, and enhanced the customer experience while protecting brand reputation.
While in the past, many companies implemented multi-factor authentication after a breach, nowadays, most are implementing the technology as a preventative measure to secure access to on-premises, cloud and web applications and services, and as a stronger authentication option for their customers to protect their individual banking, social media, iCloud and many other types of accounts.

Global Data Regulations

In addition to being a competitive advantage, there are data regulatory requirements that vary by each country that are also driving changes in enterprise security.
These include the European Union (EU)’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) going into effect April 2018 that mandates data privacy for EU citizens - noncompliance can result in fines of up to 4 percent of the company’s global annual revenue.
Additionally, many U.S. businesses will need to comply with the Privacy Shield, the successor to the Safe Harbor framework that protects EU citizens’ personal data in transit.



                         XXX  .  V00000000  Electronic and manual record keeping  


While some business owners prefer manual record keeping systems, most businesses use an electronic record keeping system - making it easier to capture information, generate reports and meet tax and legal reporting requirements.
There are a number of issues you should consider when setting up an electronic or manual record keeping system, as each has certain advantages and limitations.

Electronic record keeping

Most businesses use accounting software programs to simplify electronic record keeping, and produce meaningful reports. There are many other advantages to using electronic record keeping, as listed below.

Advantages

  • Helps you record business transactions, including income and expenses, payments to workers, and stock and asset details.
  • Efficient way to keep financial records and requires less storage space.
  • Provides the option of recording a sale when you raise an invoice, not when you receive a cash payment from a client.
  • Easy to generate orders, invoices, debtor reports, financial statements, employee pay records, inventory reports.
  • Automatically tallies amounts and provides reporting functions.
  • Keeps up with the latest tax rates, tax laws and rulings.
  • Many accounting programs have facilities to email invoices to clients, orders to suppliers, or BAS returns to the Australian Taxation Office.
  • Allows you to back up records and keep them in a safe place in case of fire or theft.

Choosing accounting software

Our business may require more than one software program to meet all of your tax and legal needs,

Electronic backup

Set up a secure electronic backup system to ensure records are safely stored and regularly backed up. Daily backups are recommended, particularly for important records. Make sure the backup copies are stored in a separate location to your business in case of fire, theft or a natural disaster.
For small businesses, the cheapest backup options are CDs and memory sticks. If your business has large amounts of data, external hard drives are a popular backup option.

Cloud backup

Cloud computing provides a way for your business to manage your computing resources and records online. The term has evolved over recent years, and can be used to describe the use of a third party for your storage and computing needs.
Cloud backup services are becoming more popular and can be automated for your convenience, but you should make sure the method you choose protects the privacy and security of your business and customers.

Manual record keeping

Some business owners may want to use a simple, paper-based record keeping system. There are certain advantages to using manual record keeping, as listed below.

Advantages

  • Less expensive to set up.
  • Correcting entries may be easier with manual systems, as opposed to computerised ones that can leave complicated audit trails.
  • The risk of corrupted data is much less.
  • Data loss is less of a risk, particularly if records are stored in a fire-proof environment.
  • Problems with duplicate copies of the same records are generally avoided.
  • The process is simplified as you don't need to be familiar with how accounting software calculates and treats your information.

Streamline your manual record keeping

  • Sort and store all paperwork, receipts and payments in 12 separate months.
  • Keep all original documents and date all correspondence.
  • Record all transaction dates and payment amounts.
  • Save all online financial transactions by month and financial year in your inbox and in a separate folder on your hard drive.
  • Backup all electronic records on an external hard drive or other storage device other than your computer's internal hard drive.
  • Capture nearly all of your income and expenses in statements from both your bank and credit card accounts.
  • Request that all statements and bills be sent on a monthly basis - allowing you to reconcile all financial records each month.


Internet banking

Internet banking for business is growing in popularity, as it is:
  • convenient - you can access your accounts, check balances and make payments at any time of day or night
  • secure - banks use sophisticated security systems to protect funds
  • efficient - you can see all your transactions and balances in real time
  • time-saving - you can set up direct debits and automatic payments for regular bills, giving your staff more time for other tasks. Automated payments also reduce errors.
Internet banking also helps you meet the needs of customers who may want to pay your invoices online.
our financial adviser or accountant can help you establish what products and services you need for internet banking. Once you have a list of your needs, ask your bank to help you set up an internet banking system.
It is often best to start with a simple system. You can progress to more sophisticated applications as your experience and business grows.


            XXX  .  V00000000  Electronic World: How We Use Electronics in Daily Life   

Using electronics today is so much a part of our daily lives we hardly think of the way the world would be without electronics. Everything from cooking to music uses electronics or electronic components in some way. Our family car has many electronic components, as does our cooking stove, laptop and cell phone. Children and teenagers carry mobile phones with them everywhere and use them to take and send pictures, videos, and to play music. They send text messages on the cell phone to other phones and to their home computers.

Wireless internet is becoming more common all the time, with laptops set up in cyber cafes where people can drink coffee and check their email all at the same time. The computer user can do all the web searching in relative privacy thanks to the electronic accessories which can be added to the computer. Conversely, more and more transactions are being sent electronically across the airwaves so security is becoming a larger issue than ever before. Merchants who sell products online must be able to assure their customers that information submitted at a website is not being accessed by unauthorized personnel.

Music is a prime user of electronics, both in recording and in playback mode. Stereos, record players, tape decks, cassette players, CD drives and DVD players are all the result of advances in electronics technology in the last few decades. Today people can carry a playlist of hundreds of songs around with them easily in a very small device--easily portable. When you add Bluetooth or headphones the music can be heard by the user, but does not disturb those nearby.

Electronics technology in cameras has increased dramatically. A digital camera is available to most Americans at a price they can afford and cellphones often includes a fairly sophisticated digital camera that can capture still pictures or even video pictures and store them or transfer them to a computer where they can be saved, shared digitally with family or friends or printed out in hard form with a photo printer device. Pictures obtained through a camera or by means of a scanner can be edited, cropped, enhanced or enlarged easily through the marvel of electronics.

Literally thousands of everyday devices that we use constantly make use of electronics technology in order to operate. These are products ranging from automotive engines to automated equipment in production settings. Even artistic efforts benefit from computer modeling prior to the committing of valuable artistic media to create the finished product.

Electronics devices are being used in the health field, not only to assist in diagnosis and determination of medical problems, but to assist in the research that is providing treatment and cures for illnesses and even genetic anomalies. Equipment such as MRI, CAT and the older X-rays, tests for diabetes, cholesterol and other blood component tests all rely on electronics in order to do their work quickly and accurately. Pacemakers and similar equipment implanted in the body is now almost routine.
 
                 XXX  .  V00000000  Essential Office Equipment for Starting a Business 
 
Starting up a business or office will require both office furniture and office equipment. Purchasing office equipment, such as computers, software, printers, fax machines and network equipment will most likely be your second largest startup expense. If you plan carefully you will be able to control your office equipment expenditures by only buying the essential equipment you really need. The following is a list of the essential office equipment that you will likely need in your office.

Business Telephone System

office teleconference and computer equipment
           
Perhaps the primary means you will use for communicating with customers and vendors will be the telephone. Understanding what services, features, and options are available will help buy the right size phone system for the right price for your business.
        

Computers and Software

Information is the lifeblood of any successful organization today. The key to leveraging information to your advantage is purchasing and implementing the right computers and software for your business. The computer is also now essential to business communication thanks to email.
You will also want to explore systems for backing up your business data. There are many online services available now that will save you having to invest in secure and reliable on-site backup equipment for your office.                                                                       
        

Computer Network and Internet Connection

If information is the lifeblood of the business, then computer networks are the veins and arteries that channel that information throughout all the parts of your business. For this, you will need Ethernet cabling, a router, and switches, especially if you are setting up a larger network that will support numerous employees. You'll need a modem for connecting your network to the outside world, and with that modem, you'll need ​Internet service from a provider.                                                   

Multifunction Printer                    
Information is organized, manipulated and moved electronically but people still love paper. If it’s electronic we want to print it. If it’s printed we want to scan it. If it’s somewhere else, we want to fax it. Buying one machine to do it all can save you time and money.                                                                     

Smartphone

"Time is money," as they say, and communicating effectively and timely will make you money or save you money. Keeping yourself organized and on-time not only has an economic impact but will also help you manage the stresses in your life. Having access to your office email through your smartphone can offer an enormous advantage and convenience (of course, this comes with the downside that you may feel like you never leave your office, which can become an issue for your work-life balance).                                                                     

Shredder

Just as quickly as we generate paper we must destroy it. Your business is responsible for the information it possesses. It may be an employee’s personal information, a customer list, a client's sensitive materials or a confidential memo. Information that you're responsible for that gets into the wrong hands can be devastating to your company and your clients.

Mailing Equipment

Documents, product samples, catalogs, and statements are just a few examples of items that may be shipped out of your company. The proper mailing equipment, such as scales and postage software can save your company valuable time and money


Strategies for Small Business Shipping

If you're not shipping hundreds of packages a day, you probably fall under the category of "small business shipper." That means you may be someone who sells a few items on eBay out of your home, or you may own a more formal business with an office or commercial location that employs several employees.
No matter what form your small business takes, implementing a few shipping best practices can help save you time and money.

Small Business Shipping Considerations

To minimize your costs, you should find a shipping service that will offer you the lowest cost overall. Shipping costs are determined by the following factors:
  • Delivery time (2-day, overnight, parcel post, etc.)
  • Ship from/to addresses
  • Weight of product and packing material
  • Dimensions of your box/container
  • Insurance
  • Package tracking and delivery confirmation
  • Handling and special fees

Rates Are Negotiable

Depending upon the volume that you ship every month, small business shipping rates can be negotiated. The more you ship, the more leverage you will have when negotiating for a lower rate. But don't assume you're too small to qualify for special rates or discounts. Discounts can be negotiated with as few as 100 packages per month. Contact shipping services, open accounts with them and talk with a representative about your business—they may have rates you can take advantage of that may not be listed on their website or general customers.

Pick-Up and Delivery

Running to the post office or the carrier's storefront location is not only time-consuming but costly, too. If the carrier will make pick-ups and deliveries free of charge, this can save you some money. The only disadvantage is that you will be at the mercy of the carrier's pick-up schedule.

In-House Postage Printing

Postage for packages and thick envelopes will vary depending upon the carrier's rules and restrictions. Once you understand these, you can save time and money by printing the postage directly from your computer. Shipping services may even offer special software that can integrate with business software you use, such as Quickbooks, that make the process even simpler. Visit your chosen carrier's website to learn how.

Handling Charges

If you ship items that are extremely fragile or perishable, you will incur additional handling charges to ensure the safe delivery of your package.

International Shipping Costs

You will want to do research on shipping and taxes if you plan to ship internationally. Tariffs and other taxes vary by country and can vary by the product being shipped. These can significantly increase the cost of shipping a product to these locations.

Shipping Supplies and Materials

In addition to postage, shipping supplies such as business envelopes, padded envelopes, boxes, cushioning material and tape need to be taken into consideration. Comparison shopping can help you save money on office supplies.

Drop-Off Locations

For critical orders that must be shipped overnight, you must take into account the nearest drop off location for the shipper of your choosing.


Information technology (IT) risk management

Information technology (IT) plays a critical role in many businesses.
If you own or manage a business that makes use of IT, it is important to identify risks to your IT systems and data, to reduce or manage those risks, and to develop a response plan in the event of an IT crisis. Business owners have legal obligations in relation to privacy, electronic transactions, and staff training that influence IT risk management strategies.
IT risks include hardware and software failure, human error, spam, viruses and malicious attacks, as well as natural disasters such as fires, cyclones or floods.
You can manage IT risks by completing a business risk assessment. Having a business continuity plan can help your business recover from an IT incident.
This guide helps you understand IT risks and provides information about ways to prepare for and respond to IT incidents.


What is an information technology risk?

If your business relies on information technology (IT) systems such as computers and networks for key business activities you need to be aware of the range and nature of risks to those systems.

General IT threats

General threats to IT systems and data include:
  • hardware and software failure - such as power loss or data corruption
  • malware - malicious software designed to disrupt computer operation
  • viruses - computer code that can copy itself and spread from one computer to another, often disrupting computer operations
  • spam, scams and phishing - unsolicited email that seeks to fool people into revealing personal details or buying fraudulent goods
  • human error - incorrect data processing, careless data disposal, or accidental opening of infected email attachments.

Criminal IT threats

Specific or targeted criminal threats to IT systems and data include:
  • hackers - people who illegally break into computer systems
  • fraud - using a computer to alter data for illegal benefit
  • passwords theft - often a target for malicious hackers
  • denial-of-service - online attacks that prevent website access for authorised users
  • security breaches - includes physical break-ins as well as online intrusion
  • staff dishonesty - theft of data or sensitive information, such as customer details.

Natural disasters and IT systems

Natural disasters such as fire, cyclone and floods also present risks to IT systems, data and infrastructure. Damage to buildings and computer hardware can result in loss or corruption of customer records/transactions.


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Multiple Shipping Partners

Even though you may be able to negotiate a lower cost by dealing with one shipping carrier exclusively, you can increase customer satisfaction by offering several choices so that your customers can choose who they would like you to use. Also, this can create some competition between the carriers for your business.