Assignment 1 - Pre-course Knowledge Assessment

Instructions:

...you will need to answer these questions in an entry titled "Pre-course Knowledge Assessment". Please do not use any resources other than what you already know to answer these questions (that mean no books, friends, or google). Please attempt to answer all of the questions even if your answer is "I do not know".

1) Describe Porter's Five Forces model and describe how it's relevant to issues in electronic commerce.

I don't know.

2) What is a PSP (Payment Service Provider)? Give three examples and explain how they operate.

My guess is that a PSP is a service that takes care of all the financial tasks on your e-commerce website. So you just take care of the order receipt and fulfilling process - The PSP will worry about the billing, credits, disputes and whatnot. Examples are like PayPal?

3) What are some common security threats that a typical E-commerce site might face? What are some risk mitigation strategies for dealing with these issues?

• Fraud - People using stolen credit cards
• Denial of service - If a site is attacked, they could potentially lose serious revenue
• Identity theft - If a site is hacked and customer data (e.g., personal information, purchasing behavior, billing information) is disclosed
• Phishing attempts - An organization's reputation can be damaged if their customers are fooled by phishing
  

4) Describe what is meant by the Semantic Web. What are some technologies that make use of this theory.

I don't know.

5) What are managerial process plans? How are they relevant to software requirements specifications? Name and briefly describe an example plan.

I don't know.

6) Describe three distinct E-commerce revenue models

I don't know.



(don't laugh - that's what this class is for, right?) :)