Private online digital currency systems offer people accessible, convenient, and inexpensive everyday financial tools outside of traditional bank-owned and operated platforms. Digital currency systems facilitate local and international fund transfers, online and offline payments, and simple cash-to-digital everyday financial products without the need for a conventional bank account of any retail bank product. Over the past several years, Bitcoin has grown into an efficient person-to-person and person-to-business payment system without the backing of any bank or financial institution. This phenomenon is producing a new level of an on- and offline commerce and a society much more attuned to digital currency systems. The Digital Currency Challenge details how new 2007-2008 U.S. legal issues surrounding digital currency products forced companies from the U.S. market and caused the Treasury Department to enact stricter regulations. Mullan profiles new and innovative present day digital currency systems, such as Bitcoin, and illustrates how software designers and monetary theorists use new technology to circumvent current U.S. regulations. This work also explains how new digital currency systems are not just software products, but tools providing financial freedom to people in countries all around the world.

As the IoT market is booming, several issues are delaying the full realization of the technology. IoT devices, in cybersecurity terms, greatly increase security risk. This means that any scientific work that offers cybersecurity strategies will excite security experts who will be glad to expand their knowledge base on IoT cybersecurity. As a result of the booming of the IoT market, business competitors are jockeying for a piece of the market. This means that solutions from researchers that address compatibility issues will be greatly welcomed by IoT technology developers. Connectivity providers are likely to embrace solutions to challenges of bandwidth since a growing IoT market must be followed up by bandwidth-intensive IoT applications which tend to jostle for space on the current client-server model. Overpromising followed by underdelivering, has been the current approach by many innovators and the mismatch results in losses in production, orphaned technologies accompanied by frequent system failures. Solutions that address IoT performance issues are likely to excite many start-ups. Solutions to challenges of fragmentation presented by thousands of devices from different manufacturers operating on proprietary ecosystems are likely to be warmly embraced by many IoT brands developers. As such, a publication that specifically addresses the challenges faced in the rolling out of IoT technologies is sorely needed.

While e-commerce has experienced meteoric growth recently, security risks have similarly grown in scope and magnitude. Three major factors have driven the security risks in e-commerce: the growing reliance on the electronic medium for a company's core business, the growing complexity of the software systems needed to support e-commerce, and the value of the digital assets brought online to an inherently insecure medium - the Internet. While security has long been a primary concern in e-commerce, more recently privacy has also grown in importance to consumers. Many of the same Internet technologies that make e-commerce possible also make it possible to create detailed profiles of an individual's purchases, to spy on individual Web usage habits, and even to peer into confidential files that reside on an individual's machine. E-Commerce Security and Privacy is the first volume to pull together leading researchers and practitioners in diverse areas of computer science and software engineering to explore their technical innovations to problems in security and privacy in e-commerce. The information is drawn from selected papers presented at the first Workshop on Security and Privacy in E-Commerce (WSPEC'00) held in Athens, Greece, November 4, 2000. As such, E-Commerce Security and Privacy introduces both practitioners and researchers to innovations in secure and private e-commerce. Practitioners will gain great insight from the case studies, and researchers will learn about state-of-the-art protocols in secure and private e-commerce that will serve as the basis for future innovations in applied e-commerce technologies. E-Commerce Security and Privacy is suitable as a secondary text for agraduate level course, and as a reference for researchers and practitioners in industry.

The Social Web (including services such as MySpace, Flickr, last.fm, and WordPress) has captured the attention of millions of users as well as billions of dollars in investment and acquisition. Social websites, evolving around the connections between people and their objects of interest, are encountering boundaries in the areas of information integration, dissemination, reuse, portability, searchability, automation and demanding tasks like querying. The Semantic Web is an ideal platform for interlinking and performing operations on diverse person- and object-related data available from the Social Web, and has produced a variety of approaches to overcome the boundaries being experienced in Social Web application areas.

After a short overview of both the Social Web and the Semantic Web, Breslin et al. describe some popular social media and social networking applications, list their strengths and limitations, and describe some applications of Semantic Web technology to address their current shortcomings by enhancing them with semantics. Across these social websites, they demonstrate a twofold approach for interconnecting the islands that are social websites with semantic technologies, and for powering semantic applications with rich community-created content. They conclude with observations on how the application of Semantic Web technologies to the Social Web is leading towards the "Social Semantic Web" (sometimes also called "Web 3.0"), forming a network of interlinked and semantically-rich content and knowledge.

The book is intended for computer science professionals, researchers, and graduates interested in understanding the technologies and research issues involved in applying Semantic Web technologies to social software. Practitioners and developers interested in applications such as blogs, social networks or wikis will also learn about methods for increasing the levels of automation in these forms of Web communication.

The Web is growing at an astounding pace surpassing the 8 billion page mark. However, most pages are still designed for human consumption and cannot be processed by machines. This book provides a well-paced introduction to the Semantic Web. It covers a wide range of topics, from new trends (ontologies, rules) to existing technologies (Web Services and software agents) to more formal aspects (logic and inference). It includes: real-world (and complete) examples of the application of Semantic Web concepts; how the technology presented and discussed throughout the book can be extended to other application areas.

This visionary book presents an interdisciplinary and cogent approach to the issue of Internet governance and control. By examining five critical areas in which the tension between freedom and control is most palpable--fair competition and open access, free expression, intellectual property, privacy rights, and security--Spinello guides the reader on a tour of the emerging body of law and public policy that has attempted to control the anarchy of cyberspace. In so doing, he defends the credo of Internet self-regulation, asserting that the same powerful and flexible architectures that created the Internet as we know it today can be relied upon to aid the private sector in arriving at a workable, decentralized regulatory regime. Except in certain circumstances that require government involvement, self-regulation is not only viable but is a highly preferred alternative to the forced uniformity that centralized structures tend to impose.

Beginning with an exploration of the Internet's most important values, including universality, free expression, and open access, as well as its promise as a democratizing force, Spinello considers how we can most effectively preserve those values and fulfill that promise while curtailing the social harms that vex Internet users. How do we arrive at the right mixture of technology and policy so that the Internet does not lose its promise as a liberating technology? In examining this question, Spinello evaluates such architectures of control as filters and rights management protocols, which attempt to keep out unwanted information and protect intellectual property, respectively. He explores how these and other technologies can be designed and used responsibly so that online social order can be sustained with a minimal amount of government intervention.

The Semantic Web aims at machine agents that thrive on explicitly specified semantics of content in order to search, filter, condense, or negotiate knowledge for their human users. A core technology for making the Semantic Web happen, but also to leverage application areas like Knowledge Management and E-Business, is the field of Semantic Annotation, which turns human-understandable content into a machine understandable form. This book reports on the broad range of technologies that are used to achieve this translation and nourish 3rd millennium applications. The book starts with a survey of the oldest semantic annotations, viz. indexing of publications in libraries. It continues with several techniques for the explicit construction of semantic annotations, including approaches for collaboration and Semantic Web metadata. One of the major means for improving the semantic annotation task is information extraction and much can be learned from the semantic tagging of linguistic corpora. In particular, information extraction is gaining prominence for automating the formerly purely manual annotation task - at least to some extent.An important subclass of information extraction tasks is the goal-oriented extraction of content from HTML and / or XML resources.

'Securing Web Services' investigates the security-related specifications that encompass message level security, transactions, and identity management.

Law on the Web is ideal for anyone who wants to access Law Internet resources quickly and efficiently without becoming an IT expert. The emphasis throughout is on the location of high quality law Internet resources for learning, teaching and research, from among the billions of publicly accessible Web pages. The book is structured so that it will be found useful by both beginners and intermediate level users, and be of continuing use over the course of higher education studies. In addition to extensive coverage on locating files and Web sites, Part III provides a substantial and annotated list of high quality resources for law students.

This book introduces a promising design for future Internet, the Smart Collaborative Identifier NETwork (SINET). By examining cutting-edge research from around the world, it is the first book to provide a comprehensive survey of SINET, including its basic theories and principles, a broad range of architectures, protocols, standards, and future research directions. For further investigation, the book also provides readers an experimental analysis of SINET to promote further, independent research. The second part of the book presents in detail key technologies in SINET such as scalable routing, efficient mapping systems, mobility management and security issues. In turn, the last part presents various implementations of SINET, assessing its merits. The authors believe SINET will greatly benefit researchers involved in designing future Internet thanks to its high degree of flexibility, security, manageability, mobility support and efficient resource utilization.

Sociology on the Web is directed at those who want to be able to access sociology Internet resources quickly and efficiently without needing to become IT experts. The emphasis throughout is on the location of high quality sociology Internet related resources likely to be useful for learning, teaching and research, from among the billions of publicly accessible Web pages. In addition to extensive coverage of topics relating to the efficient location of files and Web sites, Part III provides a substantial and annotated list of high quality resources likely to be of use to students of sociology. The work is structured so that it will be found useful by both beginners and intermediate level users, and be of continuing use over the course of higher education studies.

Psychology on the Web: A Student Guide is directed at those who want to be able to access psychology Internet resources quickly and efficiently without needing to become IT experts. The emphasis throughout is on the location of high quality psychology related Internet resources likely to be useful for learning, teaching and research, from among the billions of publicly accessible Web pages.Whilst the author has drawn on a large volume of technical literature, it is written on the basis of practical experience acquired over many years of using Internet resources in the context of teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses in the social sciences covering a wide range of topic specialisms, and in informing academic staff. In addition to extensive coverage of topics relating to the efficient location of files and Web sites, Part III provides a substantial and annotated list of high quality resources likely to be of use to students of psychology. The work is structured so that it will be found useful by both beginners and intermediate level users, and be of continuing use over the course of higher education studies.

The importance of knowledge and information technology management has been emphasized both by researchers and practitioners in order for companies to compete in the global market. Now such technologies have become crucial in a sense that there is a need to understand the business and operations strategies, as well as how the development of IT would contribute to knowledge management and therefore increase competitiveness. Knowledge and Information Technology Management: Human and Social Perspectives strives to explore the human resource and social dimensions of knowledge and IT management, to discuss the opportunities and major issues related to the management of people along the supply chain in Internet marketing, and to provide an understanding of how the human resource and the IT management should complement each other for improved communication and competitiveness.

This book focuses on the modeling and management of spatial data in distributed systems. The authors have structured the contributions from internationally renowned researchers into four parts. The book offers researchers an excellent overview of the state-of-the-art in modeling and management of spatial data in distributed environments, while it may also be the basis of specialized courses on Web-based geographical information systems.

Electronic commerce is here to stay. No matter how big the dot-com crisis was or how far the e-entrepreneurs' shares fell in the market, the fact remains that there is still confidence in electronic trading. At least it would appear that investors are confident in e-companies again. However, not only trust of venture capitalists is of importance--consumers also have to have faith in on-line business. After all, without consumers there is no e-business. Interacting lawyers, technicians and economists are needed to create a trustworthy electronic commerce environment. To achieve this environment, thorough and inter-disciplinary research is required and that is exactly what this book is about. Researchers of the project Enabling Electronic Commerce from the Dutch universities of Tilburg and Eindhoven have chosen a number of e-topics to elaborate on trust from their point of view. This volume makes clear that the various disciplines can and will play a role in developing conditions for trust and thus contribute to a successful electronic market.

The use of geospatial technologies has become ubiquitous since the leading Internet vendors delivered a number of popular map websites. This book covers a wide spectrum of techniques, model methodologies and theories on development and applications of GIS relative to the internet. It includes coverage of business process services, and integration of GIS into global enterprise information systems and service architectures. The world's experts in this emerging field present examples and case studies for location-based services, coastal restoration, urban planning, battlefield planning, rehearsal environmental analysis and assessment.

This book provides an up-to-date study of technical, pedagogical and managerial issues in Web-based learning. The successful application of Web-based learning provides enhancements in workforce performance, helps to lower costs, and encourages innovation for Web-based and distance learning.It presents a selection of 20 refereed papers given at the First International Conference on Web-Based Learning from over 70 submissions by academic researchers and industry developers from 19 different countries. It provides an excellent resource for students, researchers and practitioners involved in Web-based learning.The proceedings have been selected for coverage in:* Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings (ISTP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings)* Index to Social Sciences & Humanities Proceedings (R) (ISSHP (R) / ISI Proceedings)* Index to Social Sciences & Humanities Proceedings (ISSHP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings)

Find the facts, figures, and connections you need on the Internet This powerful reference tool is the most comprehensive, reliable guide to Internet resources for the LBGTQ community. More than just a guide to useful Web sites, it also evaluates LGBTQ mailing lists, message boards, search engines, and portals. The Harvey Milk Institute Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Internet Research provides background information as well as useful URLs. It covers the history and objectives of major sites. The in-depth interviews with leaders of the queer Internet include discussions with Barry Harrison, Director of Queer Arts Resources, and Sister Mary Elizabeth, founder of AEGiS. The Harvey Milk Institute Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Internet Research includes resources for a variety of academic disciplines, including: the humanities the social sciences law labor studies media studies transgender and intersex studies and more Edited by Alan L. Ellis, co-chair of the institute's board of directors, The Harvey Milk Institute Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Internet Research is an indispensable tool for researchers, community leaders, and scholars.

Internet and web technology penetrates many aspects of our daily life. Its importance as a medium for business transactions will grow exponentially during the next few years. In terms of the involved market volume, the B2B area will hereby be the most interesting area. Also, it will be the place, where the new technology will lead to drastic changes in established customer relationships and business models. In an era where open and flexible electronic commerce provides new types of services to its users, simple 1-1 connections will be replaced by n-m relationships between customers and vendors.
This new flexibility in electronic trading will generate serious challenges. The main problem stems from the heterogeneity of information descriptions used by vendors and customers, creating problems in both manual trading and in direct 1-1 electronic trading. In the case of B2B market places, it becomes too serious to be neglected. Product descriptions, catalog formats and business documents are often unstructured and non-standardized. Intelligent solutions that mechanize the structuring, standardizing, aligning, and personalizing process are a key requisite for successfully overcoming the current bottlenecks of B2B electronic commerce while enabling its further growth. Intelligent Information Integration in B2B Electronic Commerce discusses the main problems of information integration in this area and sketches several technological solution paths.
Intelligent Information Integration in B2B Electronic Commerce is designed to meet the needs of a professional audience composed of researchers and practitioners in industry and graduate level students in Computer Science.

The Internet creates a very unique environment where numerous individuals and widely distributed organizations can communicate and even collaborate for common interests. Virtual communities, shared information databases, and online forums are visible examples of the self-organizing social collectivities, which emerge from the many-to-many interactions among voluntary participants. Online social communities exemplified by blogs and social networking sites are getting more and more attention nowadays from the business sector, and companies are eager to find ways to use them for business opportunities. Despite the mushrooming hype regarding the unlimited potentials of virtual community, little is known about its complex nature-how virtual communities are born, sustained, and under what circumstances they collapse. A virtual community is an aggregate of voluntary participants, in which individual behaviors are in conjunction with the behaviors of others. People decide to contribute or free-ride in response to the contributing or free-riding behaviors of others. If many people already are contributing to the community, for example, one may be strongly tempted to free-ride, while this may not be the case if there are very few contributors. Understanding this social interdependence is the key to grasping the collective dynamics underlying virtual communities. This book aims at illuminating the implications of the collective social dynamics in a computer-mediated environment on advertising, business, and communication in general. Along with conceptual discussions, this book shows some experimental findings related to the psychological and social-structural factors affecting individuals' communicative motivations. "This pioneering book should be valuable to read since it is one of the first academic attempts to shed light on how network structures influence the behaviors of individuals on the Internet." - John D. Leckenby, Professor and Everett D. Collier Centennial Chair in Communication, The University of Texas at Austin