Welcome!
As a student preparing for the upcoming course, Insuring E-Commerce Exposures, you are asked to read the material featured below. In so doing you will enhance your learning and be better prepared to address the complex issues inherent in identifying and insuring e-risks.
The following material has been prepared by other organizations who retain their proprietary rights.
No transmission or reproduction in any form is allowed by these organizations but permission is granted for use of this material for educational purposes.
Featured Reading Material:
Before attending FAIA's Insuring E-Commerce Exposures class, please read Web Wise: A guide to the issues and exposures of E-Commerce, also review the Glossary of Internet Terms.
Optional Reading Material:
You are encouraged to click on the case law listed below and read them before class too.
Case Laws:
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AMERICAN GUARANTEE & LIABILITY INSURANCE COMPANY v. INGRAM MICRO, INC.
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MAGNETIC DATA V.ST. PAUL FIRE AND MARINE
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THE HOME INDEMNITY COMPANY VHYPLAINS BEEF
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PLAYBOY ENTERPRISES, INC. V. FRENA
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LAZZARA OIL CO. V. COLUMBIA
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TICKETMASTER CORPORATION V. MICROSOFT CORPORATION
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BROOKFIELD COMMUNICATIONS V. WEST COAST ENTERTAINMENT
GLOSSARY OF INTERNET TERMS
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B2B
B2C
COOKIE
CORPORATE FIREWALL
CYBERSQUATTING
CYBERWOOZLING
DATA ENCRYPTION
DATA ENCRYPTION STANDARD
DEEP LINK
DOMAIN NAME
FLAMING
HACKER |
HOST
HTML
HYPERLINK
INTERNET
INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER (ISP)
LINK
METAFILE
PRIVACY & DISCLAIMER STATEMENT
SEARCH ENGINE
SPAM
SPOOF
VIRUS |
B2B
B2B (business-to-business) on the Internet is also known as e-biz, is the exchange of products, services, or information between businesses rather than between businesses and consumers. Although early interest centered on the growth of retailing on the Internet (sometimes called e-tailing), forecasts are that B2B revenue will far exceed business-to-consumers (B2C) revenue in the near future. According to studies published in early 2000, the money volume of B2B exceeds that of e-tailing by 10 to 1. Over the next five years, B2B is expected to have a compound annual growth of 41%. The Gartner Group estimates B2B revenue worldwide to be $7.29 trillion dollars by 2004. In early 2000, the volume of investment in B2B by venture capitalists was reported to be accelerating sharply although profitable B2B sites were not yet easy to find.
back to glossary
B2C
B2C is short for business-to-consumer, or the retailing part of e-commerce on the Internet. It is often contrasted to B2B or business-to-business.
back to glossary
COOKIE
A cookie is information that a Website puts on your hard disk so that it can remember something about you at a later time. (More technically, it is information for future use that is stored by the server on the client side of a client/server communication.) Typically, a cookie records your preferences when using a particular site. Using the Web's Hypertext Transfer Protocol, each request for a Web page is independent of all other requests. For this reason, the Web page server has no memory of what pages it has sent to a user previously or anything about your previous visits. A cookie is a mechanism that allows the server to store its own information about a user on the user's own computer. You can view the cookies that have been stored on your hard disk (although the content stored in each cookie may not make much sense to you). The location of the cookies depends on the browser. Internet Explorer stores each cookie as a separate file under a Windows subdirectory. Netscape stores all cookies in a single cookies.txt file. Opera stores them in a single cookies.dat file.
Cookies are commonly used to rotate the banner ads that a site sends so that it doesn't keep sending the same ad as it sends you a succession of requested pages. They can also be used to customize pages for you based on your browser type of other information you may have provided the Website. Web users must agree to let cookies be saved for them, but, in general, it helps Websites to serve users better.
back to glossary
CORPORATE FIREWALL
· Denies access for unauthorized log-ins
· Prevents data transmission from machines not set up for file transfer
· Provides intrusion detection to protect internal database and Intranet system back to glossary
CYBERSQUATTING
Cybersquatting is reserving an Internet domain name (often referred to as a "dot com" name) for the purpose of selling it later to a company that wants to use it. Commercial domain names (technically, you reserve a second-level domain name) are obtained from one of several registries, companies authorized to ensure that a domain name you want is unique (no one else already has it) and issue it to you if it is. However, these registries make no attempt to determine whether the domain name is one that rightfully ought to go to someone else. The principle is "First come, first served." For this reason, a number of enterprising individuals and companies have applied for and reserved domain names that they think someone else will want, either now or in the future. Well-known companies or their products, sports figures and other celebrities, political candidates, and others often discover that someone else has already reserved the domain name (for example, "sammysosa.com") they would most likely want to use. Although trademark laws may offer some protection, it is often cheaper to buy the domain name from the cybersquatter than it is to sue for its use.
Many cybersquatters reserve common English words, reasoning that sooner or later someone will want to use one for their Web site. Examples of words sold by cybersquatters to companies developing significant Web sites include drugstore.com, furniture.com, gardening.com, and Internet.com. eBay, the auction site, sometimes lists domain names for sale. Several cybersquatter companies offer their wares at their own Web sites.
Since there is an initial and yearly fee for owning a domain name, some cybersquatters reserve a long list of names and defer paying for them until forced to - preempting their use by others at no cost to themselves. The registry companies are working on this problem. Meanwhile, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which licenses the domain name registrars, is working on a process for resolving domain name disagreements outside of the regular court system.
The term derives from squatting, the practice of building some kind of home or dwelling or in some way using someone else's landed property without their permission. back to glossary
CYBERWOOZLING
Cyberwoozling is reputed to be the practice of gathering data from a Web user's PC when the user visits a Web site. Cyberwoozles, along with virus, junk e-mail (spam), and inappropriate content are among the threats seen as requiring measures to ensure content security. Cyberwoozles are "a combination of cookie and browser-side add-in code" (meaning code sent to the user's PC rather than run at the Web site).
Among other uses, cookies allow a Web site to put a small file on the user's own hard disk (within the browser directory structure) that allows the Web site to remember information about the user - for example, when the user last visited the site. Although cookies are commonly used on the Web and most users accept their use, some corporations might prefer not to allow them. MIMEsweeper can screen for cookies and allow or disallow them, depending on a company's wishes.
Browser-side code, such as Java applet, another commonly used Web device, could conceivably contain code designed to return information to the Web server that sent it. Again, MIMEsweeper can detect such code and handle it based on a company's instructions.
back to glossary
DATA ENCRYPTION
Data Encryption provides:
· Network-level security
· Secure Socket Layers (SSL) encrypt data for transmission between business partners to protect SSI: Web servers back to glossary
DATA ENCRYPTION STANDARD
Data Encryption Standard (DES) is a widely-used method of data encryption using a private (secret) key that was judged so difficult to break by the U.S. government that it was restricted for exportation to other countries. There are 72,000,000,000,000,000 (72 quadrillion) or more possible encryption keys that can be used. For each given message, the key is chosen at random from among this enormous number of keys. Like other private key cryptographic methods, both the sender and the receiver must know and use the same private key.
back to glossary
DEEP LINK
A deep link is a hypertext link to a page on a Website other than its home page. The "deep" refers to the depth of the page in a site's hierarchical structure of pages. Any page below the top page in the hierarchy (the home page) can thus be considered deep. The term has been given prominence in the legal suit of the Ticketmaster Corporation against Microsoft. A Microsoft-owned site (one of its Sidewalk sites) linked to a page of useful information within the Ticketmaster site, avoiding the Ticketmaster home page. Ticketmaster sued Microsoft for linking without permission, claiming that they were thus being deprived of advertising viewers for ads on their home page. In fact, their content was appearing within a Microsoft page containing their advertising.
Although the issue is still to be fully resolved, some observers think it likely that the prevalence of deep links on the Web will continue as an essential characteristic. Some suggests that most Websites implicitly encourage both home page and deep links simply by being part of the Web. He suggests that those sites that want to inhibit deep links to their site could state it clearly as a way to discourage such links. back to glossary
DOMAIN NAME
A domain name locates an organization or other entity on the Internet. For example, the domain name www.totalbaseball.com locates an Internet address for "totalbaseball.com" at Internet point 199.0.0.2 and a particular host server named "www". The "com" part of the domain name reflects the purpose of the organization or entity (in this example, "commercial") and is called the top-level domain name. The second-level domain name maps to and can be thought of as the "readable" version of the Internet address.
A third level can be defined to identify a particular host server at the Internet address. In our example, "www" is the name of the server that handles Internet requests. (A second server might be called "www2".) A third level of domain name is not required. For example, the fully qualified domain name could have been "totalbaseball.com" and the server assumed. Subdomain levels can be used. For example, you could have "www.nyyankees.totalbaseball.com". Together, "www.totalbaseball.com" constitutes a fully-qualified domain name.
Second-level domain names must be unique on the Internet and registered with one of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers-accredited registered for the COM, NET, ORG, EDU and GOV top-level domains. Where appropriate, a top-level domain name can be geographic. (Currently, most non-U.S. domain names use a top-level domain name based on the country the server is in.) To register a U.S. geographic domain name or a domain name under a country code, see an appropriate registrar.
On the Web, the domain name is that part of the or Uniform Resource Locator that tells a domain name server using the domain name system (domain name system) whether and where to forward a request for a Web page. The domain name is mapped to an IP address (which represents a physical point on the Internet).
More than one domain name can be mapped to the same Internet address. This allows multiple individuals, businesses, and organizations to have separate Internet identities while sharing the same Internet server.
The domain name system (DNS) is the way that Internet domain name are located and translated into Internet Protocol addresses. A domain name is a meaningful and easy-to-remember "handle" for an Internet address.
Because maintaining a central list of domain name/IP address correspondences would be impractical, the lists of domain names and IP addresses are distributed throughout the Internet in a hierarchy of authority. There is probably a DNS server within close geographic proximity to your access provider that maps the domain names in your Internet requests or forwards them to other servers in the Internet.
The primary activities conducted on the Net can be said to fall into the following general categories:
(a) Publishing of intellectual property based content: the term "publishing" here is broadly used to encompass the creation of and making available content for access and distribution. This can be done on a free basis or for purchase. Content includes everything from compiled information and data to every kind of copyrightable work.
(b) Communication: every on-line activity involves communication of some kind, whether intercomputer or interpersonal, ranging from email exchanges to commercial transactions. The degree of security and privacy of communications, as well as the regulation of the content communicated, are primary issues of on-line commerce.
(c) Advertising and promotion of products and services: marketing products and services currently in the primary commercial use of the Net, and with it come all of the intellectual property issues related to these activities. The difference here in contrast to traditional marketing media is the immediacy and global scope of the communications being made, traits related to all on-line communication, resulting in potential liability far greater than ever before envisioned.
(d) Buying and selling products and services: the actual sale of products, other than software, has been slow in coming because of inadequate technical mechanisms for safe on-line transacting. As better encryption and payment technology emerges, the sale of products and services, digital and not, will emerge as a major use of the on-line environment. The Web already abounds in experiments (and some already quite successful) in catalog sales, cybermalls, and corporate Website-based sales.
(e) Product testing: the software community has been using the Net as a channel for beta-testing new products and releases for a few years, and a number of companies use their Websites for providing new product information and receiving consumer comments. The interactive, real-time global availability of the Net thus opens up unlimited possibilities for focus group assaying, test marketing, and consumer awareness, as well as comparative advertising, and all of the legal issues that attach to these activities.
The Internet is not a single network but instead, as its name implies, a worldwide connection of networks linking globally dispersed organizations through their computers and service providers, which include the locals called Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and the service providers to the ISPs and the network service providers (NSPs), which are all linked through telephone lines, with content finding its way along these pathways through devices called routers. It remains unregulated, and not subject to any single administrative body, and is still without hierarchy. This technical infrastructure aside, it still looks and feels like a single network, and thus can function as a single marketplace. back to glossary
FLAMING
On the Internet, flaming is giving someone a verbal lashing in public. Often this is on a Usenet newsgroup but it could be on a Web forum or perhaps even as e-mail with copies to a distribution list. Unless in response to some rather obvious flamebait, flaming is poor netiquette. Certain issues tend to provoke emphatically stated responses, but flaming is often directed at a self-appointed expert rather than at the issues or information itself and is sometimes directed at unwitting but opinionated newbie who appear in a newsgroup. back to glossary
HACKER
Hacker is a term used by some to mean "a clever programmer" or unauthorized person, especially journalists or their editors, to mean "someone who tries to break into computer systems."
Eric Raymond, compiler of The New Hacker's Dictionary, defines a hacker as a clever programmer. A "good hack" is a clever solution to a programming problem and "hacking" is the act of doing it. Raymond lists five possible characteristics that qualify one as a hacker, which we paraphrase here:
- A person who enjoys learning details of a programming language or system
- A person who enjoys actually doing the programming rather than just theorizing about it
- A person capable of appreciating someone else's hacking
- A person who picks up programming quickly
- A person who is an expert at a particular programming language or system, as in "UNIX hacker"
Raymond deprecates the use of this term for someone who attempts to crack someone else's system or otherwise uses programming or expert knowledge to act maliciously. He prefers the term cracker for this meaning.
Journalists or their editors almost universally use hacker to mean someone who attempts to break into computer systems. Typically, this kind of hacker would be a proficient programmer or engineer with sufficient technical knowledge to understand the weak points in a security system. back to glossary
HOST
The term "host" is used in several contexts, in each of which it has a slightly different meaning:
1) On the Internet, the term "host" means any computer that has full two-way access to other computers on the Internet. A host has a specific "local or host number" that, together with the network number, forms its unique IP address. If you use Point-to-Point Protocol to get access to your access provider, you have a unique IP address for the duration of any connection you make to the Internet and your computer is a host for that period. In this context, a "host" is a node in a network.
2) In IBM and perhaps other mainframe computer environments, a host is a mainframe computer (which is now usually referred to as a "large server"). In this context, the mainframe has intelligent or "dumb" workstations attached to it that use it as a host provider of services. (This does not mean that the host only has "servers" and the workstations only have "clients." The server/client relationship is a programming model independent of this contextual usage of "host.")
3) In other contexts, the term generally means a device or program that provides services to some smaller or less capable device or program. back to glossary
HTML
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the set of "markup" symbols or codes inserted in a file intended for display on a World Wide Web browser. The markup tells the Web browser how to display a Web page's words and images for the user. The individual markup codes are referred to as elements (but many people also refer to them as tag).
HTML is a standard recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and adhered to by the major browsers, Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Navigator, which also provide some additional non-standard codes. The current version of HTML is 4.0. However, both Internet Explorer and Netscape implement some features differently and provide non-standard extensions. Web developers using the more advanced features of HTML 4 may have to design pages for both browsers and send out the appropriate version to a user. Significant features in HTML 4 are sometimes described in general as dynamic HTML. What is sometimes referred to as HTML 5 is an extensible form of HTML called Extensible Hypertext Markup Language.
back to glossary
HYPERLINK
One of the functionalities that makes the Net an advance in communication technology is the ability to point and click on text in one Website that is linked to another site, whether related or unrelated, resulting in the real-time transfer of the user to the linked site. Use of this "hyperlinking," or "hot-linking," functionality has become universal, and more frequently is being used by one website owner to identify its site customers or affiliates, or those it would hope someday to be its customers or affiliates. Thus, while hyperlinking began more as a way to make one's site more interesting by offering electronic bridges to other possible sites of interest to the browser, it may be creating an exception in users that a hyperlinked site is affiliated with the linking site. This is especially true where the link is an icon or design mark of the linked site rather than the usual underlined text.
A related issue unique to the Web is whether animating or distorting or otherwise changing the playing with another's corporate symbol without permission will lead to liability. Web technology now makes it fairly simple to give life to otherwise two-dimensional static symbols. Thus comparative use of another's symbol or parody takes on an entirely new dimension. The law certainly accommodates use of another's symbol or name for merely informational purposes such as comparative advertising or for constitutionally protected satire.
Yet another source of potential liability under trademark law on the Net is whether the linking site owner can be held directly or contributorily liability for infringing activity occurring at a linked site. Certain decisions clearly indicate that one in the position to know that infringing activity is occurring on one's own site, even if the activity is not condoned, will be held responsible for that activity under direct and/or contributory liability theories. The owner of a bulletin board was held liable for both direct and contributory copyright and trademark infringement for not stopping the uploading and downloading of text and photographs from a popular magazine.
The use of disclaimers in an effective manner throughout the site to indicate the purpose of the links and whether affiliation or sponsorship or even approval of content with respect to the linked sites should be assumed or not is a recommended practice. While one can debate the overall effectiveness of disclaimers, generally (studies have indicated that the American public has difficulty understanding the word "not" as in "not affiliated with") disclaimers are a growing practice on the Net and one with which users are becoming more familiar. In this regard, it is advisable to use interactive disclaimers, (disclaimers that pop-up when linking matter – text or icon is clicked and then must be read and acknowledged by clicking an "OK" button or typing in one's initials, etc.) before the linking occurs. Exclusive reliance on disclaimers, however tempting, may be insufficient as a defense, especially for conspicuous unlawful activity, and thus a program for continued monitoring should be put into place. back to glossary
INTERNET
The Internet, sometimes called simply "the Net," is a worldwide system of computer networks – a network of networks in which users at any one computer can, if they have permission, get information from any other computer (and sometimes talk directly to users at other computers). It was conceived by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. government in 1969 and was first known as the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. The original aim was to create at one university that would allow users of a research computer at one university to be able to "talk to" research computers at other universities. A side benefit of ARPANet's design was that, because messages could be routed or rerouted in more than one direction, the network could continue to function even if parts of it were destroyed in the event of a military attack or other disaster.
Today, the Internet is a public, cooperative, and self-sustaining facility accessible to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Physically, the Internet uses a portion of the total resources of the currently existing public telecommunication networks.
For many Internet users, electronic mail (e-mail) has practically replaced the Postal Service for short written transactions. Electronic mail is the most widely used application on the Net. You can also carry on live "conversations" with other computer users, using Internet Relay Chat (Chat Rooms). More recently, Internet telephony hardware and software allows real-time voice conversations.
The most widely used part of the Internet is the World Wide Web (often abbreviated "WWW" or just called "the Web"). One of its outstanding features is hypertext, a method of instant cross-referencing. In most Websites, certain words or phrases appear in text of a different color than the rest; often this text is also underlined. When you select one of these words or phrases, you will be transferred to the site or page that is relevant to this word or phrase...through the use of the search engines. Sometimes there are buttons, images, or portions of images that are "clickable." If you move the pointer over a spot on a Website that the pointer changes into a hand… this indicates that you can click and be transferred to another site.
While using the Web you have access to millions of pages of information. When web surfing is done with a Web browser, the most popular of which are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. The appearance of a particular Website may vary slightly depending on the browser you use. Also, later versions of a particular browser are able to render more "bells and whistles" such as animation, virtual reality, sound, and music files. back to glossary
INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER
An ISP (Internet service provider) is a company that provides individuals and other companies access to the Internet and other related services such as Web site building and virtual hosting. An ISP has the equipment and the telecommunication line access required to have POP on the Internet for the geographic area served. The larger ISPs have their own high-speed leased lines so that they are less dependent on the telecommunication providers and can provide better service to their customers. Among the largest national and regional ISPs are AT&T WorldNet, IBM Global Network, MCI, Netcom, UUNet, and PSINet.
ISPs also include regional providers such as New England's NEARNet and the San Francisco Bay area BARNet. They also include thousands of local providers. In addition, Internet users can also get access through online service providers (online service provider) such as America Online and Compuserve.
The larger ISPs interconnect with each other through MAE (ISP switching centers run by MCI WorldCom) or similar centers. The arrangements they make to exchange traffic are known as peering agreements. There are several very comprehensive lists of ISPs world-wide available on the Web.
An ISP is also sometimes referred to as an IAP (Internet access provider). ISP is sometimes used as an abbreviation for independent service provider to distinguish a service provider that is an independent, separate company from a telephone company. back to glossary
LINK
Using hypertext, a link is a selectable connection from one word, picture, or information object to another. In a multimedia environment such as the World Wide Web, such objects can include sound and motion video sequences. The most common form of link is the highlighted word or picture that can be selected by the user (with a mouse or in some other fashion), resulting in the immediate delivery and view of another file. The highlighted object is referred to as an anchor. The anchor reference and the object referred to constitute a hypertext link.
Although most links do not offer the user a choice of types of link, it would be possible for the user to be provided a choice of link types, such as: a definition of the object, an example of it, a picture of it, a smaller or larger picture of it, and so forth.
Links are what make the World Wide Web a web. back to glossary
METAFILE
A metafile is a file containing information that describes or specifies another file.
Microsoft uses this term for its Windows Metafile (WMF) format. A WMF file contains a sequence of graphical-device-interface (GDI) function calls ("commands" to the Windows operating system) that results in the presentation of a graphic image. Some of the function calls are equivalent to vector graphics statements and others identify stored bitmap or literal specifications of which bits to illuminate (raster graphics images). Using WMF files rather than already-built bitmaps saves space when many bitmaps are used repeatedly by different components of the operating system or of an application. The WMF file assumes a 16-bit operating system. Microsoft has an enhanced metafile (EMF) format for its 32-bit operating systems. Microsoft's clipboard (CLP) file can contain a WMF file, an EMF file, or a bitmap (BMP) format file.
Another example of a metafile is the Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM). The CGM file format is a standard (American National Standards Institute-approved) format that can be used on any operating system that supports it (unlike the WMF format which is designed only for Windows). The CGM file is commonly used in CAD and presentation graphics applications. back to glossary
PRIVACY & DISCLAIMER STATEMENT
This allows the website owner to let "surfers" know how the owner of website is protecting the surfers' privacy. The disclaimer allows website owner to let "surfers" know who, why and when they are using the information they glean from "surfer" who visits the website. This procedure can reduce potential for suits arising out of ownership of website. back to glossary
SEARCH ENGINE
What a Search Engine Is
On the Internet, a search engine has three parts:
· A spider (also called a "crawler" or a "bot") that goes to every page or representative pages on every Web site that wants to be searchable and reads it, using hypertext links on each page to discover and read a site's other pages
· A program that creates a huge index (sometimes called a "catalog") from the pages that have been read
· A program that receives your search request, compares it to the entries in the index, and returns results to you
An alternative to using a search engine is to explore a structured directory of topics. Yahoo, which also lets you use its search engine, is the most widely-used directory on the Web. A number of Web portal sites offer both the search engine and directory approaches to finding information.
Different Search Engine Approaches
Major search engines such as Yahoo, AltaVista, Lycos, Jeeves, and Google index the content of a large portion of the Web and provide results that can run for pages - and consequently overwhelm the user.
Specialized content search engines are selective about what part of the Web is crawled and indexed. For example, TechTarget sites for products such as the AS/400 (http://www.search400.com) and Windows NT (http://www.searchnt.com) selectively index only the best sites about these products and provide a shorter but more focused list of results.
Ask Jeeves (http://www.askjeeves.com) provides a general search of the Web but allows you to enter a search request in natural language, such as "What's the weather in Seattle today?"
Special tools such as WebFerret (from http://www.softferret.com ) let you use a number of search engines at the same time and compile results for you in a single list.
Individual Web sites, especially larger corporate sites, may use a search engine to index and retrieve the content of just their own site. Some of the major search engine companies license or sell their search engines for use on individual sites.
The last time we looked, the Open Directory Project listed 370 search engines available for Internet users. There are about ten major search engines, each with its own anchor Web site (although some have an arrangement to use another site's search engine or license their own search engine for use by other Web sites). Some sites, such as Yahoo, search not only using their search engine but also give you the results from simultaneous searches of other search indexes. Sites that let you search multiple indexes simultaneously include:
· Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com )
· search.com (http://search.com )
· EasySearcher (http://www.easysearcher.com )
Yahoo first searches its own hierarchically-structured subject directory and gives you those entries. Then, it provides a few entries from the AltaVista search engine. It also launches a concurrent search for entries matching your search argument with six or seven other major search engines. You can link to each of them from Yahoo (at the bottom of the search result page) to see what the results were from each of these search engines.
A significant advantage of a Yahoo search is that if you locate an entry in Yahoo, it's likely to lead you to a Web site or entire categories of sites related to your search argument.
A search.com search primarily searches the Infoseek index first but also lets you search the other major search engines as well.
EasySearcher lets you choose from either the popular search engines or a very comprehensive list of specialized search engine/databases in a number of fields.
Yahoo, search.com, and EasySearcher all provide help with entering your search phrase. Most Web portal sites offer a quickly-located search entry box that connects you to the major search engines.
The Major Search Engines and How They Work
Major search engines on the Web include:
· AltaVista (http://www.altavista.com )
· Excite (http://www.excite.com )
· Google (http://www.google.com )
· Hotbot (http://www.hotbot.com )
· Infoseek (http://www.infoseek.com )
· Lycos (http://www.lycos.com )
· WebCrawler (http://www.webcrawler.com )
You'll find many other specialized search engines listed in Easy Searcher (http://www.easysearcher.com/ez2.html). We also recommend One Look, which searches a number of indexes at the same time (including whatis.com).
Most if not all of the major search engines attempt to index a representative portion of the entire content of the World Wide Web, using various criteria for determining which are the most important sites to crawl and index. Most search engines also accept submissions from Web site owners. Once a site's pages have been indexed, the search engine will return periodically to the site to update the index. Some search engines give special weighting to: words in the title, in subject descriptions and keywords listed in HTML META tags, to the first words on a page, and to the frequent recurrence (up to a limit) of a word on a page. Because each of the search engines uses a somewhat different indexing and retrieval scheme (which is likely to be treated as proprietary information) and because each search engine can change its scheme at any time, we haven't tried to describe these here. back to glossary
SPAM
Spam is unsolicited e-mail on the Internet. From the sender's point-of-view, it's a form of bulk mail, often to a list culled from subscribers to a Usenet discussion group or obtained by companies that specialize in creating e-mail distribution lists. To the receiver, it usually seems like junk e-mail. In general, it's not considered good netiquette to send Spam. It's generally equivalent to unsolicited phone marketing calls except that the user pays for part of the message since everyone shares the cost of maintaining the Internet.
Some apparently unsolicited e-mail is, in fact, e-mail people agreed to receive when they registered with a site and checked a box agreeing to receive postings about particular products or interests. This is known as both opt-in e-mail and permission-based e-mail.
A first-hand report indicates that the term is derived from a famous Monty Python sketch ("Well, we have Spam, tomato & Spam, egg & Spam, Egg, bacon & Spam...") that was current when spam first began arriving on the Internet. Spam is a trademarked Hormel meat product that was well-known in the U.S. Armed Forces during World War II. back to glossary
SPOOF
"Spoof" was a game involving trickery and nonsense that was invented by an English comedian, Arthur Roberts, prior to 1884, when it is recorded as having been revived." Webster's defines the verb to mean (1) to deceive or hoax, and (2) to make good-natured fun of.
On the Internet, "to spoof" can mean:
(1) To deceive for purpose of gaining access to someone else's resources (for example, to fake an Internet address so that one looks like a certain kind of Internet user)
(2) To simulate a communications protocol by a program that is interjected into a normal sequence of processes for the purpose of adding some useful function.
(3) To playfully satirize a Website. back to glossary
VIRUS
A virus is a piece of programming code usually disguised as something else that causes some unexpected and, for the victim, usually undesirable event and which is often designed so that it is automatically spread to other computer users. Viruses can be transmitted by sending them as attachments to an e-mail note, by downloading infected programming from other sites, or be present on a diskette or CD. The source of the e-mail note, downloaded file, or diskette you've received is often unaware of the virus. Some viruses wreak their effect as soon as their code is executed; other viruses lie dormant until circumstances cause their code to be executed by the computer. Some viruses are playful in intent and effect ("Happy Birthday, Ludwig!") and some can be quite harmful, erasing data or causing your hard disk to require reformatting.
Generally, there are three main classes of viruses:
File infectors. Some file infector viruses attach themselves to program files, usually selected .COM or .EXE files. Some can infect any program for which execution is requested, including .SYS, .OVL, .PRG, and .MNU files. When the program is loaded, the virus is loaded as well. Other file infector viruses arrive as wholly-contained programs or scripts sent as an attachment to an e-mail note.
System or boot-record infectors. These viruses infect executable code found in certain system areas on a disk. They attach to the DOS boot sector on diskettes or the Master Boot Record on hard disks. A typical scenario (familiar to the author) is to receive a diskette from an innocent source that contains a boot disk virus. When your operating system is running, files on the diskette can be read without triggering the boot disk virus. However, if you leave the diskette in the drive, and then turn the computer off or reload the operating system, the computer will look first in your A drive, find the diskette with its boot disk virus, load it, and make it temporarily impossible to use your hard disk. (Allow several days for recovery.) This is why you should make sure you have a bootable floppy.
Macro viruses. These are among the most common viruses, and they tend to do the least damage. Macro viruses infect your Microsoft Word application and typically insert unwanted words or phrases.
The best protection against a virus is to know the origin of each program or file you load into your computer or open from your e-mail program. Since this is difficult, you can buy anti-virus software that can screen e-mail attachments and also check all of your files periodically and remove any viruses that are found. From time to time, you may get an e-mail message warning of a new virus. Unless the warning is from a source you recognize, chances are good that the warning is a virus hoax. back to glossary
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