Internet Service Functionality
- 1.Interactivity
- 2.Information Confidentiality
- 3.Extranet Server Services
1) Interactivity
Electronic Mailing Lists
Electronic mailing lists facillitate communication for specific
individuals as a single message can then be copied and sent to
the group as a whole. Mailing lists are flexible and can be configured
to suit a variety of needs:
- Multi-member conferencing or workgroups. (A private list
can be created for the exchange of information between various
board members.)
- One-way broadcast of information to a select audience. (Corporate
memos can be sent to all staff.)
- Automatic subscription by the public to information publications
from company or organization. (Internet users can subscribe to
a list that distributes the publication.)
General Information Email Attendant
This is an electronic mail version of a FAXback service. A
user can send an Email to the attendant -- software on a dedicated
Internet Services server -- and the attendant would find the
required document and relay it back to the stakeholder. The complexity
of such a tool can range from being very simple generic software
to sophisticated customized versions.
Electronic Forms
Electronic Forms are the most basic form of information exchange
on the World Wide Web. An electronic form consists of a hypertext
page sent to the user's desktop computer with all the fields
that the user should fill in, and a piece of software that runs
on the server tot collect the data typed into the electronic
form.
Electronic forms back-end software on the server can be as
simple as a program which will re-format the information and
send the information in an Email message. This type of simple
electronic form is used very often as a method of gathering feedback
from users about some aspect of a WEB site.
Electronic form back-end software can be very complex involving
information searches, mathematical calculations, graphics rendering,
database transactions and many other types of services. Almost
any operation that a computer is capable of performing can be
implemented within an electronic forms back-end software tool.
2. Information
Confidentiality
Your organization will need to transfer confidential documents
between stakeholders. There are several possibilities to ensure
that the documents are secure.
Email
An economical encryption-based email package is PGP (Pretty Good
Privacy). This encryption method is based on public key technology.
Users can encrypt information so that it can be read only by
a specific recipient, as well as digitally sign information so
that a remote user can verify the authenticity of the message.
Unlike other privacy packages, PGP is available as both a commercially
supported tool such as the PGP Plugin for Eudora Pro or Netscape
or as a FreeWare utility available to individuals. With the wide
availability of PGP across almost all platforms, a high degree
of inter-operability between your organization and others outside
will be assured.
Web
While a number of different encryption methods exist for WEB-based
transactions, only SSL is available in the most popular desktop
browsers: Netscape and Internet Explorer. SSL makes use of X.509
certificates to ensure the authenticity of a WEB site, and it
encrypts all information going to or from the WEB site so that
privacy exists between the server and client. A number of different
WEB server packages include or have SSL options. Apache is currently
the most popular WEB server package, partly due to its extremely
high level of community support and configurability.
3) Internet Service
Management
As your Internet Service Manager (ISM) PLCOM will ensure the
confidentiality of your documents when they are being sent over
the network to select stakeholders. PLCOM will provide you with
a full cryptographic WEB server, allowing for protected information
transfer and custom CGI's to be configured, updated, and managed
by our staff. A Server will be dedicated for the sole use of
your organization, meaning that it would not have software running
that was written by other clients that could compromise privileged
information. Only your company and PLCOM would have access to
this information or be authorized to grant access and transfer
privileges to other stakeholders as required.
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