Analyzing terror campaigns on the internet: Technical sophistication,content richness,and Web interactivity

Terrorists and extremists are increasingly utilizing Internet technology to enhance their ability to influence the outside world. Due to the lack of multi-lingual and multimedia terrorist/extremist collections and advanced analytical methodologies, our empirical understanding of their Internet usage is still very limited. To address this research gap, we explore an integrated approach for identifying and collecting terrorist/extremist Web contents. We also propose a Dark Web Attribute System (DWAS) to enable quantitative Dark Web content analysis from three perspectives: technical sophistication, content richness, and Web interactivity. Using the proposed methodology, we identified and examined the Internet usage of major Middle Eastern terrorist/extremist groups. More than 200,000 multimedia Web documents were collected from 86 Middle Eastern multi-lingual terrorist/extremist Web sites. In our comparison of terrorist/extremist Web sites to US government Web sites, we found that terrorists/extremist groups exhibited similar levels of Web knowledge as US government agencies. Moreover, terrorists/extremists had a strong emphasis on multimedia usage and their Web sites employed significantly more sophisticated multimedia technologies than government Web sites. We also found that the terrorists/extremist groups are as effective as the US government agencies in terms of supporting communications and interaction using Web technologies. Advanced Internet-based communication tools such as online forums and chat rooms are used much more frequently in terrorist/extremist Web sites than government Web sites. Based on our case study results, we believe that the DWAS is an effective tool to analyse the technical sophistication of terrorist/extremist groups’ Internet usage and could contribute to an evidence-based understanding of the applications of Web technologies in the global terrorism phenomena.     

Federal Web site accessibility for people with disabilities

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires organizations to provide physical access to people with disabilities. With the advent of the Web, federal legislation may extend into cyberspace. (The "Federal Support" sidebar highlights some relevant legislation.) How courts will apply ADA is still uncertain. Federal cases in which ADA has been applied to cyberspace are still under review at various court levels. On the state level, however, the New York State attorney general recently required Priceline and Ramada Inn to make their Web sites accessible and subject to independent accessibility audits. Other research has examined the accessibility of college and university, corporate, and retail Web sites relative to the ADA. The authors conducted a study on the accessibility of the Web sites of US government agencies and branches of the US government and their contractors, which, like university sites, are mandated to be accessible. They also attempt to determine the types of accessibility barriers that occur most frequently on these sites. Because the study is preliminary, findings are basic estimates of accessibility; you should not construe them as statistically representative of all sites offered. However, our findings on accessibility barriers can serve as a guideline to Web designers seeking to create sites that effectively communicate their contents to people with disabilities.     

State Laws Requiring World Wide Web Dissemination of Information: A Review of State Government Mandates for Documents Online

The authors review state statutes requiring the publication of United States government held information on state-supported Web sites in order to answer the following research questions. Which state legislatures are requiring their agencies to put information on the Web? And what issues emerge as states start employing the Web as a source of public information? The authors found that 41 states do require Web posting of a wide range of government information, and that some states were much more aggressive about employing this kind of dissemination. The authors also found that there was not a uniform level of privacy or concern for safeguarding individual's identifying information contained in state-sponsored Web site postings of government information.     

Hackers face crackdown

One of the most comprehensive hacker crackdowns ever is being undertaken by the FBI and the US Department of Justice. Following a recent surge of attacks against US government Web sites, the White House warned hackers who target federal Web sites that they will be caught and punished.     

Is E-Government Ready for Prime Time?

Every nation has some form of e-government process, but there's considerable debate about whether it's even close to its potential. In spite of flashy and multifaceted implementations in developed nations, considerable evidence suggests that even the most technologically advanced countries aren't getting the full return yet for their e-government investments. Poorer nations fare even worse. Large e-government Web sites such as USA.gov connect users to a dizzying collection of federal and government services, including congressional voting records, links to legislators' offices, government job opportunities, government statistics, live personal assistance through Web chats, and so on     

Knowledge management in Estonian regional administration: Background,outputs, and unused resources

Little research links knowledge management to government institutions. Knowledge management is viewed primarily as value-added for managing business organizations. The information and communication technology (ICT) use in government institutions is often limited to composing a Web page and posting information. The content of these Web pages is regulated; however, it is not judged in terms of communication effectiveness. In this article, the author provides an overview of the regulatory environment of ICT usage affecting Web pages of public sector organizations in Estonia. It also discusses some principles of ICT regulation in a European context. The author evaluates the outcome of the regulatory mechanism through analysis of Web sites of Estonian county governments. Specifically, the author examines whether the Web pages conform to regulatory acts, whether they are user-friendly, and whether they are concise. The content, structure, visual form, and other evaluation categories are analyzed by discourse and content analysis. After analysis, it is concluded that decision makers both on a regulatory level and on county government level have to consider the importance of the generation of contextually appropriate content through Web pages. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Factors affecting the adoption of information and communication technology in small and medium enterprises: a perspective from rural Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) can play an important role in the national economy of developing countries. The adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) has enabled local SMEs to participate in the international market. However, little research has addressed issues related to SMEs adopting ICTs, especially in rural areas of Middle Eastern developing countries such as Saudi Arabia. Using the extended technology-organization-environment framework with personal innovativeness, this study examined the factors that influence the adoption of ICTs among SMEs in rural areas of Saudi Arabia. The study found that relative advantages, top management support, culture, regulatory environment, owner/manager innovativeness and ICT knowledge had a significant relationship with ICT adoption among SMEs in Saudi Arabia, whereas compatibility, complexity and a competitive environment had no significant relationship with ICT adoption. The findings of this study will potentially help SME managers/owners and the Saudi government in the successful adoption and diffusion of ICT in SMEs located in rural areas in Saudi Arabia.     

Barriers to the adoption of social networking sites in Saudi Arabia's higher education

ABSTRACT

Social networking sites are increasingly being repurposed as academic tools in higher education institutions. In this context, social networking sites are used to support a number of key academic functions, including the sharing of ideas between students and academic staff, the forming of dedicated study groups, the exchange of links and other academic objects and self-publication. While these tools are readily being adopted in mainstream Western contexts, little is currently known regarding whether – and how – social networking sites are used in other geo-cultural regions. This study sought to redress this research gap by investigating what might constitute barriers to the adoption of social networking in higher education in Saudi Arabia from the students’ perspective. The study was based on the analysis of results derived from focus group discussions with university students at four Saudi Arabian universities. The research found that Saudi Arabian students are aware of, and welcome, social networking sites and are starting to use them for academic purposes in the same way that university students do in more mainstream contexts. However, the study did identify a range of barriers to uptake as highlighted by focus group participants.     

深层网技术在专利数据提取中的应用

深层网技术是获取隐藏在以表单为特征的网络数据库检索入口后的数据页面的提取技术,解决了通用搜索引擎不能有效索引深层网网页的问题。专利数据是一类重要的深层网数据资源,对其进行提取、挖掘具有重要意义。本文利用深层网技术开发了一个专利检索系统,实现了对中国和美国专利数据的本地检索、提取和下载,以及针对中国专利的法律状态检索。该软件支持专利的批量下载及文件管理,并根据中国和美国专利显示为多个单页TIFF格式图片不利于本地管理和浏览的特点,开发了实用性较强的TIFF格式图片多页合并和通用PDF格式转换功能。该专利检索系统采用面向用户的界面设计和功能开发,具有简单、易用的特点。     

Deformed Frogs,Declining Amphibians

ABSTRACT

Frogs and salamanders have been big in the news in recent years as more and more cases of deformities and declining populations come to light. For those who are interested in finding out more information about declining and deformed amphibians, the Web offers some good places to start. Individuals, schools, researchers, and various government agencies are all trying to piece together the environmental conditions that produce deformities and declining populations. Find out more about the plight of the web-footed from these Web sites.     

The Relative Importance of Usability and Functionality Factors for E‐Health Web Sites

With the growing usage of the Internet, the demand for online health care information and advice as well as the number of health‐related Web sites are increasing. In case of online health information and advice, the user interface replaces face‐to‐face communication. To ensure that the users' needs are met, it is critical to balance functionality and usability in the design of the Web site. The present study seeks to identify the complex interrelationships among the various factors of usability and functionality concerning e‐health Web sites. Two Turkish e‐health Web sites were assessed for evaluation in this study. The findings show that the users of the health information Web sites give a higher priority to functionality and its factors, whereby the highest relative importance is on “services/facilities” and “personalization/categorization of information.” The most important usability factors related to the e‐health Web sites are “memorability” and “interaction.” © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

An approach for supporting distributed user interface orchestration over the Web

Currently, a lot of the tasks engaged by users over the Web involve dealing with multiple Web sites. Moreover, whilst Web navigation was considered as a lonely activity in the past, a large proportion of users are nowadays engaged in collaborative activities over the Web. In this paper we argue that these two aspects of collaboration and tasks spanning over multiple Web sites call for a level of coordination that require Distributed User Interfaces (DUI). In this context, DUIs would play a major role by helping multiple users to coordinate their activities whilst working collaboratively to complete tasks at different Web sites. For that, we propose in this paper an approach to create distributed user interfaces featuring procedures that are aimed to orchestrate user tasks over multiple Web sites. Our approach supports flexible process modeling by allowing users to combine manual tasks and automated tasks from a repertoire of patterns of tasks performed over the Web. In our approach, whilst manual tasks can be regarded as simple instructions that tell users how to perform a task over a Web site, automated tasks correspond to tools built under the concept of Web augmentation (as it augments the repertoire of tasks users can perform over the Web) called Web augmenters. Both manual and automated tasks are usually supported by specific DOM elements available in different Web sites. Thus, by combining tasks and DOM elements distributed in diverse Web sites our approach supports the creation of procedures that allows seamless users interaction with diverse Web site. Moreover, such an approach is aimed at supporting the collaboration between users sharing procedures. The approach is duly illustrated by a case study describing a collaborative trip planning over the Web.     

Web 2.0环境下服务型政府门户网站的构建

通过对我国提出的构建服务型政府理念的思考,结合Web 2.0的各项新技术,总结Web 2.0服务型政府门户网站的特点,提出基于Web 2.0的服务型政府门户网站模型,包括应用模型和技术模型,为Web 2.0政府门户网站的顺利建设提供可行性保证和技术支持。Web 2.0环境下的服务型政府门户网站在传统服务型政府门户网站的基础上强化服务的概念,将服务方式升华,更好地为公众提供服务。     

Selected Bioterrorism Web Sites for the Health Care Community and Consumer

SUMMARY

For the people of the United States, the threat of bio-terrorism has become a reality. To respond to the recent outbreak of anthrax cases and to prepare for future threats, the health care community, civil authorities, and general public need access to reliable, up-to-date information. The Web is one tool that can be used to deliver this information. This article briefly defines bioterrorism, identifies major biological agents, looks at the potential impact of an attack and provides a selected list of Web sites for consumers and health care professionals. The selection criteria used to evaluate the sites included sponsorship, currency, content (factual information), and audience. Most of the sites are from government organizations, educational institutions, or professional associations.     

Providing Web Service Security in a Federated Environment

One of the Internet's biggest successes has been the automation of the travel-reservation system. Travelocity, Expedia, and Orbitz have all thrived in a fickle economic sector. The key to their success is Web services, which are exploding across government and industry. A business federation is very similar to a political federation, which is a union of self-governing states united by a central government. Each individual member maintains its individual sovereignty rights while participating as a federation member. Travel sites, therefore, are federations of companies that provide services, yet maintain a separate identity outside the group. Membership in a business federation, however, usually involves much less diplomacy and political discord than a political federation. Business federations must provide security for their day-to-day operations. A comprehensive Web services architecture that incorporates security standards enforces federation security policies and enables critical data exchanges. As such, we must explore ways to create an automated means for each organization to securely pass critical information using a service-oriented approach     

Retracted: A novel viewpoint on information and interface design for auction web sites

For the reason of convenience, auction sites are one of the most popular and quickly developing of Internet shopping sites. There have been many problems, however, arising in relation to online auction commerce; these problems have been dealt with one by one. In addition to the important issue of security, some customers have faced problems such as complicated processes, insufficient product information, and bad interface design. Based on the consumer behavior model that we have built on auction sites, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the information and interface design for current domestic and foreign auction sites. The results indicated that some auction Web sites provided insufficient information and inconvenient interface design during some shopping steps. Foreign auction Web sites provided sufficient information and a more convenient interface design than did the domestic auction Web sites. The results, hopefully, can be used as the reference for online auction Web sites to provide customers more convenient shopping environments. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

一个自适应Web站点构架的设计

现今Web站点是越来越复杂而且不智能化。用户在访问Web站点时经常会碰到很多问题,主要原因是Web站点对用户的需求缺乏适应性。文中研究了自适应Web站点,提出一个理论框架,并针对此框架给出一个构建自适应Web站点的系统架构,介绍了使用文本挖掘方法和Web用法挖掘方法,改善Web站点的结构和组织形式以使站点达到更好的效果。主要通过挖掘Web服务器日志数据使站点更容易访问。     

Evolution of e-commerce Web sites: A conceptual framework and a longitudinal study

Before the 1990s, the digital exchange of information between companies was achieved using electronic data interchange (EDI) and needed agreement between the organizations. The early 1990s saw the commercialization of the Internet and the advent of open computer technology and connectivity became affordable for individuals as well as businesses. The consequence was the World Wide Web. As e-commerce activities extended across businesses, enterprises, and industries, a genre of Web sites emerged allowing the integrative management of business operations. Here, we provide an evolutionary perspective of e-commerce Web sites. We posited that there have been four eras. To chart the evolution of e-commerce Web sites, a conceptual framework was developed to characterize such sites. Based on the framework, we conducted a longitudinal study between 1993 and 2001. The result showed that the proposed four eras were clearly discernible.