Lightweight security for mobile commerce transactions

This paper describes a lightweight security mechanism for protecting electronic transactions conducted over the mobile platform. In a typical mobile computing environment, one or more of the transacting parties are based on some wireless handheld devices. Electronic transactions conducted over the mobile platform are gaining popularity and it is widely accepted that mobile computing is a natural extension of the wired Internet computing world. However, security over the mobile platform is more critical due to the open nature of wireless networks. Furthermore, security is more difficult to implement on the mobile platform because of the resource limitation of mobile handheld devices. Therefore, security mechanisms for protecting traditional computer communications need to be revisited so as to ensure that electronic transactions involving mobile devices can be secured and implemented in an effective manner. This research is part of our effort in designing security infrastructure for electronic commerce systems, which extend from the wired to the wireless Internet. A lightweight mechanism was designed to meet the security needs in face of the resource constraints. The proposed mechanism is proven to be practical in real deployment environment.     

MoRVAM: A reverse Vickrey auction system for mobile commerce

Internet auctions bring buyers and sellers together for the purpose of trading goods and services online. In order to get the goods, a buyer must search for items through several auction sites. When the auction starts, the buyer needs to connect to these auction sites frequently so that he/she can monitor the bid states and re-bid. In this paper, we propose an automated negotiation model between two participants, for mobile commerce, using collaborative mobile agents called MoRVAM, which mediates between the buyer and the sellers, and executes bidding asynchronously and autonomously. A new RVT protocol is also implemented to achieve unconditional bid privacy. Advantages of the RVT protocol are addressed as well. All the bidding process can be implemented without revealing losing bid and unnecessary information.     

A meta-analysis of mobile commerce adoption and the moderating effect of culture

This research aims to discover the general factors that influence mobile commerce adoption. A meta-analysis of previous empirical studies on individuals’ mobile commerce adoption behavior was conducted and the proposed mobile commerce adoption model was tested using structural equation modeling. Furthermore, moderator analysis was carried out using partition tests by dividing context into subgroups of eastern and western culture, to investigate the moderating effect of culture. Results confirm the proposed model, and moderator analysis indicates that culture does have specific moderating effects on mobile commerce adoption. The findings of this paper will yield theoretical and managerial implications for the future.     

Increasing trust in mobile commerce through design aesthetics

The growth of mobile commerce (m-commerce) has motivated a better understanding of how trust can be built on a mobile device. Researchers have previously examined design aesthetics (or visual aesthetics) of mobile website and incorporated a hedonic component of enjoyment in m-commerce domain, but the relationship between design aesthetics of mobile website design and customer trust in m-commerce has been rarely investigated. In this study, design aesthetics was enhanced to include a website characteristics component as important to trust development on the mobile Internet. This model was examined through an empirical study involving 200 subjects using structural equation modeling techniques. Our research found that design aesthetics did significantly impact website characteristics component, especially customization, perceived usefulness and ease of use, all of which were ultimately shown to have significant explanatory power in affecting customer trust.     

Design aesthetics leading to m-loyalty in mobile commerce

Researchers have previously examined the technology acceptance model (TAM) in many contexts, including the Internet. More recently TAM has been enhanced to include a hedonic component of enjoyment but the effect has rarely been investigated in a mobile commerce context. In addition, specific antecedents of TAM related to design aesthetics have not been examined within the mobile domain. Our research filled these gaps, and discovered that visual design aesthetics did significantly impact perceived usefulness, ease of use, and enjoyment, all of which ultimately influenced users’ loyalty intentions towards a mobile service.     

CellTrust: a reputation model for C2C commerce

The improvement of wireless technologies and the increasing spread of mobile phones open new possibilities to perform mobile Customer-to-Customer commercial activities. In this new scenario, where users cannot rely on stable connections, it assumes a great relevance how to trust the counterpart in a transaction and how to avoid that a disconnection, possible in wireless connections, can encourage users to cheat. To tackle these issues we propose a feedback-based reputation mechanism able to detect malicious users better than other state-of-the-art techniques, as shown by the large number of experiments run to measure the accuracy of the compared methods in the most common situations.

一种新的移动商务小额支付协议

提出了一种基于自更新Hash链机制的移动商务认证机制，设计了适用于移动用户与固定网络信息服务提供商进行频繁交易的小额支付协议。分析表明，新机制使用较少的交互，无需数字签名，实现在“第一时间”对移动用户的认证和会话密钥的高效产生。提出的协议不仅提高了支付协议的效率、安全性和公平性，而且解决了恶意透支和时限性等问题。     

A confidence-based framework for business to consumer (B2C) mobile commerce adoption

The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been considered to be fundamental in determining the acceptance of new technology in the past decades. The two beliefs, ease of use and usefulness, in the model may not, however, fully explain the consumers’ behavior in an emerging environment, such as mobile commerce (m-commerce). This paper aims to develop a framework for m-commerce adoption in consumer decision-making processes. In this paper TAM has been adopted and extended to analyze successful m-commerce adoption. The key elements of the proposed confidence-based framework for B2C m-commerce adoption include psychological and behavioral factors. Psychological factors include history-based confidence, institution-based confidence and personality-based confidence. Behavioral factors include perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of the mobile application and technology.     

Living in a big data world: Predicting mobile commerce activity through privacy concerns

As advertisers increasingly rely on mobile-based data, consumer perceptions regarding the collection and use of such data becomes of great interest to scholars and practitioners. Recent industry data suggests advertisers seeking to leverage personal data offered via mobile devices would be wise to acknowledge and address the privacy concerns held by mobile users. Utilizing the theoretical foundation of communication privacy management (CPM), the current study investigates commonly understood privacy concerns such as collection, control, awareness, unauthorized secondary use, improper access and a newly adapted dimension of location tracking, trust in mobile advertisers, and attitudes toward mobile commerce, to predict mobile commerce engagement. Data from this study indicate that control, unauthorized access, trust in mobile advertisers, and attitude toward mobile commerce significantly predicted 43% of the variance in mobile commerce activity.     

新的基于WAP的移动电子商务安全解决方案

研究了目前常见的几种基于WAP的移动电子商务安全模型,主要分析了双加密模型;根据其不足,提出一种新的基于WAP的移动电子商务安全解决方案.该方案将移动终端与内容服务器之间加密算法、消息摘要算法的磋商机制引入其中,使移动电子商务的安全更易实现.     

Exploring consumer adoption of mobile payments – A qualitative study

This paper presents a qualitative study on consumer adoption of mobile payments. The findings suggest that the relative advantage of mobile payments is different from that specified in adoption theories and include independence of time and place, availability, possibilities for remote payments, and queue avoidance. Furthermore, the adoption of mobile payments was found to be dynamic, depending on certain situational factors such as a lack of other payment methods or urgency. Several other barriers to adoption were also identified, including premium pricing, complexity, a lack of critical mass, and perceived risks. The findings provide foundation for an enhanced theory on mobile payment adoption and for the practical development of mobile payment services.     

Integrity protection for Code-on-Demand mobile agents in e-commerce

The mobile agent paradigm has been proposed as a promising solution to facilitate distributed computing over open and heterogeneous networks. Mobility, autonomy, and intelligence are identified as key features of mobile agent systems and enabling characteristics for the next-generation smart electronic commerce on the Internet. However, security-related issues, especially integrity protection in mobile agent technology, still hinder the widespread use of software agents: from the agent's perspective, mobile agent integrity should be protected against attacks from malicious hosts and other agents. In this paper, we present Code-on-Demand (CoD) mobile agents and a corresponding agent integrity protection scheme. Compared to the traditional assumption that mobile agents consist of invariant code parts, we propose the use of dynamically upgradeable agent code, in which new agent function modules can be added and redundant ones can be deleted at runtime. This approach will reduce the weight of agent programs, equip mobile agents with more flexibility, enhance code privacy and help the recoverability of agents after attack. In order to meet the security challenges for agent integrity protection, we propose agent code change authorization protocols and a double integrity verification scheme. Finally, we discuss the Java implementation of CoD mobile agents and integrity protection.     

A recommendation mechanism for contextualized mobile advertising

Mobile advertising complements the Internet and interactive television advertising and makes it possible for advertisers to create tailor-made campaigns targeting users according to where they are, their needs of the moment and the devices they are using (i.e. contextualized mobile advertising). Therefore, it is necessary that a fully personalized mobile advertising infrastructure be made. In this paper, we present such a personalized contextualized mobile advertising infrastructure for the advertisement of commercial/non-commercial activities. We name this infrastructure MALCR, in which the primary ingredient is a recommendation mechanism that is supported by the following concepts: (1) minimize users' inputs (a typical interaction metaphor for mobile devices) for implicit browsing behaviors to be best utilized; (2) implicit browsing behaviors are then analyzed with a view to understanding the users' interests in the values of features of advertisements; (3) having understood the users' interests, Mobile Ads relevant to a designated location are subsequently scored and ranked; (4) Top-N scored advertisements are recommended. The recommendation mechanism is novel in its combination of two-level Neural Network learning, Neural Network sensitivity analysis, and attribute-based filtering. This recommendation mechanism is also justified (by thorough evaluations) to show its ability in furnishing effective personalized contextualized mobile advertising.     

集成ERP与移动通信平台的移动商务系统设计

为满足企业对移动商务系统的使用需求,对常用ERP系统的数据库和常用移动通信平台的SDK进行分析,在此基础上设计了能够将企业现有ERP系统与移动通信平台集成起来实现移动商务管理的系统。设计了系统架构,将系统分为3层,每层都采用插件技术;根据系统架构设计系统功能,将系统分为7个功能模块,通过这7个功能模块实现该系统的功能;最后设计系统编码,将编码从左到右分为5段,每段有不同的意义和格式要求。     

User acceptance of mobile commerce: an empirical study in Macau

This study aims to examine the positive and negative factors that can significantly explain user acceptance of mobile commerce (m-commerce) in Macau. A technology acceptance model for m-commerce with five factors is constructed. The proposed model is tested using data collected from 219 respondents. Confirmatory factor analysis is performed to examine the reliability and validity of the model, and structural equation modelling is performed to access the relationship between behaviour intention and each factor. The acceptance of m-commerce is influenced by factors including performance expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions and privacy concern; while effort expectancy is insignificant in this case. The results of the study are useful for m-commerce service providers to adjust their strategies for promoting m-commerce services. This study contributes to the practice by providing a user technology acceptance model for m-commerce that can be used as a foundation for future research.     

The impact of use context on mobile services acceptance: The case of mobile ticketing

The most important factor in the decision to adopt mobile systems is user perception of their value. However, behavioral theory suggests that context affects user attitude and therefore influences acceptance. We therefore hypothesized that the benefits of mobile systems should be evaluated against users’ contextual needs and that reduced dependence on time and place required providing service at any time and place needed by the user. Mental costs or costs of learning to use the system, however, may not be evaluated in the same way, because system use and learning about it are acts with different contexts. Our findings advance knowledge of IT adoption and suggest that we should start to identify the contexts of both the benefits of use and in learning to use the system.     

Selection of mobile value-added services for system operators using fuzzy synthetic evaluation

Following deregulation of the mobile phones market and liberalization of the telecommunications sector, the service sector for mobile phones is becoming increasingly saturated. Telecom operators are confronted with a sluggish user growth rate and a fall in the average revenue per user (ARPU). Mobile value-added services are expected to form mobile operators' strategy to make up for the dwindling revenues obtained from users. The purpose of this study is to provide an analytical tool to select the best mobile value-added service firm providing the most customer satisfaction. This study adopts a fuzzy synthetic evaluation method, using an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to evaluate the performance of mobile value-added services system operators. This method can help consumers select the appropriate firm from the other consumers' opinions, and can help telecom operators to understand the market status of mobile value-added services as well as the prevailing consumer patterns.     

Designing mobile technologies to support co-present collaboration

Mobile technologies offer new opportunities for childrens educational activities in that they can be used across different locations and times. Naturally, some instances of mobile technology use will necessitate, or be enhanced by, the sharing of information. Social interaction is important for sharing ideas, constructing and shaping understanding and fundamental for educational development. However the physical size of mobile technologies presents interesting challenges when designing for collaborative activities. When designing mobile technologies the importance of collaborative tasks has often been overlooked. The replacement of low-tech artefacts with digital devices, for supporting multiple users, can inhibit the shareability of information. We present three projects where mobile technologies have been used as part of a larger mixed reality experience. Novel technologies were used to support childrens collaborative activities in storytelling, an adventure game and during an outdoor field trip. Interaction with mobile devices within each project is reviewed and the authors highlight important considerations for their design and use across multiple contexts.     

An empirical investigation of mobile ticketing service adoption in public transportation

In this paper, we present results from a study of mobile ticketing service adoption in public transportation. The theoretical background of the study is based on technology adoption and trust theories, which are augmented with concepts of mobile use context and mobility. Our empirical findings from analyses of a survey data suggest that compatibility of the mobile ticketing service with consumer behavior is a major determinant of adoption. Mobility and contextual factors, including budget constraints, availability of other alternatives, and time pressure in the service use situation were also found to have a strong effect on the adoption decision. Our findings suggest that contextual and mobile service-specific features are important determinants of mobile service adoption and should thus be integrated into the traditional adoption models.     

The role of inter-channel trust transfer in establishing mobile commerce trust

Mobile brokerage services represent an emerging application of mobile commerce in the brokerage industry. Compared with telephone-based trading services and online brokerage services, they have advantages such as ubiquity, convenience, and privacy. However, the number of investors using mobile brokerage services to conduct brokerage transactions is far smaller than those using other trading methods. A plausible reason for this is that investors lack initial trust in mobile brokerage services, which affects their acceptance of them. This research examines trust transfer as a means of establishing initial trust in mobile brokerage services. We analyze how an investor’s trust in the online brokerage services of a brokerage firm affects her cognitive beliefs about the mobile brokerage services of the firm and what other key factors influence the formation of initial trust in mobile brokerage services. We develop and empirically test a theoretical model of trust transfer from the online to the mobile channels. Our results indicate that trust in online brokerage services not only has a direct effect on initial trust but also has an indirect effect through other variables. This study provides useful suggestions and implications for academics and practitioners.