The World Wide Web has become a major publishing, research and commerce medium.
BY D.R. STEWART
World Staff Writer
Entering its sixth year as a significant force in U.S. society, the Internet is coming of age.
An estimated 153 million U.S. residents, more than half the population, is connected to the Internet, 9.3 percent more than were online a year ago. More than one-third of the 278 million U.S. residents has made a purchse online, and one in 10 has banked or invested over the Web, industry research shows.
'We dropped Internet service because it was just too hard and too much hassle to get customers to pay their bills.'
Tony Basor
President of A to Z Business World on business strategies
"Two thousand will be remembered as the year that important psychological thresholds were crossed and technologies considered cutting-edge entered the mainstream, making the PC (personal computer) as common as the stereo system," said Patrick Calliman, an analyst at Forrester Research, an Internet research firm in Cambridge, Mass. "Today's Internet consumers are doing business and spending more online - faster.
"In 1999, only 13 percent of those online for less then six months had purchased online. Twenty-four percent of this year's inductees have bought something in the past three months."
From a little-known research tool used by academicians and scientists just a decade ago, the World Wide Web has become a major publishing, research and commerce medium.
But however unlimited its prospects may appear, the Internet today is more akin to an awkward teenager than a polished graduate.
For every Amazon.com, the well-established online store that has become an e-commerce legend, a hundred dot-coms and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have come and gone.
Tony Basor, president of A to Z Business World, 5321 S. Sheridan Road, said his firm used to offer dialup Internet access in 1997 and 1998. In 1998, the company abandoned that track and moved into Web hosting, Web site construction and consulting.
"We dropped Internet service because it was just too hard and too much hassle to get customers to pay their bills," Basor said. "And if they don't pay you, it's more trouble then it's worth trying to collect from them."
Charles Welch, owner of Rapid Fire Internet Services, 5436 S. Mingo Road, said the residential Internet business has become so cut-throat that profit margins have disappeared.
"And then you have people calling up because they don't know how to access their Web site," Welch said. "They think that it's part of tech support. It eats into your profit margin."
If the mantra of U.S. consumers is a complaint about non-existent customer service, John and Jane Web-ster won't find any relief online, users and industry officials say.
All too frequently, ISPs and e-commerce businesses fail to return calls or don't answer the telephone. When a customer can find a live person to speak with, the representative is often not knowledgable about a company's services. Web sites tend to answer every question except the speed and cost of the service.
Despite its shortcomings, however, the Internet is not only the world's greatest library, a potential global mega-mall and an eye on the universe - it also may become as important an agent for dissemination of knowledge, lifestyles and commerce as the printing press was in the 15th century, anylysts say.
Jerry Howe, president of Gabriel Communications, a St. Louis-based commercial ISP, said the Internet will revolutionize communications.
"Over the past 120 years, the principal standard communications interface was the telephone," Howe said. "It's the standard because you can pick up a phone anywhere in the world and hear a dialtone.
"The Internet has been around for 30 years. What's happening is that the browser, which is an easy-to-use standard interface, brings me information from anywhere in the world. It is transmitted over IP (Internet Telephony), which is more efficient (then phone lines).
"If I convey everything I'm telling you over the phone, it will cost 5 cents a minute. If I do it on e-mail, it costs almost nothing."
Internet professionals and tele-communications analysts say the 9,500 ISPs (about 50 in Tulsa) operating today and hundreds of e-commerce businesses will skrink and consolidate.
Al Lott, chief executive officer of United Private Server Communications Inc., 12120 E. 24th St., operates his ISP out of his garage. His company, which employs seven contract workers offers Internet access, Web construction, Web hosting and e-commerce hosting. Lott said ISPs don't make money by offering Internet access for $20 a month.
"You have no idea of the equipment, manpower and services that go into it," Lott said. "The reason you want to be an ISP is that you have first shot at anybody who comes on the Internet."
The future of the Internet, industry officials say, is green.
Worldwide Internet commerce, estimated at more than $657 billion last year, is expected to grow to $1.23 trillion this year and $6.8 trillion, or 8.6 percent of the world's sale of goods and services, in 2004, according to a Forrester Research study. | John Cory, co-owner of Sybran Technologies, 6349 S. Memorial Drive, which helps companies integrate technology and the Internet in business plans, said the media is broadband convergence.
"In five years, you'll receive everything you want to receive on a device that looks like a TV," Cory said "We'll have video on demand, moved a step closer to two-way video, and videophones will be commonly available in people's homes and businesses. Your cell phone or mobile phone will look a lot like a video cam."
Michael Coe, a DSL executive at SBC Communications Inc., the San Antonio-based parent of Southwestern Bell, said that in the next few years, voice, video, data and Internet services will be accessible from a single appliance or several.
"You're also going to see video conferencing via computer and networking in the home and office," Coe said. "We'll be networking computers in the home and all appliances as well. You'll be able to connect all PCs, TVs and wireless Web devices."
In the future, e-commerce sites will offer three-dimensional tours of merchandise aisles, simplified ordering procedures and more, Coe said.
"There's no limit to what the Internet can do," he said. "Look at Napster. Some 19-year-old kid turned the music industry on its ear - and that'll happen more and more."
Full-time connections require the use of firewalls
BY NICOLE NASCENZI
World Staff Writer
Computer hackers rattle hundreds of thousands of virtual doorknobs on the Internet the same way a burglar would canvas a house looking for an open window.
With the rising popularity of DSL and cable modems, more computer users are always connected to the Internet. These users put themselves at risk that someone could compromise their computer system.
"People don't realize this can happen to them," said George Kurtz, information security expert and chief executive of California-based Foundstone Inc.
Kurtz explained that computer hackers - individuals who use computer code to gain remote access to a computer - know how to test a computer's security automatically.
The hacker probably does not know the person who owns the computer he is attacking, Kurtz said. "They just break in for the same reason people climb mountains - because they're there."
Once inside, a hacker gains access to anything saved on the hard drive such as financial data, passwords and sensitive documents, said Tom Powledge, group product manager for Norton Internet Security at California-based Symantec Corp.
The hacker also can delete files or use the computer to attack other computer systems, Powledge said.
One way that computer users can make their systems more secure is by running a personal "firewall" application, Kurtz said.
A personal firewall protects a system from external attack and provides an alert when hackers are trying to enter a system, he said.
Many software manufacturers, including Black Ice and Symantec, offer personal firewall applications.
Powledge said Symantec offered its first personal computer security software in December 1999.
"This software category didn't exist 18 months ago, and now it's 55 percent of the market," he said.
Regularly applying vendor-related "security patches is another way to make a home computer more secure, Kurtz said.
"Most attackers will take advantage of known vulnerabilities," he said. "Vendors (software manufacturers) routinely will issue security fixes for their operating system and applicaions."
The patches most often are available from vendor Web sites.
Attackers can launch an assault on a PC via e-mail, said R. Brent Johnson, president of Tulsa-based SecureAgent.com.
Computer viruses and Trojan horses - a kind of program that appears to be useful but conceals a destructive purpose - can be transmitted via e-mail, he said.
Johnson said SecureAgent.com manufacturers a program called SecureNotes that scans incoming e-mail to make sure there are no viruses or Trojan horses. The program also can encrypt e-mail to make sure that unauthorized people cannot intercept and read it.
Aside from using a personal firewall and installing vendor security patches, Kurtz suggests taking the following security measures:
> Continuously audit a home computer system. There are various tools on the Internet that will help a home user determine the computer's level of security. Good auditing sites include: Quick Inspector Scan - http://www.shavlik.com/security/. Shields UP - http://www.grc.com/, and Symantec - http://security.norton.com.
> Always run an anti-virus program. It is just as important to run current anti-virus software as it is to have a personal firewall. In addition to running antivirus software, a home user should never execute any programs that were sent by unknown users.
Kurtz said taking these security measures allow home computer users to enjoy the benefits of their "always on" Internet connections while avoiding the security pitfalls of cyberspace.
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