jitdistributors.com Blog

No one can question the fact that the government is intent on taking steps to ensure that Jamaicans can "cash in" on the technological advances that have proliferated the first world countries. The infrastructure has been put in place with the liberalization of the telecom sector and more recently the granting of licenses for the construction and operation of two submarine fibre optic cable networks linking Jamaica to North America and the rest of the world. It is expected that this will trigger a reduction in the cost of broadband and other data services of up to 70% of their current prices.

The government itself has been pursuing an e-business strategy as a means of improving customer service to the public but before we jump headlong into it we should raise the level of awareness of the general public to the dangers and risk associated with e-business. There are security issues with the e-business Web-site as well as with the PC that is used to access the site. Jamaicans have been exposed to e-business for years as we have been purchasing goods and services on the Internet. Up until now however, we have not had any major fallouts resulting from hacking. This is partly due to the fact that our participation in e-business was that of customers, not as owners or operators of the e-business sites themselves. Now that we have begun to invest significantly in e-business we must address the issue of security as we have now become more ’suitable’ targets for hackers and consequently must prepare ourselves for our ‘hacking Tsunami’. This can be approached from many angles, but I am going to address just one, cost.

Firstly, the government can make computers and software cheaper by rolling back the GCT on these items especially on security products used to combat spyware, viruses, worms and Trojan horses. It makes no sense if the government and the general public become e-business partners when generally the PC’s being used to conduct these transactions are not secured. I should point out that ’secured ‘ PC’s are another way of combating yet another cost that is ‘waiting in the wings’ to capitalize on the first major fallout resulting from an attack by ‘hackers’ i.e. insurance premiums. As someone that is involved in the business of selling and repairing computers, I have observed that most PC’s are only ’secured’ in the initial 3-6 months after purchase when usually some ‘brand’ name anti-virus program is installed on the PC on a trial basis and permits upgrades for the duration of the trial. No further attempts are made to secure the PC even if there are ‘free’ alternatives as there is an expectation gap that once one of these ‘brand’ name security programs have been installed on a computer, there is no need to update the software and the PC is protected against all current and future threats from viruses, worms etc.

Secondly, the cost of maintaining an up-to-date Windows PC is exorbitant especially with the current call charges of using a modem to dial-up an ISP. There were 51 updates excluding SP2 for Windows XP home edition for the period May – December 2004. Downloading these updates varied from a few minutes to over 2 hours depending on the size of the file being downloaded. Based on the charges to dial the ISP and using a 56K modem, these costs could run into hundreds of dollars, yet another cost/disincentive to keep your computer up-to-date.

The cost of keeping your computer adequately secured via anti-virus programs and spyware removal tools and the cost of keeping your operating system and application software up-to-date may well deter the general public from venturing into e-business. This could backfire on the government and all the other e-business merchants that are waiting to capitalize on their new frontier and spread there influence over the Internet. The system will not be profitable if it is not utilize by the public. Hackers strive in an environment that is not secure and so the government would be well advised to play their part in reducing the cost of security to the users of personal computers. This means that if they cannot roll back the G.C.T. on computers and accessories, at least remove it from the ’security’ products. Cable & Wireless should also consider charging a reduce rate for calls made to ISP’s rather than using the normal intra parish rate as a means of encouraging increased use of the Internet.

Finally, all attempts should be made to reduce the ‘expectation gap’ mentioned above. The government and the ISP’s should launch a public education program focusing on the security of personal computers. Additionally, we should consider setting up a lobby group to approach Microsoft, who recently entered the anti-virus and ’spyware’ removal tools market to see whether we can secure some preferential prices on these products. Secure computing and secure browsing are admirable goals as we take e-business to the next level in 2005. Happy surfing Jamaica.

P.S. -This item was published originally on my Web site www.jitdistributors.com