Before make a purchase - site verify

I decided to dedicate this post to all skeptical of online purchases and give below some recommendations of the Guardia di Finanza to verify the legality of the site of a company that sells on the Internet:

Internet sites with the domain ".it", unlike all others, needs to fulfill certain obligations for their registration including the compilation and sending of the letter of responsibility accompanied by a copy of the registrant document to the Italian Authority (www.nic.it).

Against this, those who have provided for the registration of the site is easily traceable. It is a good idea to check in the pages of the site the presence of any reference (phone, fax, etc. physical location.) and use them for a first contact.

With regard to Internet sites with the domain ".com", they are not required to comply with any requirement of registration of domains (www.nic.it). They are therefore difficult to tracing those responsible for the site itself. It is advisable therefore, check on the home page of the site of any reference (phone, fax, etc. physical location.) to make an initial direct feedback contact them by phone, in order to assess the reliability of their activity on the web.

It is suggested that you still wary of those who enter on-line only e-mail as the only mode of contact. A good sign is finally, in the case of a business located in one of the European Union countries, the presence of web pages on VAT, which entering it into the form on-line site VIES you can see the data and comparing them with those at its disposal, find out if the company exists and corresponds to that if you are paying.

I also refer to the recommendations listed on the webpage E-COMMERCE SAFER (in Italian), on the website www.gat.gdf.it.

Purchases and payments via Internet - acting in a secure way

How many times have been known to try a product on the Internet and not to buy because it was required a credit card? Very often we get stuck at that point, failing to complete a purchase online or booking a trip. Actually there are safer alternatives for direct comparison of credit card: use prepaid cards.

Some of the most famous ones are Vodafone CashCard, Postepay, Kalibra Charter, Charter Yahoo, Saddle Money, CartaSi Eura, Charter Ego Go, Carteque, etc. Payup Charter.

To activate a Postepay (of Poste Italiane) you need to pay once 5 euros and whenever you withdraw or deposit money. You can use it for e-commerce sites or enabled supermarkets, exploiting the Visa Electron circuit (some even Mastercard). For these kind of payments there is no added fee.

A spread method of payment on Ebay is PayPal. It 's a mechanism that transfers money from one person to another, without providing card number each time.

With PayPal, you can go shopping around the world so free and secure either by credit card (Visa, Visa Electron, MasterCard) or prepaid card (as Postepay, Vodafone Cash Card, Kalibra and others), without sharing financial information with those who received the payment. I read some step to get paypal enabled on http://www.paypal.com:

• Register and fill in the online form with your credit card or debit card.
  
• Your credit card or debit card is linked to your account. No more data given, when you want to make a payment.
  
• The only information you need to know to send a payment is the recipient's email address.
  
• When you click on the button Pay, PayPal charges amount directly to your credit card or prepaid - no need for more.
  

It seems all so beautiful but in reality the problem is not resolved to 100%. Personal data is supplied to a trusted third party that has the responsibility to keep secrets (if the attackers could violate the site, would have full access).

You should also pay attention to the phenomenon of phishing, because there are many emails that arrive indicating updates requesting paypal account information: pay attention especially, at the name of the URL you connect to.

Wireless Internet – the need for connectivity

Over time the need for an Internet connection has been gradually growing. The most fortunate have a fixed line on which activate ADSL service flat, but there isn't always this possibility: sometimes people do not have a telephone line or simply the mobility induced by the spread of portable computers and smartphones, increases need for a wireless connection.

With a computer you can connect using a modem and sometimes it is already integrated into laptops. These devices are generally four types:

1. Internet key (USB Key)
   
   
2. Connect Card (PCI Express or PCMCIA)
   
   





3. Internet Box (USB Modem)
   
   

There is no particular preference from the point of view of functionality, but from the convenience and size: USB interfaces offer greater compatibility with computers while PCI Express is compatible only with certain types of laptops or Broadband Routers.

Usually in a contract with the established Internet operator shall be declared the number of HOURS or amount of data available and include monthly rental (free or not) of one of those three devices. So evaluate whether you buy it and check what is included in the subscription package.

Even directly from the phone we can connect using paid services offered by the phone company. In any case there are generally three ways of charging:

1. At time
   
2. At amount of traffic
   
3. Free navigation, with content download fee
   

For the first it will normally set a price per minute, but I have seen many plans that mentions "sessions" of 15 minutes. This means that once you are connected you spend 1 session of 15 minutes in which you pay for every minute but if you connect for 13 minutes, you pay for 13 and loose 2 minutes. If the plan provides for 100 hours a month, it means you have 400 sessions by 15 minutes: you can connect at most 400 times for a period less than or equal to 15 minutes or for example, if you connect for 28 minutes two sessions are considered (15 + 15 = 30 minutes, losing 2 minutes), and so forth.

The amount of traffic (Kbyte, or Mbytes Gbyte) pricing depends on how much data is downloaded. It is difficult to quantify this type of navigation in time terms, but it is certain that the payment is made only when a new page is loaded and stay connected on the same page (without update) does not involve any additional payment.

Regarding the free navigation there is a possibility of reaching pages with content such as songs or movies whose download is subject to charges.

In Italy the most popular telephone companies that offer connectivity are Tim, Tre, Vodafone, Wind.

As for the terminology that may see I indicate those referring to the connection speed listed by slower to faster: GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA/HSUPA.

Soon (??) will be released a new technology that will allow us to replace the last mile of telephone lines with a wireless channel: it is the WiMAX.

Who benefits of this service will not necessarily have a fixed telephone line, but simply an external device capable of receiving radio signals to connect with the power of their telephone operator.

Three more...

Today another big, high "hurdle" has been overcome. See ya!