Is It Safe to Shop on the Internet? When you shop on the
Internet, you have the same concerns as you do when you use a
catalog to shop over the telephone. - Impersonation: Is the
business that takes receiving my order authentic? -
Eavesdropping: Could someone "listen in" to my order and steal
my credit card In the real world, you often give your credit
card to cashiers or waiters, and you give out your account
number over the phone when placing an order. Using your credit
card number on the Internet is no more dangerous than these
practices. In fact, it is often more secure to give out your
account number over the Internet, because many sites work with
your browser software to encode your transaction so if outside
parties intercept it, they won't be able to read it. We counter
security threats with a technology called SSL (Secure Sockets
Layer). SSL is a set of rules followed by computers connected to
the Internet. These rules include encryption, which guards
against eavesdropping; data integrity, which assur