Securing-E-Loyalty-Currencie
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Journal of Internet Technology and Secured Transactions (JITST), Volume 5, Issue 1, March 2016 Securing e-Loyalty Currencies Aspen Olmsted Department of Computer Science College of Charleston Charleston, SC 29401 Abstract In this paper I investigate the problem of of the carrier's flights. The admission includes first- providing e-commerce security constraints in class benefits like free Wi-Fi and beer. distributed cloud systems while maintaining In my previous work [3] [4] I provided an concurrency requirements. This study analyzes e- extension to the lazy replica update propagation loyalty currencies used by e-commerce systems as a method to reduce the risk of data loss and provide motivating example. I investigate loyalty incentives high availability while maintaining consistency. The rewarded through electronic points and electronic Buddy System executes a transaction on the primary currency programs. The hypothesis tested is if the replica. However, the transaction cannot commit modeled system can harden the surface from cyber- until a secondary cluster, “the buddy”, also preserves attack. I consider five loyalty activity categories the effects of the operation. The rest of the clusters rewarded by companies to their patrons; social are updated using one of the standard lazy update networking rewards, web-site browsing rewards, propagation protocols. This architecture allows the mobile browsing rewards and referral/social circle Buddy System to guarantee transactional durability. rewards. I document surface area vulnerabilities The effects of the transaction are preserved even if with each loyalty category, propose and implement a the server hosting the primary replica crashes before solution that will validate the activity and administer the update can be propagated to the other replicas. It the e-loyalty currency properly. also provides efficient update propagation (i.e., my approach requires the synchronized update between 1. Introduction two replicas only, therefore adding minimal overhead to the lazy-replication protocol). A business to consumer enterprise spends a great The Buddy System uses an application-layer deal of money on customer acquisition. According to dispatcher [5] to select the buddies based on the data KISSmetrics [1], a company can pay seven times the items and the operations of the transactions, the data amount on acquiring a new customer over what it versions available, and the network characteristics of would cost for retention of a current customer. In an the WS farm. A limitation of the Buddy System is attempt to retain customers, some businesses have there is no way to add end-user configurable begun to implement customer social networking constraints at implementation time without either loyalty programs that reward customers with sacrificing consistency or requiring a recompile of electronic currencies. A social networking loyalty the client application. In past work, I addressed program has two possible aims. One is to encourage issues related to maintaining high availability while their current customers to interact with the business’ adding guarantees of correctness by enforcing digital assets in an attempt to strengthen the hierarchical constraints [5]. Traditionally these relationship between the company and the patron. hierarchical constraints are not enforced by the The second aim is to leverage the current customer’s system due to the expensive run-time cost. The relationships and social clout to acquire new Buddy System materializes the data required to apply customers from the current customer’s social circle. the restriction without requiring navigation of the Social clout is very valuable to a company. hierarchical relationship. Valuable enough that a business, Klout.com, has In this paper, I investigate the problem of started that offers an algorithm to rate individual’s enforcing application domain constraints in a social clout. Klout uses Bing, Facebook, Foursquare, distributed architecture while maintaining high Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and availability. To do this, I investigate eCurrency and Wikipedia data to create Klout user profiles that are loyalty rewards programs and extend the Buddy assigned a unique "Klout Score". [2] Klout scores System by adding constraints that apply the e- range from 1 to 100, with higher scores Currency reward rules in a secure way to ensure they corresponding to a higher ranking of the breadth and are rewarding the activity the company wants to strength of one's online social influence. Recently, reward. The Buddy System is enhanced to allow for American Airlines offered a one-day pass to application domain constraints. The application individuals with a Klout score of 55 or higher for domain specific constraints defend a system from American Airlines' Admirals Club in 40 different cyber-attack by implementing the intent of the e- airports, regardless of whether they're booked on one Currency program. Copyright © 2016, Infonomics Society 451 Journal of Internet Technology and Secured Transactions (JITST), Volume 5, Issue 1, March 2016 2. Social Networking Rewards eight posts and zero re-posts (JetBlue did not reward badges for retweets). JetBlue provides a template Social networking rewards are activities where a when the micro-blog is created. Unfortunately, none patron is incentivized to share information about a of the posts included additional data from the link business or interaction with a company to their social template created by the JetBlue website. circles. The business is interested in leveraging the To evaluate the timing of the micro-blogs I used patron’s social clout to gain greater brand awareness. the same samples from above. For the Marriot I studied three loyalty programs that included social program, I compared the first and last post on a networking rewards: specific day for each user. Eighty-two percent of the 1. Marriott™ Hotels - Marriott operated a beta users in the sample who posted multiple micro-blogs promotion called "Marriott Rewards - Plus did so in a timespan of fewer than five minutes. For Points." Participants could earn up to 2,000 JetBlue, I wanted to understand why participation Marriott Points each month by participating in was so low I schedule a job that pulled the tweets social media applications like Facebook, Twitter, every minute for a weeks’ time. To my amazement, Instagram, and Foursquare. [6] The Marriott sixty-three percent of the posts were deleted shortly Rewards’ activities are micro-blogs on Twitter after the post. Unlike the Marriott program that using a specific hashtag of #MRpoints. The rewarded the points at a later point in the day, the reward for the micro-blog post or micro-blog re- JetBlue program would reward the credit post is twenty-five points. The currency value of immediately at the time of the posting. My new each post is valued at around $0.42. They cap the sample data consisted of ninety-seven original posts. daily value of all micro-blog posts at one hundred Sixty-one were deleted, and twenty-one were part of points. There are no constraints placed on the batches of posts done in less than five minute time tweets semantics, timing or the validity of the periods. I concluded that only fifteen percent were Twitter account. valid based on the timing activities. 2. JetBlue Airways – JetBlue is commercial airline To evaluate the validity of the micro-blog user operating in the United States. JetBlue operates a accounts I used the same samples from above. For reward program named TrueBlue. Patrons earn each poster account, I examined the activity on their badges and points for flying on JetBlue and Twitter account. I defined a valid account as one partner airline flights. The program encourages where the tweets represented less than twenty patrons to share their accomplishments on percent of the tweets. Seventy-four percent of the Facebook and Twitter to earn extra badges.[7] user accounts in the sample were classified as not The airlines program is different in a few ways; valid in my study. I attribute this low percentage of there is automation of the instantiation of the validity to the ability of a user to clean their Twitter micro-blog to force the post to include links to account immediately after a post and still earn the the program, they reward badges as a middle reward. layer to earning loyalty currency, and they utilize micro-blogging on Facebook as well as Twitter. 3. Web-Site Browsing Rewards 3. Social Rewards – Social Rewards is a Social Media based loyalty marketing program that Web-Site browsing rewards are activities where a rewards consumers for engaging in social media patron is incentivized to visit a business’ web assets. activity such as watching YouTube videos, brand The business is interested in creating habits in the mentions via Twitter, Instagram and Facebook patron’s internet browsing activities. I studied two fan activity. [8] loyalty programs that included web-site browsing rewards: 2.1. Modeling 1. Microsoft™ Search Engine - Bing Rewards lets you earn credits for searching on Bing or trying I considered three types of validation newfeatures from Bing or other Microsoft requirements: the blogs semantics, the timing of the products and services. Bing Rewards credits can blog and the validity of the bloggers account. be redeemed for a variety of gift cards and other To evaluate the semantics of the micro-blogs, I rewards. [9] pulled a sample of the tweets consisting of a day’s 2. JetBlue Airways – JetBlue’s TrueBlue program worth of the Marriott Rewards micro-blogs. The was referenced in earlier rewards activity sample consisted of 3,982 unique micro-blogs categories. Patrons can also earn badges by including the tag and 1,474 re-posts of these blogs. visiting their TrueBlue page. [7] Only five percent of the blogs included reference to a To evaluate the validity of the browsing loyalty specific hotel. My JetBlue sample consisted of a programs data, I automated a series of visits, to the week’s worth of micro-blogs from Twitter that used web assets referenced earlier, using the iMacros the tag #TrueBlueBadges.