Should I use my credit card on the Internet? Is it safe?

Peter H. Lewis of the New York Times says, "Sending a credit card number to an electronic merchant over the Internet is probably the safest way to make such a transaction. In the last week, for example, I handed my credit card to a waiter who disappeared with it for five minutes. I faxed my credit card information to a business in New Jersey, and the fax probably lay exposed to everyone in that office for hours. . . I called a hotel and gave my card data to a reservation clerk and continued my recklessness by ordering some merchandise from a clothing catalogue, again by reading my credit card information to some unseen operator."

"Compared with the risk of handing my credit card to a stranger, which I do nearly every day, sending it over the Internet is pretty secure." (The New York Times, Nov 13, 1995).

D.C. Thomson & Co is using an encryption method called PGP. It is a high-security cryptographic software application that allows people to exchange messages with both privacy and authentication.

Privacy means that only those intended to receive a message can read it. By providing the ability to encrypt messages, PGP provides protection against anyone eavesdropping on the network. Even if a packet is intercepted, it will be unreadable to the snooper. Authentication ensures that a message appearing to be from a particular person can have originated from that person only, and that the message has not been altered.

Should I use my credit card on the Internet? Is it safe?

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