Security is becoming an increasingly important issue for business, and with it comes the need for appropriate authentication; consequently, it is becoming gradually more important to develop secure e-commerce systems. Fraud via the web, identity theft, and phishing are raising concerns for users and financial organisations. In addition, current authentication methods, like passwords, have many problems (e.g. some users write them down, they forget them, or they make them easy to hack). We can overcome these drawbacks by using biometric authentication systems. Biometric systems are being used for personal authentication in response to the rising issue of authentication and security. Biometrics provide much promise, in terms of preserving our identities without the inconvenience of carrying ID cards and/or remembering passwords. This research is important because the securing of e-commerce transactions is becoming increasingly important. Identity theft, hacking and viruses are growing threats to Internet users. As more people use the Internet, more identity theft cases are being reported. This could harm not only the users, but also the reputation of the organisations whose names are used in these illegal acts. For example, in the UK, online banking fraud doubled in 2008 compared to 2007. More users took to e-shopping and online banking, but failed to take necessary protection. For non-western cultures, the figures for web security, in 2008, illustrated that Saudi Arabia was ranked ninth worldwide for users who had been attacked over the web. The above statistics reflect the significance of information security with e-commerce systems. As with any new technology, user acceptance of the new technology is often hard to measure. In this thesis, a study of user acceptance of biometric authentication systems in e-transactions, such as online banking, within Saudi society was conducted. It examined whether Saudis are practically willing to accept this technology. This thesis focuses upon Saudi Arabia, which has developing economy. It has achieved a rapid rate of growth, and therefore makes an interesting and unique case study. From an economist's point of view, Saudi Arabia is the powerhouse of the Middle East. It has the leading regional economy, and, even though it is still relatively young. It has a young and rapid growing population; therefore, this makes Saudi Arabia an attractive potential market for all kinds of e-commerce applications. Having said that, with more than half of population under the age of 30 are more to be expected to take the risk of accepting new technology. For this work, 306 Saudi participants were involved in the experiments. A laboratory experiment was created that actively tested a biometric authentication system in combination with a survey. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was adopted in the first experimental phase as the theoretical basis on which to develop the iv research framework, the model has proven its efficiency as a good predictor for the biometric authentication system. Furthermore, in a second experimental phase, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) with moderating variables such as age, gender and education level was examined as a proposed conceptual framework to overcome the limitations of TAM. The aim of the study was to explore factors affecting users' acceptance of biometric authentication systems. The findings from Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) analysis indicate that education level is a significant moderating factor, while gender and age do not record as significant. This thesis added new knowledge to this field and highlighted the importance of the perceptions of users regarding biometric security technologies. It helps determine the factors affecting the acceptance of biometric technology. To our knowledge, this is the first systematic study of this issue carried out by academic and non-biased researchers in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the thesis presents security technology companies and developers of information security products with information to help in the determination of what is significant to their user base when taking into account the introduction of new secure systems and products.

Ukraine is currently in the throes of revolution. Will this popular uprising move Ukraine closer to the West and a democratic government or strengthen the country's ties to Putin and Russia? Viktor Yanukovich's second round victory in the 2004 presidential election was nullified by Ukraine's high court due to rampant electoral manipulation. Viktor Yushchenko, supported by hundreds of thousands of protesters in the 2004 Orange Revolution, became president and ushered in, what many hoped would be, a more democratic government. Infighting and competition among the Orange coalition soon rendered the Yushchenko government ineffective. Ukraine's progression towards democracy slowed and ties to Russia began to flourish once again when Yanukovich became Yushchenko's prime minister. In 2010, Yanukovich was elected president in another second round election against Yulia Tymoshenko that observers and academics deemed free and fair. Unfortunately, a new evaluation of both the 2004 and 2010 elections presents a much less encouraging view of Ukrainian politics. As shown in this paper, electoral manipulation was present in both the 2004 and 2010 elections. Additionally, both parties participated in manipulatory behavior in both elections. This finding challenges much of the academic literature to date on Ukrainian politics. In support of this finding of corruption by multiple candidates, a unique list experiment was administered to raion (county) level administrators in Ukraine. These administrators were asked about their views regarding electoral manipulation. The results of this experiment suggest that these administrators are still very influenced by and, arguably, willing to engage in electoral manipulation. The experiment shows that, at least at the raion level, Ukrainian governance has not become more democratic. Overall, the prognosis for democratization efforts in Ukraine is not good. / text

本文首先依據過去實際發生的案例彙總逃漏稅方法，再與國外逃漏稅的行政罰及刑事罰有關規定說明比較。 接著以經濟模型對罰款率、查獲率與逃漏稅關係作分析。發現因企業的平均稅率較個人平均稅率為高，查獲率提高對企業逃漏稅嚇阻作用較個人為大。而對個人逃漏稅則以罰款率的提高，較能發揮嚇阻作用。 最後在Stata軟體的運算下，選取89至91年的營利事業申報及漏稅資料，依Stata給予的評分標準，預測逃漏稅傾向較高的企業。歸納如下：1.有欠稅記錄者，2.3,000萬以上查帳案件，3.設籍台北市郊區者，4.行政區常異動者(遷址)，5.設立期間4－12年，6.營業收入3,700萬元以上，7.社會服務及個人服務業，虛報薪資有營造業。 由以上分析七要點可協助稽徵機關在選案查核中作參考，提高逃漏稅的查獲率，降低逃漏稅誘因。並提供稅務機關建議事項如下：1.加強獨資合夥企業的租稅輔導，2.依逃漏稅傾向調整抽查率，3.提高虛報薪資的罰款率，4.鼓勵臨時工所得扣繳，5.刑事罰適用性提高。 期盼本文的研究可幫助建立租稅公平、徵納和諧的租稅環境，並充足稅源，增益國庫。

Credit card fraud is a field with perpetrators performing illegal actions that may affect other individuals or companies negatively. For instance, a criminalcan steal credit card information from an account holder and then conduct fraudulent transactions. The activities are a potential contributory factor to how illegal organizations such as terrorists and drug traffickers support themselves financially. Within the machine learning area, there are several methods that possess the ability to detect credit card fraud transactions; supervised learning and unsupervised learning algorithms. This essay investigates the supervised approach, where two algorithms (Hellinger Distance Decision Tree (HDDT) and Random Forest) are evaluated on a real life dataset of 284,807 transactions. Under those circumstances, the main purpose is to develop a “well-functioning” model with a reasonable capacity to categorize transactions as fraudulent or legit. As the data is heavily unbalanced, reducing the false-positive rate is also an important part when conducting research in the chosen area. In conclusion, evaluated algorithms present a fairly similar outcome, where both models have the capability to distinguish the classes from each other. However, the Random Forest approach has a better performance than HDDT in all measures of interest.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

12. Summary of Master's degree thesis in English Insurance fraud In my Master's degree thesis I was dealing with insurance fraud. Insurance fraud is no doubt as old as insurance itself and has been considered as part of the insurers trade risk. However, it has lately grown in importance until it has become at treat to the soundness of insurance markets. In the Czech republic, this situation has led to the adoption of legislative amendments in 1997, inserting a new section, § 250a , specifying insurance fraud, into the Criminal Code. Insurance fraud was one of the main topics of work section of insurance fraud in czech bureau of insurance. After that situation has changed. Bodies active in criminal proceedings started take this problem more seriously. People began to become aware of the seriousness of the problem. Especially how much it costs. In the beginning of my thesis I present motives to me to keep writing it and briefly describe the contents of individual chapters of the thesis. In the second part, I return to the circumstances in which the merits of the Act No. 140/1961 Coll., and briefly describe the changes as facts, which brought a new criminal code. The third part is focused on buildings criminal insurance fraud. In particular, describe in detail the various merits of individual buildings...

Le déploiement de moyens visant à lutter contre la fraude fiscale menace les libertés fondamentales et individuelles des contribuables. En effet, le durcissement de la répression fiscale marque un pas vers l'interventionnisme étatique et semble légitimer la généralisation du soupçon à l'encontre de ces derniers. Le renforcement des prérogatives de contrôle fiscal et d'investigation confiées aux agents du fisc notamment par le recours aux pouvoirs de police judiciaire n'est pas exempt de dangers. Il conduit d'ailleurs à justifier des intrusions dans la vie privée des individus ainsi que de profondes atteintes au droit de propriété sur la base de simples présomptions de fraude fiscale. Les contribuables sont eux aussi exposés aux risques d'abus de pouvoir et de détournement de procédures mais manquent de recours pour combattre ces dérives. En tant qu'Administration publique, l'Administration fiscale, censée oeuvrer pour l'intérêt général dans le cadre de sa mission de récolte de l'impôt et de sanction des fraudeurs, bénéficie d'une présomption quasi « irréfragable » de loyauté lui conférant une responsabilité atténuée voir même une certaine immunité. En effet, rares sont les cas où la responsabilité pour faute de l'Administration fiscale est retenue par les juges. De surcroît, quand la machine judiciaire vient suppléer les carences de l'Administration fiscale, le respect du principe d'égalité des armes apparaît bien plus théorique que pratique. Les inspecteurs agissent de plus en plus sous la contrainte des objectifs de résultats et de rendement budgétaire, au détriment du respect des libertés individuelles et de la présomption de bonne foi des contribuables / The raise of means aiming to struggle against tax evasion threats fundamentals liberties for taxpayers. Indeed, the strengthening of tax repressive measures marks on more step in the state's intervention and seems to justify a generalisation of suspicion against taxpayers. Furthermore, the reinforcement in tax inspector's power mostly used through resort to judicial power isn't exempt from danger. It results in justifying violation of private life and illegal entry only based on presumption of tax fraud. Taxpayers are also exposed to tax authorities abuses and do not have necessary the means to face those abuses. As a public administration, tax authorities are supposed to work for general interest as defined in their mission to both collect taxes and sanction defrauders, but on the other hand they also benefit from an irrefragable presumption of fairness, which results in an attenuated liability. Indeed, rare are the case where the breach of duty from tax authorities is pushed forward by the judges. Moreover, when the judicial machine supplies the shortages of tax Authorities, the respect of equal weapon's principle seems more theoretic than efficient. Tax inspectors act more and more under pressure to get results and budgetary profits, to the detriment of individual freedom and presumption of sincerity. It's in this context that for years, tax authorities have been trying to change their image to present themselves as an administration of service, which main purpose is to encourage amicable settlement of tax litigation

Présentée comme une nouvelle arme de lutte contre la fraude, la procédure de flagrance fiscale instaurée par la loi de finances rectificative pour 2007 et codifiée à l'article L. 16-0 BA du Livre des procédures fiscales (LPF) marque la rupture avec les moyens de traque jusqu'alors mis à la disposition de l'administration fiscale en ce qu'elle permet d'intervenir en amont de toute obligation déclarative pour garantir le recouvrement d'éventuelles créances de contrôle fiscal et sanctionner, dans le même temps, les contribuables déviants. Ce procédé original qui prétend remédier aux agissements de certaines entreprises dites « éphémères », créées dans un but frauduleux et amenées à disparaître promptement pour échapper à toute obligation déclarative, participe du phénomène de pénalisation du droit fiscal observé ces dernières années. Si le champ d'application du dispositif se veut strictement délimité par la loi, l'imprécision des textes laisse néanmoins subsister de nombreuses interrogations quant à la mise en œuvre et à l'efficacité de la procédure. L'absence d'autonomie du dispositif pourrait, notamment, soulever quelques difficultés dirimantes. D'autant que l'établissement du procès-verbal de flagrance autorise la prise de saisies conservatoires sans intervention préalable du juge judiciaire et entraîne pour le contribuable, outre l'application d'une amende, la perte de régimes de faveur et une extension des pouvoirs de contrôle de l'administration, prérogatives que les deux voies de recours spécifiquement créées pour permettre au contribuable de saisir a posteriori le juge du référé administratif ne sauraient suffire à contrebalancer / Introduced as a new weapon in the fight against tax fraud, the tax flagrancy procedure instituted by article 15 of the French amending finance law for 2007 and codified into article L. 16-0 BA in the French tax procedure code shows a break with the tracking means given until now to the tax administration's officers because it allows them to intervene before any declaratory obligation, to guarantee the recovery of possible debts arising from tax audit and to punish, in the same time, deviant taxpayers. This original process which claims to relieve the corrupt practice of some short-lived companies created for a fraudulent purpose and destined to disappear quickly, before any deadline requirements, participates in the criminalizing phenomenon of tax law observed in recent years. If the scope of procedure is strictly defined by law, the fact remains that the imprecise nature of the legislation leaves several interrogations about the implementation and effectiveness of the method. The procedure's lack of autonomy could raise some dissuasive difficulties. All the more so as the establishment of the flagrancy report involves, besides conservatory seizures without any court order, the loss of preferential treatments, an extension of powers of tax authorities and penalty tax. However both courses of action, specifically created by the legislator to entitle taxpayers to apply to an administrative summary proceeding judge after the event, are insufficient compensations

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