Thesis (LL. M.)--University of Toronto, 2005. / Cover title. Includes bibliographical references.

This research aims to investigate the effect of word-of-mouth (WOM) on the purchase of genuine and counterfeit luxury brands with a focus on the roles of attitude functions, product type, valence of WOM, and brand popularity. It consists of two experimental studies. Study 1 examines the effect of WOM on the purchase of luxury brands and attempts to investigate the mediating role of attitude functions in the relationship between WOM and purchase intentions for luxury brands, with regard to different product types and valence of WOM. Study 2 compares the effects of WOM communications with traditional advertising on the purchase of counterfeit and genuine luxury brands. It also examines the differences between popular and non-popular luxury brands. Results reveal that social-adjustive and value-expressive functions fully mediate the effect of WOM on luxury brand evaluation while partially mediate the effect of product type on luxury brand evaluation. The effect of WOM on attitude functions is more pronounced for high (vs. low) susceptibility to interpersonal influence consumers. Findings of Study 2 support the moderating role of subjective norm in the self-monitoring and counterfeit luxury brand evaluation relationship, indicating that compared to advertising, WOM is a more effective way to decrease counterfeit luxury brand consumption. Managerial implications for strategic brand management and directions for future research are discussed.

The objective of the proposed research is the design and fabrication of a novel stand-alone wireless robust system with enhanced hardware-enabled authentication and anti-counterfeiting capabilities. The system consists of two major components; the near-field certificates of authenticity (CoA), which serve as authenticity vouchers of the products they are attached to, and a microcontroller-enabled, low-power and low-cost reader. Small-sized passive physical three-dimensional structures that are composed of extremely cheap conductive and dielectric materials are shown to yield a unique and repeatable RF signature in a small portion of the frequency spectrum when brought in the reactive and radiating near-field regions of an array of miniature antennas. The multidimensional features of these CoAs, or in other words their signature or fingerprint, are cryptographically signed and digitally stored. The contactless signature validation procedure, in which an attempt to associate the near-field signature response of the physical CoA with the digitized signature, is carried out by the reader designed and fabricated. This low-cost reader operates autonomously and in an offline fashion. The feasibility and performance robustness of the system, in terms of accuracy, consistency and speed of capturing of the signatures, is rigorously assessed with a wide array of tests. Moreover, the entropy, or uncertainty, of the signatures generated by the system are empirically quantified and verified to achieve a virtually impossible false alarm. The aforementioned characteristics of the realized authentication system make it applicable to a vast array of physical objects that needs protection against counterfeiters.

Submitted by admin tede (tede@pucgoias.edu.br) on 2016-09-19T12:39:34Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Carla Simone Castro da Silva.pdf: 3389973 bytes, checksum: 874a4f59c57f38f70fd5c49fe3cd4980 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-19T12:39:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Carla Simone Castro da Silva.pdf: 3389973 bytes, checksum: 874a4f59c57f38f70fd5c49fe3cd4980 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-04-25 / The world of luxury has seducing consumers for centuries. Since the times of royalty its symbols are flaunted as objects of power and status, arousing the wish and provoking social greed. Therefore, the market of counterfeits is growing every day, offering this consumer group the opportunity to enter into a distinct social status, where the beautiful and shiny logo of the desired brand signals a passport to all that it represents. These theses aimed to investigate how the context and social environment can influence consumers choose to acquire symbolic brand products although they are not authentic and how this behavior is accepted in society. Two studies have been conducted, and aimed: a) evaluate the measures of knowledge and quality of a set of marks displayed in the handling of two contexts (luxury x neutral) between buyers and non-buyers of counterfeits, for both original products and their correspondence with counterfeit products; b) measure the effects of layout on verbal responses of counterfeit buyers and non-buyers in relation to its evaluation of the purchasers behavior; c) verify the effect of instructions in publicity campaigns about the consumers behavior of counterfeits products as strategy to inhibit this consumption. The results indicated that the brands with the most informative boost level are those with the highest level of knowledge and quality, which reflects the willingness of consumers to pay for these goods, so much to original as counterfeit products. The Study 2 also revealed that there is an immediate effect of instructions correlating the organized crime with the falsification industry, signaling that this may be a possible strategy. / O universo do luxo encanta e seduz consumidores há séculos. Desde os tempos da realeza seus símbolos são ostentados como objetos de poder e status, despertando o desejo e provocando a cobiça social. Desta forma, o mercado de falsificações cresce a cada dia, oferecendo a um grupo de consumidores a oportunidade de adentrar a em um posicionamento social distinto, onde o belo e reluzente logotipo das marcas sinaliza um passaporte de inclusão a tudo o que este grupo almeja. Esta tese procurou investigar o quanto o contexto e o ambiente social podem influenciar consumidores a escolherem produtos de marcas simbólicas ainda que não sejam legítimos e como este comportamento é aceito em sociedade. Foram realizados dois estudos que se propuseram: a) avaliar as medidas de conhecimento e qualidade de um conjunto de marcas apresentadas na manipulação de dois contextos (luxo x acadêmico) entre compradores e não compradores de falsificações, tanto para produtos originais e sua correspondência com produtos falsificados; b) mensurar o efeito de leiaute sobre as respostas verbais de compradores e não compradores em relação à sua avaliação sobre o comportamento de compradores de falsificações; c) verificar o efeito de instruções em campanhas publicitárias sobre o comportamento dos consumidores de produtos falsificados como estratégia para inibir este consumo. Os resultados do Estudo 1 indicaram que as marcas com maior nível de reforço informativo são aquelas com maior nível de conhecimento e qualidade, o que reflete na disposição dos consumidores em pagar por bens destas, tanto para produtos originais quanto falsificados. O Estudo 2 revelou ainda que existe um efeito imediato de instruções correlacionando o crime organizado com a industria da falsificação, sinalizando que esta é uma estratégia possível.

Syfte: Uppsatsens huvudsyfte är att kartlägga och beskriva hur modebranschen förhåller sig till fenomenet kopiering. Genom att kategorisera olika attityder gentemot kopiering samt de aktörer som står bakom attityderna, analyseras även varför vilka aktörer har specifika attityder kopplat till fenomenet.Design/Metod/Ansats: Uppsatsen presenterar, med hjälp av kategorier, de attityder och aktörer som är representerade i debatten om kopiering. Ett urval har gjorts i fråga om vilka media och texter som ska analyseras i ramen för studien. Dessa texter har sedan analyserats så till vida att kategorier av attityder kunnat identifieras i texterna. I ett andra steg har de aktörer som står bakom de identifierade attityderna kategoriserats. Slutligen har en analys gjorts gällande varför vissa attityder kan sammankopplas med vissa aktörer. Resultat: Studiens referensram och uppsatsens empiriska studies resultat har vid analys kunnat visa på vilka attityder gentemot kopiering som finns representerade i modebranschen, samt på vilka aspekter som påverkar hur, och förklarar varför, en aktör resonerar och förhåller sig till kopiering på det sätt som görs.Originalitet/Värde: Uppsatsen belyser nya typer av kopiering som är aktuella idag och kompletterar på så vis tidigare forsking inom området, vilken framför allt behandlat piratkopiering. Dessutom fokuseras modebranschens interna och professionella aktörer istället för konsumenter, vilket också syftar till att belysa ämnet kopiering utifrån en nytt perspektiv.Objective: The main objective of this paper is to identify and describe how the fashion industry is related to the phenomenon of copying. By categorizing different attitudes toward copying, and the actors behind the attitudes, analysis is made as to why the actors have specific attitudes associated with the phenomenon. Design/Methodology/Approach: The thesis presents, using categories, the attitudes and actors that are represented in the debate on copying. A selection has been made on what media and texts are to be analyzed in the study. These texts were then analyzed in the sense that the categories of attitudes were identified in the texts. In a second step, the actors behind the identified attitudes also were categorized. Finally, an analysis is made as to why certain attitudes are associated with certain actors.Results: When analyzed, the study of reference and the thesis empirical study results, show the attitudes toward copying that are represented in the fashion industry. The analysis also present the aspects that affect how, and explains why an actor think and relate to copying in the manner set out.Originality/Value: The thesis highlights new types of copying that are relevant today and the thesis is therefore complementary to previous research in the area, which has mainly focused on piracy. Furthermore, the thesis is focused on the fashion industry's professional actors rather than consumers, which also serves to illustrate the subject of copying from a new perspective. / Program: Textilekonomutbildningen

This research includes a cross-cultural study between Scandinavia and eastern Asia that are considered to be one individualist (Scandinavia) and one collectivist (east Asia) culture. The purpose is to study the effects of conspicuous consumption regarding counterfeits and luxury products amongst two different cultures. This has not been done in previous research; however, aspects such as conspicuous consumption regarding different cultures have been examined before. In those studies it became clear that there was a noticeable difference between the cultures regarding consumption. In this study, a survey has been carried out to collect data from the two cultures. This research questions previous theories and examines a new aspect of how conspicuous consumption behavior differs between cultures – the consumption of counterfeit and luxury goods.

Yeung Hoi Calvin. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-53). / Abstracts in English and Chinese, appendix in Chinese.

Counterfeit products, especially in the pharmaceutical sector, have plagued the international community for decades. To combat this problem, many anti-counterfeiting approaches have been proposed. They use either Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) or Near Field Communication (NFC) physical tags affixed to the products. Current anti-counterfeiting approaches detect two counterfeiting attacks: (1) modifications to a product's tag details, such as changing the expiration date; and (2) cloning of a genuine product's details to reuse on counterfeit products. In addition, these anti-counterfeiting approaches track-and-trace the physical locations of products as the products flow through supply chains. Existing approaches suffer from two main drawbacks. They cannot detect tag reapplication attacks, wherein a counterfeiter removes a legitimate tag from a genuine product and reapplies it to a counterfeit or expired product. Second, most existing approaches typically rely on a central server to authenticate products. This is not scalable and creates tremendous processing burden on the server, since significant volumes of products flood through the supply chain's nodes. In addition, centralized supply chains require substantial data storage to store authentication records for all products. Moreover, as with centralized systems, traditional supply chains inherently have the problem of a single-point of failure. The thesis of this dissertation is that a robust, scalable, counterfeiting-resistant supply chain that addresses the above drawbacks and can be simultaneously achieved by (i) using a combination of NFC tags on products and a distributed ledger such as blockchain for reapplication-proof, decentralized, and transparent product authentication (ii) a novel game-theoretical consensus protocol for enforcing true decentralization, and enhancing the protocol's security and performance. In this dissertation, we first propose a new Tag Reapplication Detection (TRD) system to detect reapplication attacks using low-cost NFC tags and public key cryptography. To detect reapplication attacks, TRD tracks the number of times a tag has been read in the supply chain using a 'central' authentication server. Second, leveraging the blockchain technology, we propose the Block-Supply Chain, a transformation of TRD into a decentralized supply chain. In this chain, each node maintains a blockchain (distributed public ledger) per product. This blockchain comprises chained blocks, where each is an authentication event. The Block-Supply Chain can detect tag reapplication attacks and can replace the centralized supply chain design, thus overcoming the centralization issues. One of the fundamental characteristics of blockchain technology is the consensus protocol. Consensus protocols ensure that all nodes in the blockchain network agree on the validity of a block to be included in the public ledger. The first and most popular of the existing consensus protocols is Proof of Work (PoW). However, PoW requires massive computational effort, resulting in high energy and computing resources consumption. Alternatively, Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) protocols, such as Tendermint, were adapted in blockchain technology to be efficient and easy to implement. Nevertheless, not all of BFT protocols guarantee true decentralization, and they are mostly based on fixed-validators. BFT fixed-validators protocols typically rely on fixed, static validators responsible for validating all newly proposed blocks. This opens the door for adversaries to launch several attacks on these validators, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) and Eclipse attacks. In contrast, a truly decentralized protocol ensures that variable sets of anonymous validators execute the blocks' validations. Building on this observation, we propose the TrueBFT, a truly decentralized BFT-based consensus protocol that does not require PoW and randomly employs a different set of validators on each block's proposal. TrueBFT is designed for permissioned blockchains (in such blockchains, the participants who can transact on the blockchain are limited, and each participant is required to have permission to join the system). Our simulations show that TrueBFT offers remarkable performance with a satisfactory level of security compared to the state-of-the-art protocol Tendermint. Another issue with current consensus protocols, particularly the BFT, is that the majority of them do not take the number of employed validators into consideration. The number of validators in a blockchain network influences its security and performance substantially. In response, we integrate a game theoretical model into TrueBFT that analyzes the risk likelihood of each proposer (i.e., the node that creates and proposes the new block). Consequently, each time a new block is proposed, the 'number of validators' becomes proportional to the risk likelihood block's proposer. Additionally, the game model reinforces the honest behavior of the validators by rewarding honest validators and punishing dishonest ones. Together, TRD, Block-Supply Chain, and the game-theoretical TrueBFT consensus protocol enable robust, scalable, decentralized anti-counterfeiting supply chain that is resistant to tag reapplication attacks, as well as attacks to consensus protocols such as DDoS and Eclipse attacks.

No description available.

Examining periodicals and novels from 1847 to 1886, I analyze the feminine fake to argue that individuals were beginning during this period to grapple with the discomforting idea that identity, especially gender, might be a social construct. Previously, scholars have contended that this ideological shift did not occur until the 1890s. I apply the term "feminine fake" to the tools that women use to falsify their identities and to the women who counterfeit their identities. Equally, I consider the fake as a theatrical moment of falsifying one's identity. In my first chapter, I set up my theoretical framework, which draws from Laqueur's writings on the cultural history of sex and gender, Poovey's work on the "uneven development" of gender ideology, and Baudrillard and Eco's respective concepts of the simulacra and the hyperreal. Chapter II examines issues of The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine and La Mode illustrée to analyze the feminine fake during the period surrounding the Franco-Prussian War. Using Fraser, Green, and Johnston's writing on the periodical alongside Hiner's theories of the ideological work of the accessory, I argue that the women's magazine, particularly via the "rhetoric of the fake" therein, fashion, and the accessory were crucial sites for the construction of gender at the time. Chapter III looks at performance and the feminine fake in Vanity Fair and La Curée. I re-evaluate Voskuil's theories of "acting naturally" to analyze the charades and tableaux vivants within the novels and illustrate how these performances metaphorically function as society's failed efforts to render feminine identities legible. In Chapter IV, I analyze Lady Audley's Secret and L'Eve future, situating Lady Audley and the android as hyperfeminine, or marked by an identificatory excess rendering them more feminine than any real woman. The threat they pose to legible feminine and human identity drives the need to control their unmanageable identities: at the ends of the novels, the women, along with what I characterize as their inhuman fakery, are irreversibly contained. / text