- Keywords:
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E-Justice
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Electronic Justice
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Electronic Courtroom
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Virtual Courtroom
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Hull University
Abstract
This work is devoted to the development of an e-justice system; more specifically a
web based small claims court. This system was developed to see if it is indeed
possible for a small claims court to be totally electronically based (or as much as
possible) hence the term e-justice. The e-justice system implemented allows a
claimant to make a claim against a defendant and resolve the claim electronically
without the need to go to a physical courtroom. The claim can be resolved either by the defendant paying the monies owed online, or if a defendant wishes to counter-claim, then the case is heard in a “Virtual Courtroom‟. This “Virtual Courtroom‟ is where the case is “heard‟ by a judge using web cam feeds relating to the claimant and defendant. These webcam feeds could be streamed from the
claimant/defendant‟s personal computer at home, thus eliminating the need to go toa courtroom which could be far away. The developed system was evaluated by user testing and was proven to be satisfactory in terms of usability and functionality but perhaps such a system is not ready to replace the current small claims court in the immediate future. It may be that further into the future the entire courts system may undergo a digital transformation with the continuing improvement and availability of digital technology.
About the e-justice project:
As part of my Degree, (at the University of Hull) my dissertation project was to research the idea of electronic justice (e-justice) and whether such a system could replace the current court system.
What is e-justice?
E-justice could be defined as an umbrella term for the use of information technology practices within the judiciary system. This could relate to the use of IT to write reports and also communication, such as e-mail, between the judge and other parties connected with the case. It could also refer to the use of technologies to aid the case, such as using video footage to present evidence. However for this project we are researching the possibility of whether these technologies can be utilised to provide a fully electronic justice system (e-justice), whereby, through the use of computing, justice can be attained.
Current e-justice systems
Existing e-justice systems looked at in this project involved the Pay Pal Solution Center and Her Majesty’s Court Service: Money Claim Online. As stated previously this project focused on the small claims system. More specifically building a web based e-justice system prototype whereby claimants’ can file a claim against the defendant and the defendant can have the opportunity to resolve the claim online using the system. However in attempting to make this
system totally electronically based (or as much as possible) then all correspondence will be via e-mail and, if the defendant disputes the claim, then the claim is “heard‟ in a virtual courtroom. The prototype system was developed using PHP, MySQL and some Javascript.
Downloads / view the Prototype:
If you want the source code for the project, please don’t hesitate to ask!
A simple, free, easy to use online booking system for theatres, cinemas etc…It is written in PHP and AJAX. This does not use MySQL or other databases instead it is a flat file based (txt), and works with either Linux or Windows Web servers (not tested on Mac servers).
This is only a basic concept of a PHP AJAX online, therefore should not be used in a real world scenario, due to the security issues of flat-files.
view demo of ajax php booking system
(opens in new window)
How does it work?
When a booking is made it is written to a text file. But to get an idea of how it works, view the demo and download the source code (link at the bottom)
It prevents double booking both client side (Ajax) and server-side with the php
In the Ajax file it checks if the file booked seat exists by checking if a file exists corrisponding to the seatnumber (best explained when viewed in source code and demo!)
The source code is Freeware, although please credit me where due if you decided to adapt/ use it for your projects
Downloads
download source code (zip file 210KB)
XXS? What is Cross-site Scripting XXS?
As wikipedia puts it:
Cross-site scripting (XSS) is a type of computer security vulnerability typically found in web applications which allow code injection by malicious web users into the web pages viewed by other users. Examples of such code include HTML code and client-side scripts. An exploited cross-site scripting vulnerability can be used by attackers to bypass access controls such as the same origin policy. Vulnerabilities of this kind have been exploited to craft powerful phishing attacks and browser exploits. As of 2007, cross-site scripting carried out on websites were roughly 80% of all documented security vulnerabilities. Often during an attack “everything looks fine” to the end-user who may be subject to unauthorized access, theft of sensitive data, and financial loss.
Test if your WordPress Blog is vunerable to an XSS
Recently, i discovered, that if you entered code such asUpdate: Might not be true now – this post was several years ago!
It would run the script, now that script that alerts the word hello is not a massive problem, but it proves that the site is vunerable to XSS attacks!
How to Prevent XSS Exploits and attacks in your WordPress blog (or indeed any website/blog)
For WordPress: Log onto your wordpress blog, go to Design > Theme Editor, locate the file, search.php (alternitivly can be done editing the search.php via ftp) and at the very top of the file insert the following code:
<?php
// Prevent any possible XSS attacks via $_GET.
foreach ($_GET as $check_url) {
if ((eregi("<[^>]*script*"?[^>]*>", $check_url)) || (eregi("<[^>]*object*"?[^>]*>", $check_url)) ||
(eregi("<[^>]*iframe*"?[^>]*>", $check_url)) || (eregi("<[^>]*applet*"?[^>]*>", $check_url)) ||
(eregi("<[^>]*meta*"?[^>]*>", $check_url)) || (eregi("<[^>]*style*"?[^>]*>", $check_url)) ||
(eregi("<[^>]*form*"?[^>]*>", $check_url)) || (eregi("([^>]*"?[^)]*)", $check_url)) ||
(eregi(""", $check_url))) {
echo"there appears to be an error, please press the back button and try again";
die ();
}
}
unset($check_url);
?>
(origional code by:sumit270 , from php.net)
For other sites and blogs put the above code in the php file where the search results are displayed, simple!
Update: I’ve long since abandoned the idea and HTML5 is the way to go!.
(I’ve left this post up for reference)
After doing some research on Google, i think it maybe possible to do the whole new digiwebbs site design using flash.
I’m going to create a whole website in flash and use WordPress as the back-end for my articles/blog posts. I’m going to attempt this using Tim Wilson’s script PressConnect:
PressConnect is a PHP Script I have developed to connect my Flash Website to my WordPress Content.
The Code interrogates the Database and Returns Posts, Pages, Categories, and Creates Menus in XML
Just Updated with Better Code and New Functions.
New: I have release the .fla file my website is based on, it is available for purchase
more info on the PressConnect script.
Next Problem: Search Engine Optimising (SEO) the Flash Site
The next challenge with Flash based websites is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), which will be tricky, because the site will be a .swf file, which according to some sources can be ‘read’ by google, others say it can’t be read by google. My intention is to have the content that can be indexed by google in one div (content generated by PHP), but if the browser supports it, then the flash content of the site will be displayed. This would be achieved with some javascript (ugh!), although there is a handy google tool: SWFObject is an easy-to-use and standards-friendly method to embed Flash content, which utilizes one small JavaScript file.
So in the next few weeks, digiwebbs, hopefully will be a working Flash Website with a WordPress back-end, serving all the blog posts,articles and pages! – Never going to happen!
Of course, I’ll be blogging the progress!
