Provides answers to key questions affecting the future of electronic data interchange (EDI) and its impact on the business community as a whole. This evolving technology is cheaper than fax, easier to use than electronic bulletin boards and faster than the postal services. It contains practical information and alerts the reader to the level and types of controls necessary to protect data handled through the EDI system interface.

John Merriam was part of the crew for the S.S. Producer when she put in to Bandar Abbas in early 1972, the first U.S-flag ship to visit that godforsaken port. The Shah of Iran was still in power and tension was in the air. Unannounced, and seemingly from nowhere, a man named Mike Costello walked out of the desert. He came aboard the Producer casually as if he were part of the crew, pushing a handtruck stacked with cases of soda--a welcome sight in that parched region of the Persian Gulf. John wouldn't know until later, when he unwittingly became Mike's mule, that Mike was a professional...

This is the fourth in a series of five sea stories based on the author's experience in the merchant marine. The S.S. Summit was one of the prototype containerships running up and down the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. During winter, that's probably the most miserable route for U.S. merchant ships. John signs on as Wiper, the lowest form of life in the engine room. After trying to save his work partner from a marijuana bust, John ends up sitting beside him in jail in Cordova, Alaska. Unable to make bail, John concludes that he'd need to be a lawyer himself to get out of jail. That realization...