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E-mail (short for electronic mail; often also abbreviated as
e-mail, email or simply mail) is a store and forward method
of composing, sending, storing, and receiving messages over
electronic communication systems. The term "e-mail" (as a noun
or verb) applies both to the Internet e-mail system based on
the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and to X.400 systems,
and to intranet systems allowing users within one organization
to e-mail each other. Often these workgroup collaboration organizations
may use the Internet protocols or X.400 protocols for internal
e-mail service. E-mail is often used to deliver bulk unsolicited
messages, or "spam", but filter programs exist which can automatically
delete some or most of these, depending on the situation.
Spelling
Spelling of this term is disputed, and varies by field. While "e-mail" (with
a hyphen) is used in journalism (such as by the CNN, BBC and
New York Times), the computer industry primarily uses the spelling "email" (no
hyphen).[1] In particular, the original spelling is "email" (no
hyphen), based on the technical roots of the term, as seen
in the RFC documents for SMTP,[2] POP[3] and IMAP,[4] which
use "mail" or "email."
"E-mail" is capitalized at the beginning of a sentence and in headings.
Origin
E-mail predates the inception of the Internet, and was in fact
a crucial tool in creating the Internet. MIT first demonstrated
the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) in 1961.[5] It allowed
multiple users to log into the IBM 7094[6] from remote dial-up
terminals, and to store files online on disk. This new ability
encouraged users to share information in new ways. E-mail started
in 1965 as a way for multiple users of a time-sharing mainframe
computer to communicate. Although the exact history is murky,
among the first systems to have such a facility were SDC's
Q32 and MIT's CTSS.
E-mail was quickly extended to become network e-mail, allowing
users to pass messages between different computers by at least
1966 (it is possible the SAGE system had something similar
some time before).
The ARPANET computer network made a large contribution to the
development of e-mail. There is one report[7] that indicates
experimental inter-system e-mail transfers on it shortly after
its creation, in 1969. Ray Tomlinson initiated the use of the
@ sign to separate the names of the user and their machine
in 1971.[8] The ARPANET significantly increased the popularity
of e-mail, and it became the killer app of the ARPANET.
Servers and client applications
Messages are exchanged between hosts using the Simple Mail
Transfer Protocol with software programs called mail transport
agents. Users can download their messages from servers with
standard protocols such as the POP or IMAP protocols, or, as
is more likely in a large corporate environment, with a proprietary
protocol specific to Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange Servers.
Mail can be stored either on the client, on the server side,
or in both places. Standard formats for mailboxes include Maildir
and mbox. Several prominent e-mail clients use their own proprietary
format and require conversion software to transfer e-mail between
them.
When a message cannot be delivered, the recipient MTA must
send a bounce message back to the sender, indicating the problem.
Filename extensions
Most, but not all, e-mail clients save individual messages
as separate files, or allow users to do so. Different applications
save e-mail files with different filename extensions.
.eml This is the default e-mail extension for Mozilla Thunderbird
and Windows Mail. It is used by Microsoft Outlook Express.
.emlx Used by Apple Mail.
.msg Used by Microsoft Office Outlook.
Use In society Flaming
Many observers bemoan the rise of flaming in written communications.
Flaming occurs when one person, usually is upset at another
person, sends the second person an angry and/or antagonistic
message. Flaming is assumed to be more common today because
of the ease and impersonality of e-mail communications: confrontations
in person or via telephone require direct interaction, where
social norms encourage civility, whereas typing an unhappy
message to another person is an indirect interaction, so civility
may be forgotten.
In business
E-mail was widely accepted by the business community as the
first broad electronic communication medium and was the first ‘e-revolution’ in
Business communication. E-mail is very simple to understand
and like postal mail, e-mail solves two basic problems of communication.
LAN based email is also an emerging form of usage for business.
It not only allows the business user to download mail when
offline, it also provides the small business user to have multiple
users email ID's with just one email connection.
Pros * The problem of logistics
Much of the business world relies on communication between
individuals who are physically distant from one another; organizing
and participating in an in-person meeting can be time-consuming
and expensive. Email provides a near-instantaneous exchange
of information at little cost. Teleconferencing bridges physical
distance, but the logistics of gathering people together at
the same time remains. * The problem of synchronization
For real time communication, participants generally have to
be working on the same schedule. They need to be at the same
place at the same time and spend the same amount of time on
the same information.
E-mail allows each participant to decide when and how they
will process the information.
Cons
Most business professionals today spend between 20% and 50%
of their working time using e-mail[9] : reading, ordering,
sorting, ‘re-contextualizing’ fragmented information and of
course writing emails. Use of e-mail is increasing, due to
trends of globalization—distribution of organizational divisions,
outsourcing, among others. E-mail can lead to some well-known
problems: * Loss of Context: Information in context
(as in a newspaper) is much easier and faster to understand
than unsorted fragments. Communicating in context is faster
and more efficient. * Spam: E-mail is a push-only medium: control
of who receives information lies primarily with the sender.
This can lead to an overflow of unwanted or irrelevant information. * Inconsistency: E-mail can duplicate information.
This may be a problem when a team is collaboratively working
on documents.
Despite these disadvantages, and despite the availability of
other tools, e-mail-based communication is still the most widely
used written medium in businesses.
Challenges
Spamming and computer viruses
The usefulness of e-mail is being threatened by three phenomena:
spamming, phishing and e-mail worms.
Spamming is unsolicited commercial e-mail. Because of the very
low cost of sending e-mail, spammers can send hundreds of millions
of e-mail messages each day over an inexpensive Internet connection.
Hundreds of active spammers sending this volume of mail results
in information overload for many computer users who receive
tens or even hundreds of junk messages each day.
E-mail worms use e-mail as a way of replicating themselves
into vulnerable computers. Although the first e-mail worm affected
UNIX computers, the problem is most common today on the more
popular Microsoft Windows operating system.
The combination of spam and worm programs results in users
receiving a constant drizzle of junk e-mail, which reduces
the usefulness of e-mail as a practical tool.
A number of anti-spam techniques mitigate the impact of spam.
In the United States, U.S. Congress has also passed a law,
the Can Spam Act of 2003, attempting to regulate such e-mail.
Australia also has very strict spam laws restricting the sending
of spam from an Australian ISP, but its impact has been minimal
since most spam comes from regimes that seem reluctant to regulate
the sending of spam.
Privacy concerns
Main article: e-mail privacy
E-mail privacy, without some security precautions, can be compromised
because:
* e-mail messages are generally not encrypted;
* e-mail messages have to go through intermediate computers
before reaching their destination, meaning it is relatively
easy for others to intercept and read messages;
* many Internet Service Providers (ISP) store copies of your
e-mail messages on their mail servers before they are delivered.
The backups of these can remain up to several months on their
server, even if you delete them in your mailbox;
* the Received: headers and other information in the e-mail
can often identify the sender, preventing anonymous communication.
There are cryptography applications that can serve as a remedy
to one or more of the above. For example, Virtual Private Networks
or the Tor anonymity network can be used to encrypt traffic
from the user machine to a safer network while GPG, PGP or
S/MIME can be used for end-to-end message encryption, and SMTP
STARTTLS or SMTP over Transport Layer Security/Secure Sockets
Layer can be used to encrypt communications for a single mail
hop between the SMTP client and the SMTP server.
Additionally, many mail user agents do not protect logins and
passwords, making them easy to intercept by an attacker. Encrypted
authentication schemes such as SASL prevent this.
Finally, attached files share many of the same hazards as those
found in peer-to-peer filesharing. Attached files may contain
trojans or viruses.
Tracking of sent mail
E-mail traditionally provides no mechanism for tracking a sent
message. The system(s) involved will generally make an effort
to either deliver mail or return a failure notice ("bounce
message"), but there is no guarantee that a message will actually
be delivered, let alone read by the recipient. This is in contrast
to the postal mail system, which offers registered mail or
other forms of tracking and tracing.
To remedy this, mechanisms like Delivery Status Notifications
(DSN) and return receipts were introduced.
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