electronic mail-e-mail: pervasive and persuasive

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U-M-I Due to a lack of contrast between text and background, thjr page did no: mproduce well The net of networks now embracing the globe is ~ bypassing corporate and other hierarchies ml service is the nervous system of nations and em- pires. From message run- ners in ancient Greece to the Pony Express that cou- pled the wild west with the eastern United States, the speed of message delivery ha5 wrought dramatic changes in societies. Today computers hitched by globe-grdling communications lines link a domain that is 1 freed of time, distance, and political bound- anes, made possible by electronic messages Tekla S Perry Senior Editor (tekla@well sf ca us) John A Adam Senior Associate Editor (jaadam@well sf ca us) ~~~~ ~ ~ ~ - ~ ~ _ _ _ -~ ~~ - 22 that travel over speed-of-light highways. For example, a US. resident cannot make a phone call to Cuba or travel there direct- ly: the US. government blocks such routes. But if the person knows a Cuban’s electronic name and address (a sometimes cryptic se- ries of letters and symbols), he or she can send messages there with a couple of key- strokes at the cost of a local phone call. For that same local call, his computer can con- nect him to peace activists in Central Ameri- ca or supercomputer specialists in Russia. Nor is it unusual for engineen in Scotland to use an e-mail network to collaborate on designs with colleagues in New England, California, and Israel. Such is the power of the net. Still nascent, it already encircles most of the globe [see 0018-9235/92/$3.0001992 IEEE map]. It resists control by governments or any central authority, perceiving attempts at censorship as electronic malfunctions and reconfiguring itself to avoid them. Thus, it is a force for democratization of govern- ments and social change [pp. 30-331. In fact, it may have played a role in subverting last year’s attempted coup in the then Soviet Union. The network is blind to race, age, gender, or handicap. As a new source of leisure-time fun, it includes social opportunities for the

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Page 1: Electronic mail-E-mail: pervasive and persuasive

U-M-I Due to a lack of contrast between text and background, thjr page did no: mproduce well

’ The net of networks now embracing the globe is ~ bypassing corporate and other hierarchies

ml service is the nervous system of nations and em- pires. From message run- ners in ancient Greece to the Pony Express that cou- pled the wild west with the eastern United States, the speed of message delivery

ha5 wrought dramatic changes in societies. Today computers hitched by globe-grdling communications lines link a domain that is

1 freed of time, distance, and political bound- anes, made possible by electronic messages

Tekla S Perry Senior Editor (tekla@well sf ca us) John A Adam Senior Associate Editor (jaadam@well sf ca us)

~~~~ ~ ~ ~ - ~ ~ _ _ _

-~ ~~ -

22

that travel over speed-of-light highways. For example, a US. resident cannot make

a phone call to Cuba or travel there direct- ly: the US . government blocks such routes. But if the person knows a Cuban’s electronic name and address (a sometimes cryptic se- ries of letters and symbols), he or she can send messages there with a couple of key- strokes at the cost of a local phone call. For that same local call, his computer can con- nect him to peace activists in Central Ameri- ca or supercomputer specialists in Russia. Nor is it unusual for engineen in Scotland to use an e-mail network to collaborate on designs with colleagues in New England, California, and Israel.

Such is the power of the net. Still nascent, it already encircles most of the globe [see

0018-9235/92/$3.0001992 IEEE

map]. It resists control by governments or any central authority, perceiving attempts at censorship as electronic malfunctions and reconfiguring itself to avoid them. Thus, it is a force for democratization of govern- ments and social change [pp. 30-331. In fact, it may have played a role in subverting last year’s attempted coup in the then Soviet Union.

The network is blind to race, age, gender, or handicap. As a new source of leisure-time fun, it includes social opportunities for the

Page 2: Electronic mail-E-mail: pervasive and persuasive

housebound and personalized news services for everyone [p. 291.

It is also transforming the workplace. En- gineers quitting for the day pass design prob- lems over time zones much like a baton in an endless relay race; companies call upon researchers separated by oceans to col- laborate on complex projects [pp. 24-28]. Corporate e-mail is breaking down hierar- chies by making upper managers more ac- cessible and speeding up the pace of re- search.

Electronic mail evolved spontaneously in various computer timesharing systems in the mid-1960s. “It was fairly obvious in timesharing that leaving messages for other users would be convenient,” said Frank Heart, senior vice president at Bolt, Bera- nek, and Newman Inc. (BBN), Cambridge, Mass. These early mail systems were casually written, often as a weekend proj- ect by a programmer or two, and had no uniformity.

Then in 1969, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (Arpanet) was begun by the U.S. government so that re- searchers at universities and other facilities hight electronically ship computer data to each other and remotely launch computer programs.

A year later, Raymond Tomlinson, a prin- cipal scientist at BBN, the main Arpanet contractor, wrote a program employing Ar- panet’s file transfer protocol. The software let BBN’s local mail system communicate with independent mail systems at the other Arpanet sites. The result: e-mail quickly be- came a key means of communications be- tween Arpanet users, as well as a vehicle for transmitting other information such as executable progmns and data files, packaged as e-mail messages.

Today e-mail reaches many d o n s of peo- ple around the globe, from New York City to Tokyo and Siberia to the Vatican. Various networks continue to grow exponentially,

Most of the world, 108 countries so far, is connected to electnmic networks. At the low end IC], these nets offer at the vey least electronic mail services, while those at the higher end fA] have the ability to transfer files and to remotely log-in to, say, supereomputen. Informa- tion on former Soviet republics may be incomplete, but otherwise datu is current to Aug. 31; it was compiled by Luny H. Lundweber, professor of computer sciences at the University of Wisconsin, in Madison.

U-M-I Due to a lack of contrast between text and background, this page did no? reproduce well

even though e-mail itself has been con- strained by incompatibilities [“Meta-ma- trices,” pp. 26-28]. For instance, a person connected to seven networks-like Compu- serve, GEnie, FidoNet, MCIMail, the Well, Unix-to-Unix Copy, and Bitnet-may need seven addresses because gateways between networks have been slow in coming. Address- es for messages that cross networks are complex-and some are incredibly lengthy.

All this activity on the network has raised concerns over privacy [“Data Security,” ZEEE Spectrum, August 1992, pp. 18-44] and also over the complicated and somewhat unclear legal protections for information “published” on a computer network [a topic to be addressed in a future Spedmm article].

Obviously, e-mail masks out many of the cues present in other forms of communica- tion-body language, voice inflection, even the stationery (business letterhead, monogrammed notes, or scented tissue) that gives paper mail a personal touch. To com- pensate, it has developed its own language of images. Read by being mentally turned 90 degrees clockwise, these “emoticons” or “smilies” inflect messages in a host of ways. A few examples:

:-) A joking comment ;-) A flirtatious or sarcastic comment :-(A frown, the user is upset or depressed > : - < Even madder > :- > A devilish remark :-D A laugh :-Q A scream To-) Confused _. . :-X My lips are sealed

Improvements in electronic mail services are on their way. While the e-mail world is still somewhat biased toward the

narde technical elite, commer- c d users &e hooking up in droves, creat-

ing a demand for easy-to-use services. Ac- cording to ’George Cunningham, vice president of product planning at fl&T Easy- link Services, Parsipanny, NJ., e-mail by the mid-’90s will take off in the consumer realm. Portable notebook computers with built-in wireless modems will enable users to send and receive e-mail anywhere.

Perhaps the biggest initiative on the e-mail horizon is the planned high-speed National Research and Education Network (NREN). The multibillion-dollar U.S. endeavor is to lay down gigabitcapacity links that will allow more bandwidth-intensive graphics and video to be included with text and voice. It is to link more than a million computers in all 5OJ.S.“ states for use by high-perfor- .mance computing researchers, and is ex- pected to boost other consumer and busi- ness network services as well.

BBN’s Heart has his own view of being hooked up, one that millions ’ more may soon agree with. “E- d mail,” he said, “is like a clothes-

pin. Once you figure it out, you can’t hang your clothes without it.” +

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