Emails That Affect Our Lives

What is an email and how does it affect our lives. In order to answer this, I will need to take a step backwards to Arpanet. Let me see if I can provide an explanation of what Arpanet was. In 1969, UCLA Stanford and the University of Utah managed to create a two computer network. These experiments lead to the sharing of data between the two schools. From that point, the developers created what is known as an IMP, or Interface Message Processor.

This allowed for the connectivity standard for a network that eventually grew to 32 devices in December 1971. As Arpanet was growing, Ray Tomlinson, working as a Arpanet contractor with Bolt Beranek and Newman, he created the standard of name_of_user@computer_name for messaging. With the advent of technology spanning the US military, Arpanet managed to find itself being used through the armed forces. Through this meager start, the need to increase the capacity and data manageability was a mere necessity.

By 1975, Larry Roberts managed to develop a system of managing emails through folders, which allowed him to sort his bosses emails. This step allowed John Vital to develop software that allowed a consistent way of organizing email. As the software became more and more user friendly, the new fledgling technology started to become more widespread. With in a few years of use, almost 75% of all traffic on the Arpanet network was electronic email, email.

Now as the need for a consumer based electronic messaging system increased, the traffic found itself moving from Arpanet to what is now known as the Internet. Email started to allow users located in all reaches of the world to communicate effectively. In the early days, the ability to connect to their local provider or other computers were completely tied to the telephone carrier charges, which often included long distance and international charges. This is where the further development of personal computers, storage, and applications that allowed for offline and schedule email send and receives.

Not until the late nineties and the advent of internet service providers opening up local modem hubs did internet usage become more wide spread. This system was a huge leap forward, allowing users to communicate in near real time with a purported document trail. Moving away from Usenets and other type of bulletin boards and onward towards a full electronic message system, you start to see some of the naivety that is built in to the SMTP protocol. It is not too difficult to spoof or mislead the recipient of an email to truly identify themselves as a verifiable sender. Because of this naivety, users started to find themselves victim to various different scams, which could and has arisen a billion dollar a year industry today.

Email has come along way from it's fairly humble beginning, to the predominate method of communication today. Through the development of x400, x500, POP, SMTP, etc, has afforded the basic computer user the ability to communicate to the world. Users place orders for goods and services without leaving the comfort of their home. Businesses rely on email to pass policies and procedures to their users in multiple sites spanning the globe. As we find ways to integrate our lives with technology, you will see different industries and standards passed, however, none of this would be possible, if it wasn't for the pioneers that found a need and filled it.