Email Evolution: Society, Secrets, and Security

1
Email Evolution Society, Secrets, and Security

• The Email Efficiency Form24 July 2007

Kirk Kirksey, Vice President for Information
ResourcesUT Southwestern Medical Center at
DallasUniversity Hospitals, Zale Lipshy and St.
Paulkirk.kirksey_at_utsouthwestern.edu
2
Obligatory Email Statistics

• 12 billion email messages per day
• Average message count per recipient 32
• Spending on commercial email - 7.3b up from
  164m in 1999

3
Then There was SPAM
Email Traffic to Yale University
4
Email Its Everywhere
5
Email and Romance

• Over 20 million people visit at least one online
  dating service a month.
• 31 of Adults in America say they know someone
  who has tried Internet dating
• In 2003 3m spent over 214m for online dating
  services. This number is expected to grow to
  642m in 2008

6
Widowed Separated Divorced Married In
relationship Never married (Invalid) No answer
Women
Men
Married In relationship
Source Studying Computer Mediated
Communications (Fiore, Hearst, Shaw, Mendelson,
MIT 2004)
7
Online Dating Gotchas

• 10,000 Number of male millionaires reportedly
  available on Sugardaddie.com
• Gender swapping is an extreme example of a
  fundamental fact the network is in the process
  of changing not just how we work, but how we
  think of ourselves-- and ultimately, who we are.
  (Amy Bruckman, MITMedia Laboratory)
• The Marrison Law Firm (www.marrison-law.com) now
  offers divorce via email.

8
Email and Crime

• Top 10 Email Scams in 2006
• Fake Lottery
• Phishing Vishing
• Phony Job
• Negative Options
• Nigerian 419
• Pump and Dump
• Bogus Fuel Saving Device
• Phony Grandkid
• Oprah Ticket
• Bogus Craigs List

my favorite 419 scam graphic
Source consumeraffairs.com
9
Email and Religion

• Islam and divorce via email or text message
• Orthodox Judaism no email on the sabbath debate
• Online confession in Padua
• John Paul II first pope to send email (1978)
• Pope Benedict IV email benedictIV_at_vatican.va

Patron Saint of the Internet
10
Email and Troublemakers
11
Email and Music
12
Email and Jokes
DO NOT CONNECT TO THE INTERNET FROM 1201 AM GMT
ON APR. 1 TO 1201 AM GMT, APR. 2 !!
Attention It's that time again! As many of
you know, each year the Internet must be shut
down for 24 hours in order to allow us to clean
it. The cleaning process, which eliminates dead
email, inactive ftp and www sites, and empty
USENET groups, allows for a better working and
faster Internet. This year, the cleaning process
will take place from 1201 a.m. GMT on April 1
until 1201 a.m. GMT on April 2 (the time least
likely to interfere with ongoing work). During
that 24-hour period, five powerful Internet
search engines situated around the world will
search the Internet and delete any data that they
find. In order to protect your valuable data from
deletion we ask that you do the following 1.
Disconnect all terminals and local area networks
from their Internet connections. 2. Shut down all
Internet servers, or disconnect them from the
Internet. 3. Disconnect all disks and hard drives
from any connections to the Internet. 4. Refrain
from connecting any computer to the Internet in
any way. We understand the inconvenience that
this may cause some Internet users, and we
apologize. However, we are certain that any
inconveniences will be more than made up for by
the increased speed and efficiency of the
Internet, once it has been cleared of electronic
flotsam and jetsam. We thank you for your
cooperation. Kim DereksenInterconnected Network
Maintenance staff,Main branch,Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
Internet Cleaning April Fools Announcement (1996)
13
The Irina Virus

• Subject Virus Alert!
• Ladies and Gentlemen
• FYI
• There is a computer virus that is being sent
  across the Internet. If you receive an e-mail
  message with the subject line "Irina", DO NOT
  read the message. DELETE it immediately. Some
  miscreant is sending people files under the
  title "Irina". If you receive this mail or
  file, do not download it. It has a virus that
  rewrites your hard drive, obliterating anything
  on it. Please be careful and forward this mail
  to anyone you care about.
• (Information received from the Professor Edward
  Prideaux, College of Slavonic Studies, London.)
  .

14
Where Did it Start
15
First There was ArpaNet(Advanced Research
Projects Agency Network)
16
Sending Stuff Electronically

• Richard Watson delivered messages and files to
  printers
• SNDMSG send messages on same computer
• CYPNET send files to another computer

The first email computer Digital Equipment
Corporation KA10 (PDP-10) with 64K (36-bit) words
of (real magnetic) core memory.
17
Ray Tomlinson Invents Email a quick hack

• SENDMSG CPYNET Email
• First email sent by Timlinson in 1971
• First Message a study in recursion
• _at_ instructions
• 1974 encouraged by the military
• Larry Roberts invents Email folders in 1974
• John Vital developed first software package to
  organize email in 1975
• Commercial email packages appear in 1976

18
The _at_ Sign Brief History of an Icon

• First ArpaNet Addressmarycompsci_at_udel
• No name confusion. Meant at.
• _at_ in the Middle Ages as quantity signifier
• Underwoods typewriter in the 1800s
• Translated to ASCII in 1980

Venitian commercial document from the 1500s
19
_at_ Translation Issues
Language Name Meaning Afrikaana Chinese Swedi
sh Finnish Russian Hungarian Hebrew Turki
sh
aapstert monkeys tail sui lo tsu little
mouse kanebuille cinnamon roll muikumauku sign
of the meow sobachka dog kukac maggot shab
ul snail gul rose
20
Other _at_ Uses
-_at_ - Angry(_at_) - Cat Face_at_ - Freaking
Out_at_---- - A Rose
21
Ooops Unfortunate Email Names

• Bradley Thomas Kissering (Brady Electrical,
  Northern Division, Overton Canada)
  btkisser_at_bendover.com
• Amanda Sue Pickering (Purdue University)
  aspicker_at_pu.edu

22
Email What Does It Do to Us
23
Email Seduction Theory 1Were Lazy
Email offers the middle ground between the desire
to be productive (or at least feel productive)
and the utterly human inclination to avoid
difficult work. We typically choose to do the
thing that demands the least of us. Email has
been constructed so that you can do the business
at hand easily and efficiently. You have the
sense, sitting at your keyboard of orchestrating
a life. It feels satisfying and productive
without much effort
Sherry Turkle, MIT Sociologist and Author of Life
on the Screen
24
Email Seduction Theory 2Were Primal
It is the power of intermittent reinforcement.
The computer is not the ultimate Skinner Box.
You keep coming back for the reward. Dr. Lee
Sproull, Professor of Business at New York
University
Its sort of like the feeling in the old days
when the mailman arrived. Possibly, just
possibly there could be something wonderful in
one of those envelopes that would delight you,
and make your heart race a little faster. The
difference with email is that it keeps arriving
all day long. Sarah Crichton, publisher of
Little Brown
25
Email Seduction Theory 3Were Addicts
When asked about email habit, 4000 respondents
over 18. 41 check email first thing in the
morning23 check their email in bed4 read
email in the bathroomsmall number of respondents
check email while driving and in
church23 say physical discomfort caused after
2-3 days without emailsource AOL within
Opinion Research Inc.
26
Getting the Email Monkey Off Your Back

• Resolve not to check e-mail after a certain hour
  of the night, and respect the curfew.
• Close the loop on an ongoing e-mail discussion by
  picking up the phone and calling the other
  person.
• Consider how many messages you send out.
• Act on every e-mail you open by deleting it,
  forwarding it, responding to it or filing it.
• Go without e-mail one day per week.

Source ComputerWorld
27
Who the heck is Tim Sanders and what does he know
about email anyway?