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Computer MediatedCommunicationWikibook ITEC30011

ContentsArticles

Computer-mediated communication 1Email 4Instant messaging 19Social networking service 28Opportunity cost 41Acceptable use policy 43

ReferencesArticle Sources and Contributors 46Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 49

Article LicensesLicense 50

Computer-mediated communication 1

Computer-mediated communicationComputer-mediated communication (CMC) is defined as any communicative transaction that occurs through theuse of two or more networked computers.[1] While the term has traditionally referred to those communications thatoccur via computer-mediated formats (e.g., instant messages, e-mails, chat rooms), it has also been applied to otherforms of text-based interaction such as text messaging.[2] Research on CMC focuses largely on the social effects ofdifferent computer-supported communication technologies. Many recent studies involve Internet-based socialnetworking supported by social software.

Scope of the fieldScholars from a variety of fields study phenomena that can be described under the umbrella term of CMC (see alsoInternet studies). For example, many take a sociopsychological approach to CMC by examining how humans use"computers" (or digital media) to manage interpersonal interaction, form impressions and form and maintainrelationships.[3] [4] These studies have often focused on the differences between online and offline interactions,though contemporary research is moving towards the view that CMC should be studied as embedded in everyday life.[5] Another branch of CMC research examines the use of paralinguistic features such as emoticons, pragmatic rulessuch as turn-taking[6] and the sequential analysis and organization of talk,[7] [8] and the various sociolects, styles,registers or sets of terminology specific to these environments (see Leet). The study of language in these contexts istypically based on text-based forms of CMC, and is sometimes referred to as "computer-mediated discourseanalysis".[9]

The way humans communicate in professional, social, and educational settings varies widely, depending upon notonly the environment but also the method of communication in which the communication occurs, which in this caseis through computers or other information and computer technologies (ICTs). The study of communication toachieve collaborationcommon work productsis termed computer-supported collaboration and includes onlysome of the concerns of other forms of CMC research.Popular forms of CMC include e-mail, video, audio or text chat (text conferencing including "instant messaging"),bulletin boards, list-servs and MMOs.[10] These settings are changing rapidly with the development of newtechnologies. Weblogs (blogs) have also become popular, and the exchange of RSS data has better enabled users toeach "become their own publisher".

CharacteristicsCommunication occurring within a computer-mediated format has an effect on many different aspects of aninteraction. Some of these that have received attention in the scholarly literature include impression formation,deception, group dynamics, disinhibition and especially relationship formation.CMC is examined and compared to other communication media through a number of aspects thought to be universalto all forms of communication, including (but not limited to) synchronicity, persistence or "recordability", andanonymity. The association of these aspects with different forms of communication varies widely. For example,instant messaging is intrinsically synchronous but not persistent, since one loses all the content when one closes thedialog box unless one has a message log set up or has manually copy-pasted the conversation. E-mail and messageboards, on the other hand, are low in synchronicity since response time varies, but high in persistence since messagessent and received are saved. Properties that separate CMC from other media also include transience, its multimodalnature, and its relative lack of governing codes of conduct.[11] CMC is able to overcome physical and sociallimitations of other forms of communication and therefore allow the interaction of people who are not physicallysharing the same space.

Computer-mediated communication 2

Anonymity and in part privacy and security depends more on the context and particular program being used or webpage being visited. However, most researchers in the field acknowledge the importance of considering thepsychological and social implications of these factors alongside the technical "limitations".

TypesCMC can be divided into synchronous and asynchronous modes. In synchronous communications all participants areonline at the same time (e.g. IRC), while asynchronous communications occurs with time constraints. (e.g e mail)

Language learningCMC is widely discussed in language learning because CMC provides opportunities for language learners to practicetheir language.[12] For example, Warschauer[13] conducted several case studies on using email or discussion boardsin different language classes. Warschauer[14] claimed that information and communications technology bridge thehistoric divide between speech and writing. Thus, considerable concern has arisen over the reading and writingresearch in L2 due to the booming of Internet.

References[1] McQuail, Denis. (2005). Mcquail's Mass Communication Theory. 5th ed. London: SAGE Publications.[2] Thurlow, C., Lengel, L. & Tomic, A. (2004). Computer mediated communication: Social interaction and the internet. London: Sage.[3] Walther, J. B. (1996). Computer-mediated communication: Impersonal, interpersonal, and hyperpersonal interaction. Communication

Research, 23, 3-43.[4] Walther, J. B., & Burgoon, J. K. (1992). Relational communication in computer-mediated interaction. Human Communication Research, 19,

50-88.[5] Haythornthwaite, C. and Wellman, B. (2002). The Internet in everyday life: An introduction. In B. Wellman and C. Haythornthwaite (Eds.),

The Internet in Everyday Life (pp. 3-41). Oxford: Blackwell.[6] Garcia, A. C., & Jacobs, J. B. (1999). The eyes of the beholder: Understanding the turn-taking system in quasi-synchronous

computer-mediated communication. Research on Language & Social Interaction, 32, 337-367.[7] Herring, S. (1999). Interactional coherence in CMC. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 4(4). http:/ / jcmc. indiana. edu/ vol4/

issue4/ herring. html[8] Markman, K. M. (2006). Computer-mediated conversation: The organization of talk in chat-based virtual team meetings. Dissertation

Abstracts International, 67 (12A), 4388. (UMI No. 3244348)[9] Herring, S. C. (2004). Computer-mediated discourse analysis: An approach to researching online behavior. In: S. A. Barab, R. Kling, and J.

H. Gray (Eds.), Designing for Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning (pp. 338-376). New York: Cambridge University Press.[10] Bishop, J. (2009). Enhancing the understanding of genres of web-based communities: The role of the ecological cognition framework.

International Journal of Web-Based Communities, 5(1), 4-17. Available online (http:/ / crocels. com/ index. php?q=node/ 6)[11] McQuail, Denis. (2005). Mcquail's Mass Communication Theory. 5th ed. London: SAGE Publications.[12] Abrams, Z. (2006). From Theory to Practice: Intracultural CMC in the L2 Classroom. book chapter, forthcoming in Ducate, Lara & Nike

Arnold (Eds.) Calling on CALL: From Theory and Research to New Directions in Foreign Language Teaching.[13] Warschauer, M. (1998). Electronic literacies: Language, culture and power in online education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.[14] Warschauer, M. (2006). Laptops and literacy: learning in the wireless classroom: Teachers College, Columbia University.

Further readingAhern, T.C., Peck, K., & Laycock, M. (1992). The effects of teacher discourse in computer-mediated discussion.Journal of Educational Computing Research, 8(3), 291-309.Angeli, C., Valanides, N., & Bonk, C.J. (2003). Communication in a web-based conferencing system: The quality ofcomputer-mediated interactions. British Journal of Educational Technology, 34(1), 31-43.Bannan-Ritland, B. (2002). Computer-mediated communication, elearning, and interactivity: A review of theresearch. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 3(2), 161-180.Christopher, M.M., Thomas, J.A., and Tallent-Runnels, M.K. (2004). Raising the Bar: Encouraging high levelthinking in online discussion forums. Roeper Review, 26(3), 166-171.

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Cooper, M.M., & Selfe, C.L. (1990). Computer conferences and learning: Authority, resistance, and internallypersuasive discourse. College English, 52(8), 847-869.Forman, E.A. (2000). Knowledge building in discourse communities. Human Development, 43(6), 364-368.Gabriel, M.A. (2004). Learning together: Exploring group interactions online. Journal of Distance Education, 19(1),54-72.Gilbert, K.G., & Dabbagh, N. (2005). How to structure online discussions for meaningful discourse: a case study.British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(1), 5-18.Gunawardena, C.H., Nolla, A.C., Wilson, P.L., Lopez-Isias, Jr. et al. (2001). A cross-cultural study of group processand development in online conferences. Distance Education, 22(1), 85-122.Hara, N., Bonk, C.J., & Angeli, C. (2000). Content analysis of online discussion in an applied educationalpsychology course. Instructional Science, 28, 115-152.Hewitt, J. (2001). Beyond threaded discourse. International Journal of Educational Telecommunications, 7(3),207-221.Hewitt, J. (2003). How habitual online practices affect the development of asynchronous discussion threads. Journalof Educational Computing Research, 28(1), 31-45.Javela, S., Bonk, C.J., & Sirpalethti, S.L. (1999). A theoretical analysis of social interactions in computer-basedlearning environments: Evidence for reciprocal understandings. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 21(3),363-388.Jones, G., & Schieffelin, B. (2009). Enquoting Voices, Accomplishing Talk: Uses of Be+Like in Instant Messaging.Language & Communication, 29(1), 77-113.Jones, G., & Schieffelin, B. (2009). Talking Text and Talking Back: "My BFF Jill" from Boob Tube to YouTube.Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 14(4), 1050 - 1079.Kalman, Y. M. and Rafaeli, S. (2007-05-23). Modulating Synchronicity in Computer-Mediated Communication.Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, TBA, San Francisco, CAOnline . 2010-01-24 from http:/ / www. allacademic. com/ meta/ p170694_index. htmlKirk, J.J., & Orr, R.L. (2003). A primer on the effective use of threaded discussion forums. ERIC document.Lapadat, J.C. (2003). Teachers in an online seminar talking about talk: Classroom discourse and school change.Language and Education, 17(1), 21-41.Leinonen, P., Jarvela, S., & Lipponen, L. (2003). Individual students interpretations of their contribution to thecomputer-mediated discussions. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 14(1), 99-122.Lin, L. (2008). An online learning model to facilitate learners rights to education. Journal of Asynchronous LearningNetworks (JALN), 12(1), pp.127143. [Special issue distributed by Sloan-C JALN in collaboration with five otherinternational journals: http:/ / www. distanceandaccesstoeducation. org/ ]Lin, L., Cranton, P. & Bridglall, B. (2005). Psychological type and asynchronous written dialogue in adult learning.Teachers College Record, 107(8), 1788-1813.MackNnight, C.B. (2000). Teaching critical thinking through online discussions. Educause Quarterly, 4, 38-41.Poole, D.M. (2000). Student participation in a discussion-oriented online course: A case study. Journal of Researchon Computing in Education, 33(2), 162-176.Schrire, S. (2003). A model for evaluating the process of learning in asynchronous computer conferencing. Journalof Instructional Delivery Systems, 17(1), 6-12.Vonderwell, S. (2002). An examination of asynchronous communication experiences and perspectives of students inan online course: A case study. The Internet and Higher Education, 6, 77-90.

Computer-mediated communication 4

Wade, S.E., & Fauske, J.R. (2004). Dialogue online: Prospective teachers discourse strategies in computer-mediateddiscussions. Reading Research Quarterly, 39(2), 134-160.Wu, D., & Hiltz, S.R. (2004). Predicting learning from asynchronous online discussions. Journal of AsynchronousLearning Networks, 8(2), 139-152.

Email

The at sign, a part of every SMTP emailaddress[1]

Electronic mail, commonly called email or e-mail, is a method ofexchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients.Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Someearly email systems required that the author and the recipient both be onlineat the same time, a la instant messaging. Today's email systems are based ona store-and-forward model. Email servers accept, forward, deliver and storemessages. Neither the users nor their computers are required to be onlinesimultaneously; they need connect only briefly, typically to an email server,for as long as it takes to send or receive messages.

An email message consists of three components, the message envelope, themessage header, and the message body. The message header contains controlinformation, including, minimally, an originator's email address and one ormore recipient addresses. Usually descriptive information is also added, such as a subject header field and a messagesubmission date/time stamp.

Originally a text-only (7-bit ASCII and others) communications medium, email was extended to carry multi-mediacontent attachments, a process standardized in RFC 2045 through 2049. Collectively, these RFCs have come to becalled Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME).

The history of modern, global Internet email services reaches back to the early ARPANET. Standards for encodingemail messages were proposed as early as 1973 (RFC 561). Conversion from ARPANET to the Internet in the early1980s produced the core of the current services. An email sent in the early 1970s looks quite similar to a basic textmessage sent on the Internet today.Network-based email was initially exchanged on the ARPANET in extensions to the File Transfer Protocol (FTP),but is now carried by the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), first published as Internet standard 10 (RFC 821)in 1982. In the process of transporting email messages between systems, SMTP communicates delivery parametersusing a message envelope separate from the message (header and body) itself.

SpellingThere are several spelling options that occasionally prove cause for surprisingly vehement disagreement.[2] [3]

email is the form required by IETF Requests for Comment and working groups[4] and increasingly by styleguides.[5] [6] [7] This spelling also appears in most dictionaries.[8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]

e-mail is a form previously recommended by some prominent journalistic and technical style guides. According toCorpus of Contemporary American English data, this form appears most frequently in edited, published AmericanEnglish writing.[14]

mail was the form used in the original RFC. The service is referred to as mail and a single piece of electronic mailis called a message.[15] [16] [17]

eMail, capitalizing only the letter M, was common among ARPANET users and the early developers of Unix,CMS, AppleLink, eWorld, AOL, GEnie, and Hotmail.

Email 5

EMail is a traditional form that has been used in RFCs for the "Author's Address",[16] [17] and is expresslyrequired "...for historical reasons...".[18]

E-mail, capitalizing the initial letter E in the same way as A-bomb, H-bomb, X-ray, T-shirt, and similarshortenings.[19]

OriginElectronic mail predates the inception of the Internet, and was in fact a crucial tool in creating it.[20]

MIT first demonstrated the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) in 1961.[21] It allowed multiple users to loginto the IBM 7094[22] from remote dial-up terminals, and to store files online on disk. This new ability encouragedusers to share information in new ways. Email started in 1965 as a way for multiple users of a time-sharingmainframe computer to communicate. Among the first systems to have such a facility were SDC's Q32 and MIT'sCTSS.

Host-based mail systemsThe original email systems allowed communication only between users who logged into the same host or"mainframe". This could be hundreds or even thousands of users within an organization. Examples include MIT's1965 CTSS MAIL,[23] Larry Breed's 1972 APL Mailbox (which was used by the 1976 Carter/Mondale presidentialcampaign),[24] [25] the original 1972 Unix mail program,[26] [27] IBM's 1981 PROFS, and Digital EquipmentCorporation's 1982 ALL-IN-1,.[28]

Homogeneous email networks and LAN-based mail systemsMany early peer-to-peer email networking only worked among computers running the same OS or program.Examples include: By 1966 or earlier, it is possible that the SAGE system had a limited form of email 1978's uucp[29] and 1980's Usenet provided Unix-to-Unix copying of email, files, and shared fora over dialup

modems or leased lines BITNET in 1981 allowed IBM mainframes to communicate email over leased lines. FidoNet's 1984 application software for IBM PC's running DOS transferred email and shared bulletin board

postings by dialup modemIn the early 1980s, networked personal computers on LANs became increasingly important. Server-based systemssimilar to the earlier mainframe systems were developed. Again these systems initially allowed communication onlybetween users logged into the same server infrastructure. Eventually these systems could also be linked betweendifferent organizations, as long as they ran the same email system and proprietary protocol.Examples include cc:Mail, Lantastic, WordPerfect Office, Microsoft Mail, Banyan VINES and Lotus Notes - withvarious vendors supplying gateway software to link these incompatible systems.

Email 6

Attempts at interoperabilityEarly interoperability among independent systems included: ARPANET, the forerunner of today's Internet, defined the first protocols for dissimilar computers to exchange

email uucp implementations for non-Unix systems were used as an open "glue" between differing mail systems,

primarily over dialup telephones CSNet used dial-up telephone access to link additional sites to the ARPANET and then InternetLater efforts at interoperability standardization included: Novell briefly championed the open MHS protocol but abandoned it after purchasing the non-MHS WordPerfect

Office (renamed Groupwise) The Coloured Book protocols on UK academic networks until 1992 X.400 in the 1980s and early 1990s was promoted by major vendors and mandated for government use under

GOSIP but abandoned by all but a few in favor of Internet SMTP by the mid-1990s.

From SNDMSG to MSGIn the early 1970s, Ray Tomlinson updated an existing utility called SNDMSG so that it could copy messages (asfiles) over the network. Lawrence Roberts, the project manager for the ARPANET development, took the idea ofREADMAIL, which dumped all "recent" messages onto the user's terminal, and wrote a program for TENEX inTECO macros called RD which permitted accessing individual messages.[30] Barry Wessler then updated RD andcalled it NRD.Marty Yonke combined rewrote NRD to include reading, access to SNMSG for sending, and a help system, andcalled the utility WRD which was later known as BANANARD. John Vittal then updated this version to includemessage forwarding and an Answer command that automatically created a reply message with the correctaddress(es). This was the first email "reply" command; the system was called MSG. With inclusion of these features,MSG is considered to be the first integrated modern email program, from which many other applications havedescended.[30]

The rise of ARPANET mailThe ARPANET computer network made a large contribution to the development of email. There is one report thatindicates experimental inter-system email transfers began shortly after its creation in 1969.[23] Ray Tomlinson isgenerally credited as having sent the first email across a network, initiating the use of the "@" sign to separate thenames of the user and the user's machine in 1971, when he sent a message from one Digital Equipment CorporationDEC-10 computer to another DEC-10. The two machines were placed next to each other.[31] [32] Tomlinson's workwas quickly adopted across the ARPANET, which significantly increased the popularity of email. For many years,email was the killer app of the ARPANET and then the Internet.Most other networks had their own email protocols and address formats; as the influence of the ARPANET and laterthe Internet grew, central sites often hosted email gateways that passed mail between the Internet and these othernetworks. Internet email addressing is still complicated by the need to handle mail destined for these older networks.Some well-known examples of these were UUCP (mostly Unix computers), BITNET (mostly IBM and VAXmainframes at universities), FidoNet (personal computers), DECNET (various networks) and CSNET a forerunner ofNSFNet.An example of an Internet email address that routed mail to a user at a UUCP host:

hubhost!middlehost!edgehost!user@uucpgateway.somedomain.example.com

Email 7

This was necessary because in early years UUCP computers did not maintain (or consult servers for) informationabout the location of all hosts they exchanged mail with, but rather only knew how to communicate with a fewnetwork neighbors; email messages (and other data such as Usenet News) were passed along in a chain among hostswho had explicitly agreed to share data with each other.

Operation overviewThe diagram to the right shows a typical sequence of events[33] that takes place when Alice composes a messageusing her mail user agent (MUA). She enters the email address of her correspondent, and hits the "send" button.

1. Her MUA formats the message in email format and uses the Submission Protocol (a profile of the Simple MailTransfer Protocol (SMTP), see RFC 4409) to send the message to the local mail submission agent (MSA), in thiscase smtp.a.org, run by Alice's internet service provider (ISP).

2. The MSA looks at the destination address provided in the SMTP protocol (not from the message header), in thiscase bob@b.org. An Internet email address is a string of the form localpart@exampledomain. The partbefore the @ sign is the local part of the address, often the username of the recipient, and the part after the @ signis a domain name or a fully qualified domain name. The MSA resolves a domain name to determine the fullyqualified domain name of the mail exchange server in the Domain Name System (DNS).

3. The DNS server for the b.org domain, ns.b.org, responds with any MX records listing the mail exchangeservers for that domain, in this case mx.b.org, a message transfer agent (MTA) server run by Bob's ISP.

4. smtp.a.org sends the message to mx.b.org using SMTP.This server may need to forward the message to other MTAs before the message reaches the final message deliveryagent (MDA).1. The MDA delivers it to the mailbox of the user bob.2. Bob presses the "get mail" button in his MUA, which picks up the message using either the Post Office Protocol

(POP3) or the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP4).That sequence of events applies to the majority of email users. However, there are many alternative possibilities andcomplications to the email system: Alice or Bob may use a client connected to a corporate email system, such as IBM Lotus Notes or Microsoft

Exchange. These systems often have their own internal email format and their clients typically communicate with the email server using a vendor-specific, proprietary protocol. The server sends or receives email via the Internet

Email 8

through the product's Internet mail gateway which also does any necessary reformatting. If Alice and Bob workfor the same company, the entire transaction may happen completely within a single corporate email system.

Alice may not have a MUA on her computer but instead may connect to a webmail service. Alice's computer may run its own MTA, so avoiding the transfer at step 1. Bob may pick up his email in many ways, for example logging into mx.b.org and reading it directly, or by

using a webmail service. Domains usually have several mail exchange servers so that they can continue to accept mail when the main mail

exchange server is not available. Email messages are not secure if email encryption is not used correctly.Many MTAs used to accept messages for any recipient on the Internet and do their best to deliver them. Such MTAsare called open mail relays. This was very important in the early days of the Internet when network connections wereunreliable. If an MTA couldn't reach the destination, it could at least deliver it to a relay closer to the destination.The relay stood a better chance of delivering the message at a later time. However, this mechanism proved to beexploitable by people sending unsolicited bulk email and as a consequence very few modern MTAs are open mailrelays, and many MTAs don't accept messages from open mail relays because such messages are very likely to bespam.

Message formatThe Internet email message format is defined in RFC 5322, with multi-media content attachments being defined inRFC 2045 through RFC 2049, collectively called Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions or MIME. Prior to theintroduction of RFC 2822 in 2001, the format described by RFC 822 was the standard for Internet email for nearly20 years. RFC 822 was published in 1982 and based on the earlier RFC 733 for the ARPANET (see).[34]

Internet email messages consist of two major sections: Header Structured into fields such as From, To, CC, Subject, Date, and other information about the email. Body The basic content, as unstructured text; sometimes containing a signature block at the end. This is

exactly the same as the body of a regular letter.The header is separated from the body by a blank line.

Message headerEach message has exactly one header, which is structured into fields. Each field has a name and a value. RFC 5322specifies the precise syntax.Informally, each line of text in the header that begins with a printable character begins a separate field. The fieldname starts in the first character of the line and ends before the separator character ":". The separator is thenfollowed by the field value (the "body" of the field). The value is continued onto subsequent lines if those lines havea space or tab as their first character. Field names and values are restricted to 7-bit ASCII characters. Non-ASCIIvalues may be represented using MIME encoded words.

Email 9

Header fields

The message header must include at least the following fields[35] : From: The email address, and optionally the name of the author(s). In many email clients not changeable except

through changing account settings. Date: The local time and date when the message was written. Like the From: field, many email clients fill this in

automatically when sending. The recipient's client may then display the time in the format and time zone local tohim/her.

The message header should include at least the following fields[36] : Message-ID: Also an automatically generated field; used to prevent multiple delivery and for reference in

In-Reply-To: (see below). In-Reply-To: Message-ID of the message that this is a reply to. Used to link related messages together. This field

only applies for reply messages.RFC 3864 describes registration procedures for message header fields at the IANA; it provides for permanent [37]

and provisional [38] message header field names, including also fields defined for MIME, netnews, and http, andreferencing relevant RFCs. Common header fields for email include: To: The email address(es), and optionally name(s) of the message's recipient(s). Indicates primary recipients

(multiple allowed), for secondary recipients see Cc: and Bcc: below. Subject: A brief summary of the topic of the message. Certain abbreviations are commonly used in the subject,

including "RE:" and "FW:". Bcc: Blind Carbon Copy; addresses added to the SMTP delivery list but not (usually) listed in the message data,

remaining invisible to other recipients. Cc: Carbon copy; Many email clients will mark email in your inbox differently depending on whether you are in

the To: or Cc: list. Content-Type: Information about how the message is to be displayed, usually a MIME type. Precedence: commonly with values "bulk", "junk", or "list"; used to indicate that automated "vacation" or "out of

office" responses should not be returned for this mail, e.g. to prevent vacation notices from being sent to all othersubscribers of a mailinglist. Sendmail uses this header to affect prioritization of queued email, with "Precedence:special-delivery" messages delivered sooner. With modern high-bandwidth networks delivery priority is less of anissue than it once was. Microsoft Exchange respects a fine-grained automatic response suppression mechanism,the X-Auto-Response-Suppress header.[39]

Received: Tracking information generated by mail servers that have previously handled a message, in reverseorder (last handler first).

References: Message-ID of the message that this is a reply to, and the message-id of the message the previous wasreply a reply to, etc.

Reply-To: Address that should be used to reply to the message. Sender: Address of the actual sender acting on behalf of the author listed in the From: field (secretary, list

manager, etc.).Note that the To: field is not necessarily related to the addresses to which the message is delivered. The actual delivery list is supplied separately to the transport protocol, SMTP, which may or may not originally have been extracted from the header content. The "To:" field is similar to the addressing at the top of a conventional letter which is delivered according to the address on the outer envelope. Also note that the "From:" field does not have to be the real sender of the email message. One reason is that it is very easy to fake the "From:" field and let a message seem to be from any mail address. It is possible to digitally sign email, which is much harder to fake, but such signatures require extra programming and often external programs to verify. Some ISPs do not relay email claiming to come from a domain not hosted by them, but very few (if any) check to make sure that the person or even email address named in the "From:" field is the one associated with the connection. Some ISPs apply email authentication

Email 10

systems to email being sent through their MTA to allow other MTAs to detect forged spam that might appear tocome from them.Recently the IETF EAI working group has defined some experimental extensions to allow Unicode characters to beused within the header. In particular, this allows email addresses to use non-ASCII characters. Such characters mustonly be used by servers that support these extensions.

Message body

Content encoding

Email was originally designed for 7-bit ASCII.[40] Much email software is 8-bit clean but must assume it willcommunicate with 7-bit servers and mail readers. The MIME standard introduced character set specifiers and twocontent transfer encodings to enable transmission of non-ASCII data: quoted printable for mostly 7 bit content with afew characters outside that range and base64 for arbitrary binary data. The 8BITMIME and BINARY extensionswere introduced to allow transmission of mail without the need for these encodings, but many mail transport agentsstill do not support them fully. In some countries, several encoding schemes coexist; as the result, by default, themessage in a non-Latin alphabet language appears in non-readable form (the only exception is coincidence, when thesender and receiver use the same encoding scheme). Therefore, for international character sets, Unicode is growingin popularity.

Plain text and HTML

Most modern graphic email clients allow the use of either plain text or HTML for the message body at the option ofthe user. HTML email messages often include an automatically generated plain text copy as well, for compatibilityreasons.Advantages of HTML include the ability to include in-line links and images, set apart previous messages in blockquotes, wrap naturally on any display, use emphasis such as underlines and italics, and change font styles.Disadvantages include the increased size of the email, privacy concerns about web bugs, abuse of HTML email as avector for phishing attacks and the spread of malicious software.[41]

Some web based Mailing lists recommend that all posts be made in plain-text, with 72 or 80 characters per line[42][43] for all the above reasons, but also because they have a significant number of readers using text-based emailclients such as Mutt.Some Microsoft email clients allow rich formatting using RTF, but unless the recipient is guaranteed to have acompatible email client this should be avoided.[44]

In order to ensure that HTML sent in an email is rendered properly by the recipient's client software, an additionalheader must be specified when sending: "Content-type: text/html". Most email programs send this headerautomatically.

Servers and client applicationsMessages are exchanged between hosts using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol with software programs called mailtransfer agents. Users can retrieve their messages from servers using standard protocols such as POP or IMAP, or, asis more likely in a large corporate environment, with a proprietary protocol specific to Novell Groupwise, LotusNotes or Microsoft Exchange Servers. Webmail interfaces allow users to access their mail with any standard webbrowser, from any computer, rather than relying on an email client.Mail can be stored on the client, on the server side, or in both places. Standard formats for mailboxes include Maildirand mbox. Several prominent email clients use their own proprietary format and require conversion software totransfer email between them.

Email 11

Accepting a message obliges an MTA to deliver it,[45] and when a message cannot be delivered, that MTA must senda bounce message back to the sender, indicating the problem.

Filename extensionsUpon reception of email messages, email client applications save message in operating system files in thefile-system. Some clients save individual messages as separate files, while others use various database formats, oftenproprietary, for collective storage. A historical standard of storage is the mbox format. The specific format used isoften indicated by special filename extensions:eml

Used by many email clients including Microsoft Outlook Express, Windows Mail and MozillaThunderbird.[46] The files are plain text in MIME format, containing the email header as well as the messagecontents and attachments in one or more of several formats.

emlx

Used by Apple Mail.msg

Used by Microsoft Office Outlook and OfficeLogic Groupware.mbx

Used by Opera Mail, KMail, and Apple Mail based on the mbox format.Some applications (like Apple Mail) leave attachments encoded in messages for searching while also saving separatecopies of the attachments. Others separate attachments from messages and save them in a specific directory.

URI scheme mailto:The URI scheme, as registered with the IANA, defines the mailto: scheme for SMTP email addresses. Thoughits use is not strictly defined, URLs of this form are intended to be used to open the new message window of theuser's mail client when the URL is activated, with the address as defined by the URL in the To: field.[47]

Use

In societyThere are numerous ways in which people have changed the way they communicate in the last 50 years; email iscertainly one of them. Traditionally, social interaction in the local community was the basis for communication face to face. Yet, today face-to-face meetings are no longer the primary way to communicate as one can use alandline telephone, mobile phones, fax services, or any number of the computer mediated communications such asemail.

Flaming

Flaming occurs when a person sends a message with angry or antagonistic content. Flaming is assumed to be morecommon today because of the ease and impersonality of email communications: confrontations in person or viatelephone require direct interaction, where social norms encourage civility, whereas typing a message to anotherperson is an indirect interaction, so civility may be forgotten. Flaming is generally looked down upon by Internetcommunities as it is considered rude and non-productive.

Email 12

Email bankruptcy

Also known as "email fatigue", email bankruptcy is when a user ignores a large number of email messages afterfalling behind in reading and answering them. The reason for falling behind is often due to information overload anda general sense there is so much information that it is not possible to read it all. As a solution, people occasionallysend a boilerplate message explaining that the email inbox is being cleared out. Harvard University law professorLawrence Lessig is credited with coining this term, but he may only have popularized it.[48]

In businessEmail was widely accepted by the business community as the first broad electronic communication medium and wasthe first e-revolution in business communication. Email is very simple to understand and like postal mail, emailsolves two basic problems of communication: logistics and synchronization (see below).LAN based email is also an emerging form of usage for business. It not only allows the business user to downloadmail when offline, it also provides the small business user to have multiple users email ID's with just one emailconnection.

Pros

The problem of logistics: Much of the business world relies upon communications between people who are notphysically in the same building, area or even country; setting up and attending an in-person meeting, telephonecall, or conference call can be inconvenient, time-consuming, and costly. Email provides a way to exchangeinformation between two or more people with no set-up costs and that is generally far less expensive thanphysical meetings or phone calls.

The problem of synchronisation: With real time communication by meetings or phone calls, participants have towork on the same schedule, and each participant must spend the same amount of time in the meeting or call.Email allows asynchrony: each participant may control their schedule independently.

Cons

Most business workers today spend from one to two hours of their working day on email: reading, ordering, sorting,re-contextualizing fragmented information, and writing email.[49] The use of email is increasing due to increasinglevels of globalisationlabour division and outsourcing amongst other things. Email can lead to some well-knownproblems: Loss of context: which means that the context is lost forever; there is no way to get the text back. Information in

context (as in a newspaper) is much easier and faster to understand than unedited and sometimes unrelatedfragments of information. Communicating in context can only be achieved when both parties have a fullunderstanding of the context and issue in question.

Information overload: Email is a push technologythe sender controls who receives the information. Convenientavailability of mailing lists and use of "copy all" can lead to people receiving unwanted or irrelevant informationof no use to them.

Inconsistency: Email can duplicate information. This can be a problem when a large team is working ondocuments and information while not in constant contact with the other members of their team.

Liability. Statements made in an email can be deemed legally binding and be used against a party in a Court oflaw.[50]

Despite these disadvantages, email has become the most widely used medium of communication within the businessworld. In fact, a 2010 study on workplace communication [51], found that 83% of U.S. knowledge workers felt thatemail was critical to their success and productivity at work.[52]

Email 13

Problems

Attachment size limitationEmail messages may have one or more attachments. Attachments serve the purpose of delivering binary or text filesof unspecified size. In principle there is no technical intrinsic restriction in the SMTP protocol limiting the size ornumber of attachments. In practice, however, email service providers implement various limitations on thepermissible size of files or the size of an entire message.Furthermore, due to technical reasons, often a small attachment can increase in size when sent,[53] which can beconfusing to senders when trying to assess whether they can or cannot send a file by email, and this can result intheir message being rejected.As larger and larger file sizes are being created and traded, many users are either forced to upload and downloadtheir files using an FTP server, or more popularly, use online file sharing facilities or services, usually overweb-friendly HTTP, in order to send and receive them.

Information overloadA December 2007 New York Times blog post described information overload as "a $650 Billion Drag on theEconomy",[54] and the New York Times reported in April 2008 that "E-MAIL has become the bane of some peoplesprofessional lives" due to information overload, yet "none of the current wave of high-profile Internet start-upsfocused on e-mail really eliminates the problem of e-mail overload because none helps us prepare replies".[55]

GigaOm posted a similar article in September 2010, highlighting research [56] that found 57% of knowledge workerswere overwhelmed by the volume of email they received.[52]

Technology investors reflect similar concerns.[57]

Spamming and computer virusesThe usefulness of email is being threatened by four phenomena: email bombardment, spamming, phishing, and emailworms.Spamming is unsolicited commercial (or bulk) email. Because of the very low cost of sending email, spammers cansend hundreds of millions of email messages each day over an inexpensive Internet connection. Hundreds of activespammers sending this volume of mail results in information overload for many computer users who receivevoluminous unsolicited email each day.[58] [59]

Email worms use email as a way of replicating themselves into vulnerable computers. Although the first email wormaffected UNIX computers, the problem is most common today on the more popular Microsoft Windows operatingsystem.The combination of spam and worm programs results in users receiving a constant drizzle of junk email, whichreduces the usefulness of email 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 alaw, the Can Spam Act of 2003, attempting to regulate such email. Australia also has very strict spam lawsrestricting the sending of spam from an Australian ISP,[60] but its impact has been minimal since most spam comesfrom regimes that seem reluctant to regulate the sending of spam.

Email 14

Email spoofingEmail spoofing occurs when the header information of an email is altered to make the message appear to come froma known or trusted source. It is often used as a ruse to collect personal information.

Email bombingEmail bombing is the intentional sending of large volumes of messages to a target address. The overloading of thetarget email address can render it unusable and can even cause the mail server to crash.

Privacy concernsToday it can be important to distinguish between Internet and internal email systems. Internet email may travel andbe stored on networks and computers without the sender's or the recipient's control. During the transit time it ispossible that third parties read or even modify the content. Internal mail systems, in which the information neverleaves the organizational network, may be more secure, although information technology personnel and otherswhose function may involve monitoring or managing may be accessing the email of other employees.Email privacy, without some security precautions, can be compromised because: email messages are generally not encrypted. email 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 email messages on their mail servers before they are

delivered. The backups of these can remain for up to several months on their server, despite deletion from themailbox.

the "Received:"-fields and other information in the email can often identify the sender, preventing anonymouscommunication.

There are cryptography applications that can serve as a remedy to one or more of the above. For example, VirtualPrivate Networks or the Tor anonymity network can be used to encrypt traffic from the user machine to a safernetwork while GPG, PGP, SMEmail,[61] or S/MIME can be used for end-to-end message encryption, and SMTPSTARTTLS or SMTP over Transport Layer Security/Secure Sockets Layer can be used to encrypt communicationsfor 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 anattacker. 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 maycontain trojans or viruses.

Tracking of sent mailThe original SMTP mail service provides limited mechanisms for tracking a transmitted message, and none forverifying that it has been delivered or read. It requires that each mail server must either deliver it onward or return afailure notice (bounce message), but both software bugs and system failures can cause messages to be lost. Toremedy this, the IETF introduced Delivery Status Notifications (delivery receipts) and Message DispositionNotifications (return receipts); however, these are not universally deployed in production. (A complete MessageTracking mechanism was also defined, but it never gained traction; see RFCs 3885 through 3888.)Many ISPs now deliberately disable non-delivery reports (NDRs) and delivery receipts due to the activities ofspammers: Delivery Reports can be used to verify whether an address exists and so is available to be spammed If the spammer uses a forged sender email address (E-mail spoofing), then the innocent email address that was

used can be flooded with NDRs from the many invalid email addresses the spammer may have attempted to mail.

Email 15

These NDRs then constitute spam from the ISP to the innocent userThere are a number of systems that allow the sender to see if messages have been opened.[62] [63] [64] The receivercould also let the sender know that the emails have been opened through an "Okay" button. A check sign can appearin the sender's screen when the receiver's "Okay" button is pressed.

US GovernmentThe US Government has been involved in email in several different ways.Starting in 1977, the US Postal Service (USPS) recognized that electronic mail and electronic transactions posed asignificant threat to First Class mail volumes and revenue. Therefore, the USPS initiated an experimental emailservice known as E-COM. Electronic messages were transmitted to a post office, printed out, and delivered as hardcopy. To take advantage of the service, an individual had to transmit at least 200 messages. The delivery time of themessages was the same as First Class mail and cost 26 cents. Both the Postal Regulatory Commission and theFederal Communications Commission opposed E-COM. The FCC concluded that E-COM constituted commoncarriage under its jurisdiction and the USPS would have to file a tariff.[65] Three years after initiating the service,USPS canceled E-COM and attempted to sell it off.[66] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71]

The early ARPANET dealt with multiple email clients that had various, and at times incompatible, formats. Forexample, in the system Multics, the "@" sign meant "kill line" and anything after the "@" sign was ignored.[69] TheDepartment of Defense DARPA desired to have uniformity and interoperability for email and therefore fundedefforts to drive towards unified inter-operable standards. This led to David Crocker, John Vittal, Kenneth Pogran,and Austin Henderson publishing RFC 733, "Standard for the Format of ARPA Network Text Message" (November21, 1977), which was apparently not effective. In 1979, a meeting was held at BBN to resolve incompatibility issues.Jon Postel recounted the meeting in RFC 808, "Summary of Computer Mail Services Meeting Held at BBN on 10January 1979" (March 1, 1982), which includes an appendix listing the varying email systems at the time. This, inturn, lead to the release of David Crocker's RFC 822, "Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text Messages"(August 13, 1982).[72]

The National Science Foundation took over operations of the ARPANET and Internet from the Department ofDefense, and initiated NSFNet, a new backbone for the network. A part of the NSFNet AUP forbade commercialtraffic.[73] In 1988, Vint Cerf arranged for an interconnection of MCI Mail with NSFNET on an experimental basis.The following year Compuserve email interconnected with NSFNET. Within a few years the commercial trafficrestriction was removed from NSFNETs AUP, and NSFNET was privatised.In the late 1990s, the Federal Trade Commission grew concerned with fraud transpiring in email, and initiated aseries of procedures on spam, fraud, and phishing.[74] In 2004, FTC jurisdiction over spam was codified into law inthe form of the CAN SPAM Act.[75] Several other US Federal Agencies have also exercised jurisdiction includingthe Department of Justice and the Secret Service.

Email 16

References[1] Klensin, J (October 2008). "RFC 5321 Simple Mail Transfer Protocol" (http:/ / tools. ietf. org/ html/ rfc5321#section-2. 3. 11). Network

Working Group. . Retrieved 2010-02-27.[2] Long, Tony (23 October 2000). A Matter of (Wired News) Style (http:/ / www. nettime. org/ Lists-Archives/ nettime-bold-0010/ msg00471.

html). Wired magazine. .[3] Readers on (Wired News) Style (http:/ / www. wired. com/ culture/ lifestyle/ news/ 2000/ 10/ 39651). Wired magazine. 24 October 2000. .[4] "RFC Editor Terms List" (http:/ / www. rfc-editor. org/ rfc-style-guide/ terms-online-03. txt). IETF. .[5] Yahoo style guide (http:/ / styleguide. yahoo. com/ word-list/ e)[6] AP Stylebook editors share big changes (http:/ / www. aces2011. org/ sessions/ 18/ the-ap-stylebook-editors-visit-aces-2011/ ) from the

American Copy Editors Society[7] Gerri Berendzen; Daniel Hunt. "AP changes e-mail to email" (http:/ / www. aces2011. org/ sessions/ 18/

the-ap-stylebook-editors-visit-aces-2011/ ). 15th National Conference of the American Copy Editors Society (2011, Phoenix). ACES. .Retrieved 23 March 2011.

[8] AskOxford Language Query team. "What is the correct way to spell 'e' words such as 'email', 'ecommerce', 'egovernment'?" (http:/ / www.askoxford. com/ asktheexperts/ faq/ aboutspelling/ email). FAQ. Oxford University Press. . Retrieved 4 September 2009. "We recommendemail, as this is now by far the most common form"

[9] Reference.com (http:/ / dictionary. reference. com/ browse/ email)[10] Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2006[11] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition[12] Princeton University WordNet 3.0[13] The American Heritage Science Dictionary, 2002[14] ""Email" or "e-mail"" (http:/ / english. stackexchange. com/ questions/ 1925/ email-or-e-mail). English Language & Usage Stack

Exchange. August 25, 2010. . Retrieved September 26, 2010.[15] RFC 821 (rfc821) - Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (http:/ / www. faqs. org/ rfcs/ rfc821. html)[16] RFC 1939 (rfc1939) - Post Office Protocol - Version 3 (http:/ / www. faqs. org/ rfcs/ rfc1939. html)[17] RFC 3501 (rfc3501) - Internet Message Access Protocol - version 4rev1 (http:/ / www. faqs. org/ rfcs/ rfc3501. html)[18] "RFC Style Guide", Table of decisions on consistent usage in RFC (http:/ / www. rfc-editor. org/ rfc-style-guide/ terms-online-03. txt)[19] Excerpt from the FAQ list of the Usenet newsgroup alt.usage.english (http:/ / alt-usage-english. org/ excerpts/ fxhowdoy. html)[20] See (Partridge 2008) for early history of email, from origins through 1991.[21] "CTSS, Compatible Time-Sharing System" (September 4, 2006), University of South Alabama, USA-CTSS (http:/ / www. cis. usouthal.

edu/ faculty/ daigle/ project1/ ctss. htm).[22] Tom Van Vleck, "The IBM 7094 and CTSS" (September 10, 2004), Multicians.org (Multics), web: Multicians-7094 (http:/ / www.

multicians. org/ thvv/ 7094. html).[23] Tom Van Vleck's memoir of The History of Electronic Mail (http:/ / www. multicians. org/ thvv/ mail-history. html)[24] APL Quotations and Anecdotes (http:/ / www. jsoftware. com/ papers/ APLQA. htm), including Leslie Goldsmith's story of the Mailbox[25] History of the Internet, including Carter/Mondale use of email (http:/ / www. actewagl. com. au/ Education/ communications/ Internet/

historyOfTheInternet/ InternetOnItsInfancy. aspx)[26] Version 3 Unix mail(1) manual page from 10/25/1972 (http:/ / minnie. tuhs. org/ cgi-bin/ utree. pl?file=V3/ man/ man1/ mail. 1)[27] Version 6 Unix mail(1) manual page from 2/21/1975 (http:/ / minnie. tuhs. org/ cgi-bin/ utree. pl?file=V6/ usr/ man/ man1/ mail. 1)[28] Gordon Bell's timeline of Digital Equipment Corporation (https:/ / research. microsoft. com/ en-us/ um/ people/ gbell/ Digital/ timeline/

1982. htm)[29] Version 7 Unix manual: "UUCP Implementation Description" by D. A. Nowitz, and "A Dial-Up Network of UNIX Systems" by D. A.

Nowitz and M. E. Lesk (http:/ / cm. bell-labs. com/ 7thEdMan/ vol2/ uucp. bun)[30] Email History (http:/ / www. livinginternet. com/ e/ ei. htm)[31] The First Email (http:/ / openmap. bbn. com/ ~tomlinso/ ray/ firstemailframe. html)[32] Wave New World,Time Magazine, October 19, 2009, p.48[33] How E-mail Works (http:/ / www. webcastr. com/ videos/ informational/ how-email-works. html). [internet video]. howstuffworks.com.

2008. .[34] Simpson, Ken (October 3, 2008). "An update to the email standards" (http:/ / blog. mailchannels. com/ 2008/ 10/ update-to-email-standards.

html). Mail Channels Blog Entry. .[35] RFC 5322, 3.6. Field Definitions (http:/ / tools. ietf. org/ html/ rfc5322#section-3. 6)[36] RFC 5322, 3.6.4. Identification Fields (http:/ / tools. ietf. org/ html/ rfc5322#section-3. 6. 4)[37] http:/ / www. iana. org/ assignments/ message-headers/ perm-headers. html[38] http:/ / www. iana. org/ assignments/ message-headers/ prov-headers. html[39] Microsoft, Auto Response Suppress, 2010, microsoft reference (http:/ / msdn. microsoft. com/ en-us/ library/ ee219609(v=EXCHG. 80).

aspx), 2010 Sep 22[40] Craig Hunt (2002). TCP/IP Network Administration. O'Reilly Media. pp.70. ISBN978-0596002978.[41] "Email policies that prevent viruses" (http:/ / advosys. ca/ papers/ mail-policies. html). .

Email 17

[42] "When posting to a RootsWeb mailing list..." (http:/ / helpdesk. rootsweb. com/ listadmins/ plaintext. html)[43] "...Plain text, 72 characters per line..." (http:/ / www. openbsd. org/ mail. html)[44] How to Prevent the Winmail.dat File from Being Sent to Internet Users (http:/ / support. microsoft. com/ kb/ 138053)[45] In practice, some accepted messages may nowadays not be delivered to the recipient's InBox, but instead to a Spam or Junk folder which,

especially in a corporate environment, may be inaccessible to the recipient[46] "File Extension .EML Details" (http:/ / filext. com/ file-extension/ EML). FILExt - The File Extension Source. . Retrieved 2009-09-26.[47] RFC 2368 section 3 : by Paul Hoffman in 1998 discusses operation of the "mailto" URL.[48] Barrett, Grant (December 23, 2007). "All We Are Saying." (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2007/ 12/ 23/ weekinreview/ 23buzzwords.

html?ref=weekinreview). New York Times. . Retrieved 2007-12-24.[49] "Email Right to Privacy - Why Small Businesses Care" (http:/ / www. smallbiztrends. com/ 2007/ 06/

email-has-right-to-privacy-why-small-businesses-care. html). Anita Campbell. 2007-06-19. .[50] C. J. Hughes (February 17, 2011). "E-Mail May Be Binding, State Court Rules" (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2011/ 02/ 20/ realestate/

20posting. html). New York Times. . Retrieved 2011-02-20.[51] http:/ / www. plantronics. com/ north_america/ en_US/ howwework/[52] By Om Malik, GigaOm. Is Email a Curse or a Boon? (http:/ / gigaom. com/ collaboration/ is-email-a-curse-or-a-boon/ ) September 22,

2010. Retrieved October 11, 2010.[53] "Exchange 2007: Attachment Size Increase,..." (http:/ / technet. microsoft. com/ en-us/ magazine/ 2009. 01. exchangeqa. aspx?pr=blog).

TechNet Magazine, Microsoft.com US. 2010-03-25. .[54] Lohr, Steve (2007-12-20). "Is Information Overload a $650 Billion Drag on the Economy?" (http:/ / bits. blogs. nytimes. com/ 2007/ 12/ 20/

is-information-overload-a-650-billion-drag-on-the-economy). New York Times. . Retrieved May 1, 2010.[55] Stross, Randall (2008-04-20). "Struggling to Evade the E-Mail Tsunami" (http:/ / www. nytimes. com/ 2008/ 04/ 20/ technology/ 20digi.

html?_r=2& oref=slogin& oref=slogin). New York Times. . Retrieved May 1, 2010.[56] http:/ / gigaom. com/ collaboration/ is-email-a-curse-or-a-boon/[57] "Did Darwin Skip Over Email?" (http:/ / www. foundrygroup. com/ blog/ archives/ 2008/ 04/ did-darwin-skip-over-email. php). Foundry

Group. 2008-04-28. .[58] Rich Kawanagh. The top ten email spam list of 2005. ITVibe news, 2006, january 02, ITvibe.com (http:/ / itvibe. com/ news/ 3837/ )[59] How Microsoft is losing the war on spam Salon.com (http:/ / dir. salon. com/ story/ tech/ feature/ 2005/ 01/ 19/ microsoft_spam/ index.

html)[60] Spam Bill 2003 ( PDF (http:/ / www. aph. gov. au/ library/ pubs/ bd/ 2003-04/ 04bd045. pdf))[61] M. Toorani, SMEmail - A New Protocol for the Secure E-mail in Mobile Environments (http:/ / ieeexplore. ieee. org/ xpl/ freeabs_all.

jsp?arnumber=4783292), Proceedings of the Australian Telecommunications Networks and Applications Conference (ATNAC'08), pp.39-44,Adelaide, Australia, December 2008. (arXiv:1002.3176)

[62] About.com (http:/ / email. about. com/ od/ emailbehindthescenes/ a/ html_return_rcp. htm)[63] Webdevelopersnotes.com (http:/ / www. webdevelopersnotes. com/ tips/ yahoo/ notification-when-yahoo-email-is-opened. php)[64] Microsoft.com (http:/ / support. microsoft. com/ kb/ 222163)[65] In re Request for declaratory ruling and investigation by Graphnet Systems, Inc., concerning the proposed E-COM service, FCC Docket No.

79-6 (September 4, 1979)[66] History of the United States Postal Service, USPS (http:/ / www. usps. com/ history/ history/ his1. htm)[67] Hardy, Ian R; The Evolution of ARPANET Email (http:/ / www. archive. org/ web/ */ http:/ www. ifla. org/ documents/ internet/ hari1. txt);

1996-05-13; History Thesis Paper; University of California at Berkeley[68] James Bovard, The Law Dinosaur: The US Postal Service, CATO Policy Analysis (February 1985)[69] Jay Akkad, The History of Email (http:/ / www. cs. ucsb. edu/ ~almeroth/ classes/ F04. 176A/ homework1_good_papers/ jay-akkad. html)[70] US Postal Service: Postal Activities and Laws Related to Electronic Commerce, GAO-00-188 (http:/ / www. gao. gov/ archive/ 2000/

gg00188. pdf)[71] Implications of Electronic Mail and Message Systems for the U.S. Postal Service , Office of Technology Assessment, Congress of the

United States, August 1982 (http:/ / govinfo. library. unt. edu/ ota/ Ota_4/ DATA/ 1982/ 8214. PDF)[72] Email History, How Email was Invented, Living Internet (http:/ / www. livinginternet. com/ e/ ei. htm)[73] Cybertelecom : Internet History (http:/ / www. cybertelecom. org/ notes/ internet_history80s. htm)[74] Cybertelecom : SPAM Reference (http:/ / www. cybertelecom. org/ spam/ Spamref. htm)[75] Cybertelecom : Can Spam Act (http:/ / www. cybertelecom. org/ spam/ canspam. htm)

Email 18

Further reading Cemil Betanov, Introduction to X.400, Artech House, ISBN 0-89006-597-7. Lawrence Hughes, Internet e-mail Protocols, Standards and Implementation, Artech House Publishers, ISBN

0-89006-939-5. Kevin Johnson, Internet Email Protocols: A Developer's Guide, Addison-Wesley Professional, ISBN

0-201-43288-9. Pete Loshin, Essential Email Standards: RFCs and Protocols Made Practical, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN

0-471-34597-0. Partridge, Craig (AprilJune 2008). "The Technical Development of Internet Email" (http:/ / www. ir. bbn. com/

~craig/ email. pdf) (PDF). IEEE Annals of the History of Computing (Berlin: IEEE Computer Society) 30 (2).ISSN1934-1547

Sara Radicati, Electronic Mail: An Introduction to the X.400 Message Handling Standards, Mcgraw-Hill, ISBN0-07-051104-7.

John Rhoton, Programmer's Guide to Internet Mail: SMTP, POP, IMAP, and LDAP, Elsevier, ISBN1-55558-212-5.

John Rhoton, X.400 and SMTP: Battle of the E-mail Protocols, Elsevier, ISBN 1-55558-165-X. David Wood, Programming Internet Mail, O'Reilly, ISBN 1-56592-479-7.

External links E-mail (http:/ / www. dmoz. org/ Computers/ Internet/ E-mail/ / ) at the Open Directory Project IANA's list of standard header fields (http:/ / www. iana. org/ assignments/ message-headers/ perm-headers. html) The History of Electronic Mail (http:/ / www. multicians. org/ thvv/ mail-history. html) is a personal memoir by

the implementer of an early email system

Instant messaging 19

Instant messaging

Pidgin 2.0 running under GNOME

Instant messaging (IM) is a form of real-time direct text-basedcommunication between two or more people using personal computers orother devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed overa network, such as the Internet. More advanced instant messagingsoftware clients also allow enhanced modes of communication, such aslive voice or video calling.

Definition

IM falls under the umbrella term online chat, as it is a real-timetext-based networked communication system, but is distinct in that it isbased on clients that facilitate connections between specified known users(often using "Buddy List", "Friend List" or "Contact List"), whereasonline 'chat' also includes web-based applications that allowcommunication between (often anonymous) users in a multi-userenvironment.

Overview

Instant messaging (IM) is a collection of technologies used for real-timetext-based communication between two or more participants over theInternet, or other types of networks. Of importance is that online chat andinstant messaging differs from other technologies such as e-mail due tothe perceived synchronicity of the communications by the users chathappens in real-time. Some systems permit messages to be sent to peoplenot currently 'logged on' (offline messages), thus removing some of the differences between IM and e-mail (oftendone by sending the message to the associated e-mail account).

IM allows effective and efficient communication, allowing immediate receipt of acknowledgment or reply. In manycases instant messaging includes additional features which can make it even more popular. For example, users cansee each other by using webcams, or talk directly for free over the Internet using a microphone and headphones orloudspeakers. Many client programs allow file transfers as well, although they are typically limited in thepermissible file-size.

It is typically possible to save a text conversation for later reference. Instant messages are often logged in a localmessage history, making it similar to the persistent nature of e-mails.

Instant messaging 20

History

In early instant messaging programs each character appeared when it was typed.The UNIX "talk" command shown in this screenshot was popular in the 1980s and

early 1990s.

Instant messaging predates the Internet,first appearing on multi-user operatingsystems like CTSS and Multics[1] in themid-1960s. Initially, some of these systemswere used as notification systems forservices like printing, but quickly were usedto facilitate communication with other userslogged in to the same machine. As networksdeveloped, the protocols spread with thenetworks. Some of these used a peer-to-peerprotocol (e.g. talk, ntalk and ytalk), whileothers required peers to connect to a server(see talker and IRC). During the Bulletinboard system (BBS) phenomenon thatpeaked during the 1980s, some systemsincorporated chat features which weresimilar to instant messaging; Freelancin'Roundtable was one prime example. The first[2] dedicated online chat service was the CompuServe CB Simulator in1980,[3] created by CompuServe executive Alexander "Sandy" Trevor in Columbus, Ohio.

In the latter half of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, the Quantum Link online service for Commodore 64computers offered user-to-user messages between currently connected customers, which they called "On-LineMessages" (or OLM for short), and later "FlashMail." (Quantum Link later became America Online and made AOLInstant Messenger (AIM), discussed later). While the Quantum Link service ran on a Commodore 64, using only theCommodore's PETSCII text-graphics, the screen was visually divided up into sections and OLMs would appear as ayellow bar saying "Message From:" and the name of the sender along with the message across the top of whateverthe user was already doing, and presented a list of options for responding.[4] As such, it could be considered a sort ofGUI (Graphical User Interface), albeit much more primitive than the later Unix, Windows and Macintosh based GUIIM software. OLMs were what Q-Link called "Plus Services" meaning they charged an extra per-minute fee on topof the monthly Q-Link access costs.Modern, Internet-wide, GUI-based messaging clients as they are known today, began to take off in the mid 1990swith PowWow, ICQ, and AOL Instant Messenger. Similar functionality was offered by CU-SeeMe in 1992; thoughprimarily an audio/video chat link, users could also send textual messages to each other. AOL later acquiredMirabilis, the authors of ICQ; a few years later ICQ (now owned by AOL) was awarded two patents for instantmessaging by the U.S. patent office. Meanwhile, other companies developed their own software; (Excite, MSN,Ubique, and Yahoo), each with its own proprietary protocol and client; users therefore had to run multiple clientapplications if they wished to use more than one of these networks. In 1998, IBM released IBM Lotus Sametime, aproduct based on technology acquired when IBM bought Haifa-based Ubique and Lexington-based Databeam.In 2000, an open source application and open standards-based protocol called Jabber was launched. The protocolwas standardized under the name Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP). XMPP servers could act asgateways to other IM protocols, reducing the need to run multiple clients. Multi-protocol clients can use any of thepopular IM protocols by using additional local libraries for each protocol. IBM Lotus Sametime's November 2007release added IBM Lotus Sametime Gateway support for XMPP.In the current era, social networking providers often offer IM capabilities.

Instant messaging 21

Many instant messaging services offer video calling features, Voice Over IP (VoIP) and web conferencing services.Web conferencing services can integrate both video calling and instant messaging capabilities. Some instantmessaging companies are also offering desktop sharing, IP radio, and IPTV to the voice and video features.The term "Instant Messenger" is a service mark of Time Warner[5] and may not be used in software not affiliatedwith AOL in the United States. For this reason, the instant messaging client formerly known as Gaim (or gaim)announced, in April 2007, that they would be renamed "Pidgin".[6]

ClientsEach modern IM service generally provides its own client, either a separately installed piece of software, or abrowser-based client. These typically only work with that particular company's service, although some allow limitedfunction with other services. There are also third party client software applications that will connect with most of themajor IM services. Adium, Digsby, Jappix, Meebo, Miranda IM, Pidgin, Qnext and Trillian are a few of the commonones.

Interoperability

Pidgin's tabbed chat window in Linux

Standard, complimentary instant messaging applications offerfunctions like file transfer, contact list(s), the ability to holdseveral simultaneous conversations, etc. These may be all thefunctions that a small business needs, but larger organizations willrequire more sophisticated applications that can work together.The solution to finding applications capable of this is to useenterprise versions of instant messaging applications. Theseinclude titles like XMPP, Lotus Sametime, Microsoft OfficeCommunicator, etc., which are often integrated with otherenterprise applications such as workflow systems. These enterpriseapplications, or Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), are builtto certain constraints, namely storing data in a common format.

There have been several attempts to create a unified standard forinstant messaging: IETF's SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) andSIMPLE (SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging

Extensions), APEX (Application Exchange), Prim (Presence and Instant Messaging Protocol), the open XML-basedXMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), and Open Mobile Alliance's Instant Messaging and PresenceService developed specifically for mobile devices.

Most attempts at producing a unified standard for the major IM providers (AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft) have failed,and each continues to use its own proprietary protocol.However, while discussions at IETF were stalled, Reuters signed the first inter-service provider connectivityagreement on September 2003. This agreement enabled AIM, ICQ and MSN Messenger users to talk with ReutersMessaging counterparts and vice-versa. Following this, Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL agreed a deal in whichMicrosoft's Live Communications Server 2005 users would also have the possibility to talk to public instantmessaging users. This deal established SIP/SIMPLE as a standard for protocol interoperability and established aconnectivity fee for accessing public instant messaging groups or services. Separately, on 13 October 2005,Microsoft and Yahoo! announced that by the 3rd quarter of 2006 they would interoperate using SIP/SIMPLE, whichwas followed, in December 2005, by the AOL and Google strategic partnership deal in which Google Talk userswould be able to communicate with AIM and ICQ users provided they have an AIM account.There are two ways to combine the many disparate protocols:

Instant messaging 22

Combine the many disparate protocols inside the IM client application. Combine the many disparate protocols inside the IM server application. This approach moves the task of

communicating with the other services to the server. Clients need not know or care about other IM protocols. Forexample, LCS 2005 Public IM Connectivity. This approach is popular in XMPP servers; however, the so-calledtransport projects suffer the same reverse engineering difficulties as any other project involved with closedprotocols or formats.

Some approaches allow organizations to deploy their own, private instant messaging network by enabling them torestrict access to the server (often with the IM network entirely behind their firewall) and administer userpermissions. Other corporate messaging systems allow registered users to also connect from outside the corporationLAN, by using an encrypted, firewall-friendly, HTTPS-based protocol. Typically, a dedicated corporate IM serverhas several advantages, such as pre-populated contact lists, integrated authentication, and better security and privacy.Certain networks have made changes to prevent them from being utilized by such multi-network IM clients. Forexample, Trillian had to release several revisions and patches to allow its users to access the MSN, AOL, andYahoo! networks, after changes were made to these networks. The major IM providers typically cite the need forformal agreements as well as security concerns as reasons for making these changes.The use of proprietary protocols has meant that many instant messaging networks have been incompatible andpeople have been unable to reach friends on other networks. This has cost the instant messaging format dearly.[7]

Mobile instant messagingMobile Instant Messaging (MIM) is the technology that allows Instant Messaging services to be accessed from aportable device, ranging from standard mobile phones, to smartphones (e.g. devices using operating systems such asiOS, Blackberry OS, Symbian OS, Android OS, Windows Mobile, et al.). It is done two ways: Embedded Clients - tailored IM client for every specific device. Clientless Platform a browser-based application that does not require downloading any software to the

handset, and which enables all users and all devices from any network to connect to their Internet IM serviceideally. In practice, browser capabilities can pose problems.

In web browserGmail has instant messaging capacity in webpage itself, which can be used in a web browser without the need todownload and install the IM client. Later Yahoo and Hotmail also implemented it. eBuddy and Meebo websitesoffers instant messaging of different IM services. Generally such services are limited to text chat, although Gmailhas voice and video capabilities. As of August 2010, Gmail allows the calling of regular phones from theirweb-based IM client.Jappix is a XMPP web-client, offering the user a complete XMPP protocol features access, through his web browser.It is declined in three versions: a desktop one, a mobile one and a mini one. The last one, Jappix Mini, is a mini chatfor websites.

Instant messaging 23

Friend-to-friend networksInstant Messaging may be done in a Friend-to-friend network, in which each node connects to the friends on thefriends list. This allows for communication with friends of friends and for the building of chatrooms for instantmessages with all friends on that network.

IM languageUsers sometimes make use of internet slang or text speak to abbreviate common words or expressions in order toquicken conversations or to reduce keystrokes. The language has become universal, with well-known expressionssuch as 'lol' translated over to face to face language.Emotions are often expressed in shorthand, such as the abbreviation LOL, BRB and TTYL (respectively Laugh(ing)Out Loud, Be Right Back and Talk To You Later).Some, however, attempt to be more accurate with emotional expression over IM. Real time reactions such as(chortle) (snort) (guffaw) or (eye-roll) are becoming more popular. Also there are certain standards that are beingintroduced into mainstream conversations including, '#' indicates the use of sarcasm in a statement and '*' whichindicates a spelling mistake and/or grammatical error in the previous message, followed by a correction.[8]

Business applicationInstant messaging has proven to be similar to personal computers, e-mail, and the World Wide Web, in that itsadoption for use as a business communications medium was driven primarily by individual employees usingconsumer software at work, rather than by formal mandate or provisioning by corporate information technologydepartments. Tens of millions of the consumer IM accounts in use are being used for business purposes byemployees of companies and other organizations.In response to the demand for business-grade IM and the need to ensure security and legal compliance, a new type ofinstant messaging, called "Enterprise Instant Messaging" ("EIM") was created when Lotus Software launched IBMLotus Sametime in 1998. Microsoft followed suit shortly thereafter with Microsoft Exchange Instant Messaging,later created a new platform called Microsoft Office Live Communications Server, and released OfficeCommunications Server 2007 in October 2007. Oracle Corporation has also jumped into the market recently with itsOracle Beehive unified collaboration software.[9] Both IBM Lotus and Microsoft have introduced federation betweentheir EIM systems and some of the public IM networks so that employees may use a single interface to both theirinternal EIM system and their contacts on AOL, MSN, and Yahoo!. Current leading EIM platforms include IBMLotus Sametime, Microsoft Office Communications Server, Jabber XCP and Cisco Unified Presence. In addition,industry-focused EIM platforms as Reuters Messaging and Bloomberg Messaging provide enhanced IM capabilitiesto financial services companies.The adoption of IM across corporate networks outside of the control of IT organizations creates risks and liabilitiesfor companies who do not effectively manage and support IM use. Companies implement specialized IM archivingand security products and services to mitigate these risks and provide safe, secure, productive instant messagingcapabilities to their employees.

Instant messaging 24

Review of productsIM products can typically be categorised into two types: Enterprise Instant Messaging (EIM)[10] and ConsumerInstant Messaging (CIM).[11] Enterprise solutions use an internal IM server, however this isn't always feasible,particularly for smaller businesses with limited budgets. The second option, using a CIM provides the advantage ofbeing inexpensive to implement and has little need for investing in new hardware or server software.For corporate use encryption and conversation archiving are usually regarded as important features due to securityconcerns. Sometimes the use of different operating systems in organizations calls for the use of software thatsupports more than one platform. For example many software companies use Windows XP in administrationdepartments but have software developers who use Linux.

Risks and liabilitiesAlthough instant messaging delivers many benefits, it also carries with it certain risks and liabilities, particularlywhen used in workplaces. Among these risks and liabilities are: Security risks (e.g. IM used to infect computers with spyware, viruses, trojans, worms) Compliance risks Inappropriate use Trade secret leakage

Security risksCrackers (malicious "hacker" or [black hat] hacker) have consistently used IM networks as vectors for deliveringphishing attempts, "poison URLs", and virus-laden file attachments from 2004 to the present, with over 1100discrete attacks listed by the IM Security Center[12] in 2004-2007. Hackers use two methods of delivering maliciouscode through IM: delivery of viruses, trojan horses, or spyware within an infected file, and the use of "sociallyengineered" text with a web address that entices the recipient to click on a URL connecting him or her to a websitethat then downloads malicious code. Viruses, computer worms, and trojans typically propagate by sendingthemselves rapidly through the infected user's buddy list. An effective attack using a poisoned URL may reach tensof thousands of people in a short period when each person's buddy list receives messages appearing to be from atrusted friend. The recipients click on the web address, and the entire cycle starts again. Infections may range fromnuisance to criminal, and are becoming more sophisticated each year.IM connections usually take place in plain text, making them susceptible to eavesdropping. In addition, IM clientsoftware often requires the user to expose open UDP ports to the world, increasing the threat posed by potentialsecurity vulnerabilities.[13]

Compliance risksIn addition to the malicious code threat, the use of instant messaging at work also creates a risk of non-compliance to laws and regulations governing the use of electronic communications in businesses. In the United States alone there are over 10,000 laws and regulations related to electronic messaging and records retention.[14] The better-known of these include the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, HIPAA, and SEC 17a-3. Clarification from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ("FINRA") was issued to member firms in the financial services industry in December, 2007, noting that "electronic communications", "email", and "electronic correspondence" may be used interchangeably and can include such forms of electronic messaging as instant messaging and text messaging.[15] Changes to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, effective December 1, 2006, created a new category for electronic records which may be requested during discovery in legal proceedings. Most countries around the world also regulate the use of electronic messaging and electronic records retention in similar fashion to the United States. The most common regulations related to IM at work involve the need to produce archived business communications to satisfy government or judicial requests

Instant messaging 25

under law. Many instant messaging communications fall into the category of business communications that must bearchived and retrievable.

Inappropriate useOrganizations of all types must protect themselves from the liability of their employees' inappropriate use of IM. Theinformal, immediate, and ostensibly anonymous nature of instant messaging makes it a candidate for abuse in theworkplace. The topic of inappropriate IM use became front page news in October 2006 when U.S. CongressmanMark Foley resigned his seat after admitting sending offensive instant messages of a sexual nature to underageformer House pages from his Congressional office PC. The Mark Foley Scandal led to media coverage andmainstream newspaper articles warning of the risks of inappropriate IM use in workplaces. In most countries,corporations have a legal responsibility to ensure harassment-free work environment for employees. The use ofcorporate-owned computers, networks, and software to harass an individual or spread inappropriate jokes orlanguage creates a liability for not only the offender but also the employer. A survey by IM archiving and securityprovider Akonix Systems, Inc. in March 2007 showed that 31% of respondents had been harassed over IM atwork.[16] Companies now include instant messaging as an integral component of their policies on appropriate use ofthe World Wide Web, e-mail, and other corporate assets.

Security and archivingIn the early 2000s, a new class of IT security provider emerged to provide remedies for the risks and liabilities facedby corporations who chose to use IM for business communications. The IM security providers created new productsto be installed in corporate networks for the purpose of archiving, content-scanning, and security-scanning IM trafficmoving in and out of the corporation. Similar to the e-mail filtering vendors, the IM security providers focus on therisks and liabilities described above.With rapid adoption of IM in the workplace, demand for IM security products began to grow in the mid-2000s. By2007, the preferred platform for the purchase of security software had become the "computer appliance", accordingto IDC, who estimate that by 2008, 80% of network security products will be delivered via an appliance.[17]

User baseNote that many of the numbers listed in this section are not directly comparable, and some are speculative. Whilesome numbers are given by the owners of a complete instant messaging system, others are provided by commercialvendors of a part of a distributed system. Some companies may be motivated to inflate their numbers in order toincrease advertisement earnings or to attract partners, clients, or customers. Importantly, some numbers are reportedas the number of "active" users (without a shared standard of that activity), others indicate total user accounts, whileothers indicate only the users logged in during an instance of peak usage.

Service User count Date/source

AIM 53 million active September 2006 [18]

>100 million total January 2006 [19]

eBuddy 35 million total October 2006 [20], including 4 million mobile users

Gadu-Gadu Over 6 million active (majority in Poland) May 2009 [21]

IBM Lotus Sametime 40 million total (licensed, entitled users inenterprises)

December 2009

ICQ 50 million active CNET February 8, 2010 [22]

Instant messaging 26

IMVU 1 million total June 2007 [23]

Mail.ru Agent 1 million active (daily) September 2006 [24]

Meebo 1 million total October 2006 [25]

MXit 11 million total (9 million in South Africa) 29 January 2009 [26].

Paltalk 3.3 million unique visitors per month August 2006 [27]

PSYC 1 million active (daily) (majority in Brazil) February 2007 [28]. Note that these users are part of the IRCuser base, messaging user base consists of a few hundredusers

Skype 27 million peak online January 2011 [29]

763 million total as of January, 13th, 2011 (can be checked when searchingusers in Skype 5.x)

Tencent QQ Claimed 100 million peak online (majority inChina)

QQ's official website[30]

Claimed 440 million active accounts (includes userswith multiple accounts). (majority in China)

Q's official website[30]

Claimed 990 million total registered accounts.(majority in China)

Q's official website[30]

VZOchat >550,000 December 2008 [31]

Windows Live Messenger(previously MSN Messenger)

330 million active June 2009 [32]

Xfire 16 million total May 2010 [33]

Yahoo! Messenger 248 million active registered Yahoo global users(refers to ALL Yahoo users not Instant Messagingusers)

17 Jan 2008 [34]

Facebook Claimed 500 million active users Facebook statistics [35]

Blauk 700, 000 users each day [36]

References[1] Instant Messaging on CTSS and Multics (http:/ / www. multicians. org/ thvv/ mail-history. html)[2] CompuServe Innovator Resigns After 25 Years, The Columbus Dispatch, 11 May 1996, p. 2F[3] Wired and Inspired, The Columbus Dispatch (Business page), by Mike Pramik, 12 November 2000[4] Screenshot of a Quantum Link OLM (http:/ / www. qlinklives. org/ qlink-old/ liz1. jpg)[5] Summary of final decisions issued by the trademark trial and appeal board, January 16-20, 2006 (http:/ / www. uspto. gov/ web/ offices/ com/

sol/ foia/ ttab/ decsum/ 2006/ 16jan06. pdf)[6] "Important and Long Delayed News" (http:/ / www. pidgin. im/ index. php?id=177), Announcement of Gaim renaming (to Pidgin), April 6,

2007[7] "The decline of instant messaging" (http:/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ 2/ hi/ uk_news/ magazine/ 8698174. stm). BBC News. 2010-05-24. .[8] Instant Messaging (http:/ / wiki. networkdictionary. com/ index. php/ Instant_Messenging), NetworkDictionary.com.[9] "Oracle Buzzes with Updates for its Beehive Collaboration Platform" (http:/ / www. cmswire. com/ cms/ enterprise-20/

oracle-buzzes-with-updates-for-its-beehive-collaboration-platform-004538. php). CMSWire. 2009-05-06. . Retrieved 2009-07-16.[10] http:/ / im. about. com/ od/ imforbusiness/ a/ topbizims. htm[11] http:/ / im. about. com/ b/ 2008/ 03/ 15/ reader-questions-im-privacy-at-work. htm[12] "IM Security Center" (http:/ / www. imsecuritycenter. com). . Retrieved 2007-05-13.[13] "Why just say no to IM at work" (http:/ / blog. anta. net/ 2009/ 10/ 28/ why-just-say-no-to-im-at-work/ ). blog.anta.net. 2009-10-29.

ISSN1797-1993. . Retrieved 2009-10-29.

Instant messaging 27

[14] "ESG compliance report excerpt, Part 1: Introduction" (http:/ / searchstorage. techtarget. com/ tip/ 0,289483,sid5_gci906152,00. html). .Retrieved 2007-05-13.

[15] FINRA, Regulatory Notice 07-59, Supervision of Electronic Communications, December 2007[16] "Akonix Warns Corporations of Risqu Employee IM Behavior" (http:/ / www. akonix. com/ press/ releases-details. asp?id=130). .

Retrieved 2007-05-13.[17] Chris Christiansen and Rose Ryan, International Data Corp., "IDC Telebriefing: Threat Management Security Appliance Review and

Forecast"[18] http:/ / arstechnica. com/ news. ars/ post/ 20060927-7846. html[19] http:/ / www. aol. co. uk[20] http:/ / www. ebuddy. com/ press. php[21] http:/ / www. audyt. gemius. pl/ pages/ display/ komuniatory-u