TABLE OF CONTENTS E-mail is one of the most common tasks performed with a computer. With the capability to deliver messages almost instantly anywhere around the globe, it provides speed and efficiency that can t be matched by regular postal mail service.
Unfortunately, as efficient as it is at delivering legitimate messages, electronic mail is also quite efficient at distributing malicious software and filling e-mail inboxes with unsolicited junk mail.The information in this chapter will help you use e-mail productively and safely.
In this chapter, you will learn:
The history of e-mail
Precautions to take with e-mail file attachments
How to use POP3 vs. Web-based e-mail
How to avoid and block spam
How to protect yourself from e-mail hoaxes and phishing attacks
The concept of e-mail goes back much further than most people would suspect. Computer scientists and engineers were using the ARPANET, the precursor of the Internet as we know it, to send communications back and forth starting in the early 1970s.
From its origins as a command-line program used by a select few to send a handful of communications back and forth, the concept of e-mail evolved slowly into what we use today. Approximately 20 years passed between the first e-mail communications and the large-scale, mainstream adoption of e-mail as a method of communication.
Today, e-mail is the primary means of business and personal communications for millions of people. Billions of messages are transmitted back and forth across the Internet on a daily basis.
