Overview

At the time of the first edition of this book (1992 1994), the e-mail world was a simpler place. For one thing, the vast majority of the Internet's population was made up of research and education, and commercial entities who were on the Internet to support research and education users.

There were some abuses, in particular a few shady, bottom-feeding companies who converted the Usenet Map Project's data and the ARPAnet "whois" database into mailing lists and sold them. Apparently, the Internet's "operator" class had built ourselves into an excellent demographic for direct mail we were well paid professionals, purchasing managers in both our jobs and in our homes. And we had conveniently (read: "naively") published several electronic directories so that we could locate each other in times of need. These abuses, while irritating and insulting, were only the nose of the camel that was to come in later.

Most of the early Internet protocols required little or no authentication. You did not need to prove who you were in order to initiate e-mail transactions simply because in those early days, everyone who had an Internet connection was self-selected or peer-selected to have good manners. If you abused your ARPAnet connection then the government (who was paying for ARPAnet's operation) could disconnect you.

Gradually the government stepped away from Internet funding and the commercial communications sector took over. Funding no longer comes from a single source but rather from all sources (and all destinations). Without government money and supervision, the Internet...