Just another small note about email while we are setting the stage.
It may be time that we move beyond the idea that email is like postal mail
(only electronic) and start to realise that what has evolved is unique, and its
future might be quite different from postal services and have quite different
requirements.
In the early days of motor vehicles, they were called “horseless carriages” to
describe their relationship with the previous main transport mechanism. Some
time later the name changed. So calling email “email “as such might also change
in time as the medium changes, and we should start thinking that we might have
some needs that postal mail does not.
What we have is a unique, rapidly expanding and powerful new messaging medium
that has both broadcast and communicative functions, and some characteristics
and needs that may not be best addressed by thinking of it as “mail”. We can
therefore expect that making this medium powerful, reliable, and trustworthy
might involve some requirements that are not immediately apparent.
Ian Peter