📑 Email Is Dangerous
Email has changed since then, but not much. Most of what’s changed in the last 45 years is email clients—the software we use to access email. They’ve clumsily bolted on new functionality onto the old email, without fixing any of the underlying protocols to support that functionality.
In my work with schools there is a lot of conversations that seem to end with “just email [insert content] to them”. Although this is convenient, it is not always the best practice. In this post from Quinn Norton in The Atlantic she shares why. Continuing to remind us how everything is broken, Norton gives a history of email and many of its inherent flaws. This comes on the back of the latest discovery of bugs associated with supposed encrypted email.
Craig Saper discusses the rise and fall of microfilm. From its beginning in the 19th century to its demise with the rise of digital storage. It is always interesting to trace the history of particular technology, such as PowerPoint, PDF and email. It helps make sense where we are today.
Ernie Smith discusses the problems with email and the need to move forward. This is another post that highlights the fragility of email as a technology.
Carlos Fenollosa reflects on the demise of self-hosted email. One of the main reasons he argues for the failure is the crude blacklisting of large swaths of email, rather than a penalty process.
Fenollosa argues that instead of worrying about interoperability between closed platforms, we should be protecting the open ones we already have.
This all reminds me of Quinn Norton’s post from a few years ago about how email is dangerous. However, for some like David Truss, email has simply failed us as a means of communication and technology.