Single Computer Email had existed from the earlier 1960s. One account references the Compatible Time-Sharing System, started in 1961, that permitted multiple users at MIT to share computer resources. The habit was established by the users of leaving messages for one another by drafting a message and saving it in a common directory with a file name such as "TO TOM." When Tom logged on, he would access the message. [Vleck] This was followed up in 1965 with the create of the MAIL command which attached a message to an existing user's MAIL BOX file.
Licklider was talking to people about inter-computer mail as far back as 1968. Larry Roberts wrote a macro in 1969 that sent mail across the early ARPANet. [Vleck]The first RFC related to email was released in 1971 entitled the "Mail Box Protocol." It is not clear that this protocol was implemented.[Tomlinson]
Email was one of the first applications on the Internet and at the beginning accounted for most of its traffic. [Denning 4] In 1971, Ray Tomlinson of BBN modified the existing SNDMSG program to function over a network and send messages to remote computers, and decided to use the now ubiquitous"@" sign. [Tomlinson] [Nerds p 104] Tomlinson's innovation was incorporated into BBN's TENEX operating system, so that hosts on the ARPANET running TENEX would now have this new network email program built in. [Abbate p 106]"A 1973 ARPA report showed that three-quarters of all use was email." [Nerds p 109] [Vanity Fair] Larry Roberts is said to have been a big fan of email, which enabled him to work and communicate at any time of day, and to communicate directly with members of the ARPANET community without going through individual project supervisors. [Abbate p 108]
In 1973, at the Network Mail Meeting held at SRI-ARC, the group agreed to the use of the "@" sign in the email "TO" field. [RFC 469] This consensus overcame an interoperability issue, in that in some systems such as Multics, the "@" sign was a kill command. [Padlinksy] The group would also decide to use FTP to transfer the email files between hosts.[Abbate p 106]
"For example, in Multics, an operating system used by some in the 1970s, the "@" symbol indicated a kill line symbol. This meant that any set of characters followed by the '@' sign were ignored by the Operating System. Tomlinson however used the Tenex operating system built at BBN where the '@' sign wasn't used for anything and thus had decided to use it in the email address name to concatenate the user with the host server. " [Akkad]
The First Killer App of the ARPANet / Internet was not forseen by the designers of the ARPANet / Internet.
Kleinrock: "They soon began to realize that there was a benefit [to joining the ARPANet. You see the biggest surprise about the ARPA network use was e-mail. It was an ad hoc add-on by BBN, and it just blossomed. And that sucked a lot of people in. It still is the biggest use of networks today." [Babbage 24]
Roberts 1967: " Message Service: In addition to computational network activities, a network can be used to handle interpersonal message transmissions. This type of service can also be used for educational services and conference activities. However, it is not an important motivation for a network of scientific computers." (emphasis added) ... "
Once it is practical to utilize programs at remote locations, programmers will consider investigating what exists elsewhere. The savings possible from non-duplication of effort are enormous. A network would foster the "community" use of computers. Cooperative programming would be stimulated, and in particular fields or disciplines it will be possible to achieve a "critical mass" of talent by allowing geographically separated people to work effectively in interaction with a system." [Roberts 1967]
"In that sense, when the mail was being developed, nobody thought at the beginning it was
going to be the smash hit that it was. People liked it, they thought it was nice, but nobody imagined that it was going
to be the explosion of excitement and interest that it became. So that was a surprise to everybody, that it was as big a
hit. And it became a major network use; it became perhaps the single largest network use, finally." [Frank Heart 1990]
"The popularity of email was not foreseen by the ARPANET's planners. Roberts had not included electronic mail in the original blueprint for the network... In creating the network's host software, the Network Working Group had focused on protocols for remote login and file transfer, not electronic mail... A draft of the Competion Report referred to email as 'unplanned, unanticipated, and mostly unsupported.' ... The rationale for building the network had focused on providing access to computers rather than to people. In justifying the need for a network, Roberts had compared the cost of using the network against the cost of sending computer data by other media, but he had not compared the cost of email against the costs of other means of communication. The paradigm of resource sharing may have blinded the ARPANET community to other potential uses of the network." [Abbate p 108]
See NPR Interview with Ray Tomlinson The Man Who Made You Put Away Your Pen, Nov 15, 2009
- 2007 - FTC Spam Summit
- 2006 - Reputation Services
- 2004 - FTC Spam Summit
- 2003 - Can Spam Act
- 2002 - Sender accreditation (whitelist)
- Sender pays for improved delivery. Bonded sender.
- 2001: RFC 2821, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (April 2001) (This document is a self-contained specification of the basic protocol for the Internet electronic mail transport.)
- 1999 - negative reputation services (blocklists) MAPS/Trend, Spamhaus, Senderbase, Symantic, TrustedSource
- 1997 - Supreme Court of Tennessee, Internet Advertising and Tennessee Disbarment, In Re: Laurence A. Canter, 1997.
- 1994 - Press Release- PSI And Canter & Siegel Negotiate Agreement On Future. 1994
- 1993: AOL and Delphi interconnect their proprietary email systems to the Internet.
- 1989: Compuserve email connects to NSFNET
- 1988:
- Vint Cerf arranges for a connection of MCI Mail to NSFNET on an experimental basis.
- Dan Webb introduces email messages as evidence in prosecution of Reagan White House's John Poindexter. [Vanity Fair]
- 1985: After 3 years, USPS terminates E-COM service. [USPS]
- 1982:
- The Future of Mail Delivery (Washington: Joint Economic Committee, June 18 , 1982 ), p. 12.
- Postal Service Electronic Mail: The Price Isn't Right (Washington: House Government Operations Committee, October 1, 1982), p. 3.
- RFC 821, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (Aug. 1982)
- USPS Introduces E-COM (messages that originate as email, are printed out, and then delivered in hard copy form). [USPS] FCC asserts jurisdiction over E-COM as a telecommunications service.
- David Crocker, RFC 822, Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text Messages (Aug. 13, 1982)
By 1977, the Arpanet employed several informal standards for the text messages (mail) sent among its host computers. It was felt necessary to codify these practices and provide for those features that seemed imminent. The result of that effort was Request for Comments (RFC) #733, "Standard for the Format of ARPA Network Text Message", by Crocker, Vittal, Pogran, and Henderson. The specification attempted to avoid major changes in existing software, while permitting several new features. This document revises the specifications in RFC #733 , in order to serve the needs of the larger and more complex ARPA Internet. Some of RFC #733 's features failed to gain adequate acceptance. In order to simplify the standard and the software that follows it, these features have been removed. A different addressing scheme is used, to handle the case of inter-network mail; and the concept of re-transmission has been introduced.
- 1979: USPS attempts to ban private email service, but is thwarted by the FCC and the US Postal Commission. [Bovard]
- 1979: Meeting at BBN to discuss differences and incompatibilities between different ARPA email services. A record of the meeting is recounted in Jon Postel, RFC 808, Summary of Computer Mail Services Meeting Held at BBN on 10 January 1979 (March 1, 1982) A list of all of the differing email services was compiled by Prof David Farber and presented in Appendix A.
- 1979: Former ARPA Chief and email advocate SJ Lukasik becomes FCC Chief Scientist
- 1979: " President Carter was supporting a USPS proposal to offer limited electronic message service where the messages would be transferred from one post office to another electronically, and then would be brought to the consumer ? s address by the mailman. This threat brought the research community together and they along with the US Justice Department and the FCC opposed any plans of government intervention in e-mail. They all successfully lobbied for E-mail to be left up to the free market." [Akkad]
- 1978- Reaction to the DEC Spam of 1978, which has the reputation as the first SPAM message [See Vanity Fair]
- 1977: DARPA initiative to transform various differing email formats into a single, standard specification. David Crocker, John Vittal, Kenneth Pogran, Austin Henderson, RFC 733, Standard for the Format of ARPA Network Text Message (Nov. 21, 1977) ("This standard specifies a syntax for text messages which are passed between computer users within the framework of "electronic mail"." RFC notes that this work was funded by DARPA.)
- 1977: USPS initiates exploration of email
- 1973: 75% of traffic on ARPANet is email. [Akkad] Study was conducted pursuant to request from ARPA Chief SJ Lukasik
- 1972: RFC 354, Comments on the File Transfer Protocol , ¶ 21 (Aug 18, 1972) (adding Mail File "MLFL" and the MAIL command to FTP)
- 1973: Stephen Lukasik becomes Chief of ARPA. He was a major proponent of network research of of electronic mail. Would become FCC Chief Scientist in 1979.
- 1971 - Email is sent on MIT's CTSS to all recipients with the anti war message "There is no way to Peace. Peace is the way!" [Vleck]
- 1971: Ray Tomlinson develops an email application for over the ARPANet, permitting individuals to send messages over the network and alert the recipient that a message had been received. Tomlinson chose the "@" sign for email addresses.
- 1970 - Monty Python Spam Skit airs
- 1960s Email developed for time share computers (individuals could message each other on the same mainframe computer; but not over a network)
- 1890s: USPS declared it illegal to deliver paper messages through pneumatic tubes under city streets [Bovard]
Standards
- J. Klensin, IETF RFC 2821, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (April 2001).
- J. Postel, IETF RFC 821, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (August 1982).
- S. Sluizer, J Postel, NWG RFC 772, Mail Transfer Protocol (Sept 1980)
- D Crocker, J Vittal, K Pogran, D Henderson, RFC 733, Standard For the Format of ARPA Network Text Messages (Nov. 21, 1977)
- J Postel, RFC 706, On the Junk Mail Program (1975)
- J White, RFC 524, A Proposed Mail Protocol (June 1973)
- Michael Kudlick, RFC 469, Network Mail Meeting Summary (Mar. 1973) (agreeing to use the "@" sign proposed by Tomlinson)
- Abhay Bhushan, RFC 385 Comments on the File Transfer Protocol (Aug. 1972) (adding the command MAIL to FTP)
- RW Watson, RFC 196, Mail Box Protocol (1971)
Papers
Books
- Douglas Aide, Monopoly Mail: Privatizing the US Postal Service
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