The Technical Development of Internet Email

@article{Partridge2008TheTD,
  title={The Technical Development of Internet Email},
  author={Craig Partridge},
  journal={IEEE Annals of the History of Computing},
  year={2008},
  volume={30}
}
  • C. Partridge
  • Published 1 April 2008
  • Computer Science
  • IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
Development and evolution of the technologies and standards for Internet email took formatting more than 20 years, and arguably is still under way. The protocols to move email between systems and the rules for formatting messages have evolved, and- been largely replaced at least once. This article traces that evolution, with a focus on why things look as they do today. 
View on IEEE
zoo.cs.yale.edu
60 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
2
Background Citations
26
Methods Citations
5

60 Citations

Securing Email
TLDR
A systematization of secure email approaches taken by industry, academia, and independent developers and an evaluation framework for proposed or deployed email security enhancements and a measurement of their security, deployability, and usability are included.
Electronic Mail and Text Messaging in CTSS, 1965-1973
Applications from prior technologies are often reimplemented on new computing or communications platforms, and users sometimes don't realize that the applications have been recycled. For example,…
Development and Evaluation of an Augmented Object for Notifications of Particular Emails
TLDR
This project design and develop a prototype of an augmented object that notifies users when important mail arrives and the process of design, development and testing is described and discussed in this paper.
On the recent use of email through traffic and network analysis: the impact of OSNs, new trends, and other communication platforms
TLDR
A methodology based on heterogeneous data sources is proposed to analyze the amount of traffic associated with emails in order to gain knowledge on the use of email by Internet users in the last years and the understanding of the upcoming novel communications behavior of Internet users.
SoK: Securing Email - A Stakeholder-Based Analysis
TLDR
A fresh look at the state of secure email is taken and open problems in the area are discussed.
SoK: Securing Email -- A Stakeholder-Based Analysis (Extended Version)
TLDR
The tussle among stakeholders is used to explain the evolution of fragmented secure email solutions undertaken by industry, academia, and independent developers, and it is concluded that a one-size-fits-all solution is unlikely.
Electronic Mail and Text Messaging in CTSS, 1965-1973
TLDR
My colleague Noel Morris and I implemented both an electronic mail command and a text messaging facility for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) in 1965.
Evaluation of decentralized email architecture and social network analysis based on email attachment sharing
TLDR
This dissertation proposes a decentralized email architecture which takes advantage of user’s a IoT devices to maintain a complete email history and replaces legacy email protocols with a synchronization protocol to achieve eventual consistency of email and optimize bandwidth and energy usage.
New Technique for Cross Platform Availability Control over Electronic Messages
TLDR
The experimental results suggest that the process of encryption has little impact on the overall time required to send the email, however, the processes of requesting the key and decrypting the email required slightly more time than the normal process.
Helping a future internet architecture mature
TLDR
Some of the challenges of developing and maturing a future internet architecture (FIA) are described and some of the solutions proposed are described.
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 208 REFERENCES
Comments on NCP/TCP mail service transition strategy
TLDR
During the interim period, when both internet and the older ARPANET-based protocols are in use, the goal of the transition is to minimize user impact and to minimize software development or modification required to deal with transitional problems.
Domain names - implementation and specification
This RFC is the revised specification of the protocol and format used in the implementation of the Domain Name System. It obsoletes RFC-883. This memo documents the details of the domain name client…
The Domain Naming Convention for Internet User Applications
This RFC is an attempt to clarify the generalization of the Domain Naming Convention, the Internet Naming Convention, and to explore the implications of its adoption for Internet name service and…
Duplicate messages and SMTP
TLDR
An examination of a synchronization problem in the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) can cause a message to be delivered multiple times and a method for avoiding this problem is suggested.
Inventing the Internet
TLDR
In Inventing the Internet, Janet Abbate unfolds an often twisting tale of collaboration and conflict among a remarkable variety of players, including government and military agencies, computer scientists in academia and industry, graduate students, telecommunications companies, standards organizations, and network users.
Message Transmission Protocol
Extends message field definition beyond RFC 561 attempts to establish syntactic and semantic standards for ARPANET; see also RFCs 733 and 822.
Framework and Functions of the "MS" Personal Message System
TLDR
The design, framework, and functions of a system that enables the manipulation of electronic mail for users of PDP-11 minicomputers are described, which attempts to provide functions which conform to user's pre-existing models of paper based office communications.
A Dial-Up Network of UNIX
A network of over eightyUNIX† computer systems has been established using the telephone system as its primary communication medium. The network was designed to meet the growing demands for software…
Proposed official standard for the format of ARPA Network messages
TLDR
There is enough of a consensus in the Network community in favor of such a standard syntax to make possible its adoption at this time, and it is expected that there is enough breathing room to produce a new mail transmission protocol "properly".
Domain system changes and observations
This RFC documents updates to Domain Name System specifications RFC-882 and RFC-883, suggests some operational guidelines, and discusses some experiences and problem areas in the present system.
...
...