How The Guy Who Didn't Invent Email Got Memorialized In The Press & The Smithsonian As The Inventor Of Email

from the damn-you-wikipedia dept

Late last week, the Washington Post reported that The Smithsonian had acquired "tapes, documentation, copyrights, and over 50,000 lines of code from V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, who both the Smithsonian and the Washington Post insisted was the "inventor of e-mail." There's just one problem with this: It's not actually true. Lots of internet old-timers quickly started to speak out against this, especially on Dave Farber's Interesting People email list, where they highlighted how it's just not true. As is nicely summarized on Wikipedia's talk page about Ayyadurai, he was responsible for "merely inventing an email management system that he named EMAIL," which came long after email itself. The Washington Post eventually offered the following "clarification":

Clarification: A number of readers have accurately pointed out that electronic messaging predates V. A. Shiva Ayyadurai’s work in 1978. However, Ayyadurai holds the copyright to the computer program called "email," establishing him as the creator of the “computer program for [an] electronic mail system” with that name, according to the U.S. Copyright Office.

Except... that "clarification" seems to confuse copyright with patents. Copyright is only over the specific copyrightable work created -- which would be the specific code he used. It does not, in any way, establish him as "the creator" of "the" electronic mail system -- merely an electronic mail system -- and hardly the first one. I could write some sort of email management software tomorrow and copyright that... and it would no more make me an "inventor" of email than Ayyadurai.

There's a detailed history of email over at the NetHistory site, and you'll note that Ayyadurai doesn't warrant a mention -- which isn't surprising since his work comes way after most of the important stuff was done. Thomas Haigh sent a detailed email to the SIGCIS list, breaking down what happened. Apparently, Time Magazine ran a profile of Ayyadurai a few months back, calling him "the man who invented email," which resulted in the Smithsonian's interest. But even that article notes at the beginning that Ayyadurai actually just holds a copyright on EMAIL, rather than email itself. It even asks about the fact that Ray Tomlinson is often credited as being the inventor of email -- and his efforts came much earlier.

Either way, it appears that Ayyadurai has played up this idea that he's the inventor of email, despite little to back that up (apparently frustrating many people who actually know the history). Yes, he copyrighted a particular bit of code, but there's little to support the idea that he had very much to do with "the invention of email" in any way. But, that's not what the Washington Post (or, apparently, the Smithsonian) will tell you...

Filed Under: copyright, email, history, inventor, va shiva ayyadurai
Companies: smithsonian, time, washington post

Syrian President's Email Hacked... His Password Was 12345

from the kind-of-thing-an-idiot-would-have-on-his-luggage dept

Well, this is rather incredible. With the news that Anonymous hacked the offices of the Syrian President and dumped a ton of emails online... comes the news that the hack was insanely easy. Why? Because, apparently, the password was 12345. No joke. Of course, that's considered one of the worst passwords of all time. And, as pointed out by Lauren Weinstein, this is the exact same password that was immortalized by Dark Helmet (the original one, rather than our local Techdirt hero) as being the stupidest password he's ever heard -- and the "kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!"

Filed Under: 12345, anonymous, email, hackers, passwords, syria

Whistle-blowing Scientists (Trying To Prevent Dangerous Products From Reaching The Market) Sue FDA For Snooping On Their Personal Email Accounts

from the shameful-suppression dept

Last year, we wrote about the federal whistle-blowing act, which was designed to give protections to federal employees who blow the whistle on federal fraud and abuse. For reasons that still aren't clear, that bill was killed by a secret hold by either Senators Jon Kyl or Jeff Sessions. That fact only came out due to an amazing effort by the folks at On The Media, who kept hounding all 100 Senators to find out who would possibly kill such a bill. Recently, On The Media revisited the topic, noting that there was a new version of the bill. The report also talks about just how vindictive the government has been against whistleblowers. Even as President Obama has insisted that whistleblowers are important and should be protected, that's not what's happening in real life, with many getting stripped of their responsibility and demoted -- all for daring to point out waste, fraud and abuse. The worst example to date, remains the horrifying story of Thomas Drake, who was threatened with 35 years in jail in a bogus vindictive lawsuit against him, due to his blowing the whistle on a bogus NSA project.

More evidence of the insane lengths the federal government will go to against whistleblowers has been revealed in the form of a lawsuit from a group of FDA scientists and doctors. The group had been trying to blow the whistle on fraud and abuse in the FDA, in the form of approvals for medical devices that didn't actually meet health and safety standards. The scientists reached out to Congress to blow the whistle... and in response, the FDA started spying on their personal emails. Yes, it does appear that these scientists were accessing their personal Gmail accounts from work computers, and using them to work with Congressional staffers to craft their whistleblowing complaint, but does that give the FDA the right to spy on their personal communications? The doctors, via their lawsuit, believe the answer is no.

The FDA is defending its actions by claiming that this whistleblowing involved "improperly disclosed confidential business information about the devices," and it wanted an investigation of the doctors involved. That sounds ridiculous. Or, perhaps, all too typical. It seems clear that the FDA bosses just didn't like the fact that some folks there blew the whistle on what they were doing and took vindictive actions. This is exactly the kind of thing that a Whistle Blower Act should protect. That it doesn't do so already is really a shame.

Filed Under: email, fda, free speech, privacy, safety, whistleblowing

VW Will Block BlackBerry Email When People Are Off Work. Isn't That When It's Most Useful?

from the hmm dept

This is a bit odd. It appears that, as part of an agreement with its workers in Germany, Volkswagen has agreed to turn off BlackBerry messages to workers while they're away from work. Basically emails will stop going to BlackBerries a half hour after they leave work and won't come back until a half hour before they come back in.

Of course, it seems like if they don't want people to access emails while away from work there's a simpler solution: don't have workers use BlackBerries. Just saying.

The idea here is to keep employees from "feeling chained" and allowing them to enjoy the life part of the work/life balance. And, as we've discussed in the past, the blurring of the work/life balance is definitely an issue that some people need to deal with. But I have difficulty seeing how this helps in any way. In my experience, being able to access emails while not at my desk and in off-hours actually helps keep the work/life balance, since stuff doesn't pile up at work.

Years back, in college, I actually spent a lot of time studying how labor relations worked in Germany, and unions there tend to have a lot more say in how companies operate, to the point of being on councils with management making these kinds of decisions (it's a lot more partnership oriented than the US adversarial model). In many ways that's a good thing. Having management and employees working together to take on challenges, rather than just being at each other's throats, definitely has its advantages, but it can also create some wacky outcomes... like this.

Filed Under: blackberries, email, germany, work life balance
Companies: volkswagen

Email Is 40 Years Old

from the 40-years-young dept

For a few years now, we've been joking about how email is for old people. Studies have increasingly been showing that the younger generation prefers text messaging, instant messaging and various social networking private message systems to good old fashioned email. So it's worth noting that sometime this month, email apparently turned 40 years old. So perhaps it's showing its age, which is why the kids today don't bother with it.

Filed Under: email, history

New US Postal Service Ad Campaign: Email Sucks, So Mail Stuff Instead

from the from-luddites-r-us dept

It seems the US Postal Service (USPS) is starting to get pretty desperate. Losing a ton of money, it's apparently decided that the time is now to attack the competition. The competition, of course, is email. It's put out two TV commercials that focus on bashing email for not being either secure or reliable: Of course, I'm pretty sure I've had a lot more physical mail "lost" by human carriers than emails just disappear. And you could easily argue that regular mail isn't particularly secure at times either. All in all, though, it seems like a bizarre commercial. Why even bother making silly assertions about email? Do they really think people are going to start saying... "gee, I can't trust this email stuff to communicate with my friends; now I'm going to start sending real letters through the USPS!"

Filed Under: email, snail mail, usps

Is Yahoo Blocking People From Sending Any Email That Mentions OccupyWallSt.org?

from the what-if-you-just-wrote-occupywallst-is-a-dumb-idea dept

Zacqary Adam Green points us to the rumor that Yahoo Mail, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that no one should be allowed to send any emails that merely mention the website http://OccupyWallSt.org. That's the website of the folks currently protesting in NY. Zacqary decided to test this out and produced a video showing Yahoo sending a bunch of lorem ipsum (gibberish) text without a problem -- and then refusing to send the same text once he added the URL at the bottom. We did some testing ourselves, and it appears that the message will go through if you just type OccupyWallSt.org. But if you do the full URL, with the http:... well, then you might just be a terrorist or something. The message provided by Yahoo is that it refuses to send the email because "suspicious activity" was detected on the account and to "protect" the user, the message has not been sent. We also noted that once this happens, Yahoo starts asking you to input a captcha to send future emails. Because, um, linking to that one URL makes Yahoo claim you're a bot.

Seriously, Yahoo? First off, it's troubling enough that Yahoo has apparently decided that merely mentioning a URL can have your messages blocked from being sent entirely. But almost as bad is claiming that it's to "protect" the user. Yahoo has been struggling lately to retain users. Blocking outbound messages for no good reason isn't likely to win any converts. No wonder ex-CEO Carol Bartz was fired over the phone. Perhaps Yahoo's Chairman of the Board was prevented from emailing her for his own safety...

Update: Yahoo now claims that this was a mistake that's been fixed. They say it was a spam filter issue, but I can't see how that makes any sense.

Filed Under: blocking, email, occupy wall street, yahoo mail
Companies: yahoo

Court Says College Can Snoop On Students' Email

from the no-privacy-violation dept

There have been plenty of cases where courts have said that it's okay for an employer to snoop on (employer-provided) employee email accounts. And now there's a case saying basically the same thing for colleges and universities. As long as they provided the email system, there's apparently no violation of anti-snooping or data privacy laws. I definitely understand the reasoning here, though one might argue that the relationship between a student and a university is quite different than an employee and employer. And I could see how students might have a much higher expectation of privacy. Still, do students really use university email addresses any more, or do they have their own primary email accounts that they had before heading off to school?

Filed Under: college, email, privacy, snooping, universities

If You Can Read This, You're Breaking The Law!

from the your-mail-is-not-your-own dept

I get lots of (legitimate) email, intended for other people, sent to my email address. I guess it's easy to screw up your own address and wind up at mine -- or mine is just a popular one to use as a fake, when people don't want to supply their real one. Just today, I received an email from Remax, Northern Illinois, thanking me for registering on their site (and conveniently providing me with the password "I" used to sign up), which I didn't, an order confirmation for tickets to see Blue Man Group at the Pioneer Center (in Reno), which I did not purchase, and an "Acknowledgment Letter" from an attorney (maybe) with attachments and no message body aside from the following:

NOTE: This e-mail message (including attachments) is subject to attorney-client privilege and contains confidential information intended only for the person(s) to whom this email message is addressed. This e-mail may be covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 U.S.C. §2510-2521, which provides criminal penalties for your use of this email without permission. This message may contain Protected Health Information covered under HIPAA Rules and HITECH Standards including, but not limited to, all applicable requirements of the HIPAA Security rule in 45 C.F.R. §§ 164.308, 164.310,164.312 and 164.316, including any amendments thereto. If you have received this e-mail message in error, please notify the sender immediately by telephone or e-mail and destroy the original message without making a copy.

Now, although I have to admit that I was initially impressed by all those fancy numbers and § symbols, a few things struck me as odd. First of all, if the information is "intended only for the person(s) to whom this email message is addressed," and it was addressed to me, wouldn't that mean it's intended for me? Second, with absolutely no information in the body of the email, other than this warning, how am I supposed to know for sure that it was not intended for me? And, finally, if you mistakenly send someone else's confidential information directly to me (not because of an email server routing error), how is it that I am the one in danger of "criminal penalties" for opening my own mail?

As I have no interest in reading this person's confidential information, I have not opened the attachments and have no plans to do so. And although I'm not even certain a threat like this is enforceable, I will be canceling my email account, destroying my hard drive, and leaving the country for a while. Wish me luck.

Filed Under: boilerplate, email, legalese, signatures

Court Says Sending Too Many Emails To Someone Is Computer Hacking

from the you-can't-be-serious dept

Okay, the courts are just getting out of hand when it comes to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which is supposed to be used against cases of malicious hacking. Most people would naturally assume that this meant situations in which someone specifically broke into a protected computing system and either copied stuff or destroyed stuff. And yet, because of terrible drafting, the law is broad and vague and courts are regularly stretching what the CFAA covers in dangerous ways.

The latest example, found via Michael Scott is that the Sixth Circuit appeals court has overturned a district court ruling, and is now saying that a labor union can be sued for violating the CFAA because it asked members to email and call an employer many times, in an effort to protest certain actions. Now some of the volume may have hurt the business, but does it reach the level of hacking? What's really troubling is even just the focus on emails:

The e-mails wreaked more havoc: they overloaded Pulte's system, which limits the number of e-mails in an inbox; and this, in turn, stalled normal business operations because Pulte's employees could not access business-related e-mails or send e-mails to customers and vendors

So... because Pulte's IT folks set up their email boxes such that they could only hold a certain number of emails, suddenly this raises to the level of "hacking"? That seems like a stretch, and you can definitely see how such a rule can and likely will be abused. Especially since the court made some very broad statements, including:

[We] conclude that a transmission that weakens a sound computer system—or, similarly, one that diminishes a plaintiff’s ability to use data or a system—causes damage.

Broad enough for you? I can see this ruling being cited in all sorts of abusive trials now.

Filed Under: cfaa, email, hacking