From dbelin at dbelin.net  Thu Jul 16 15:49:01 2015
From: dbelin at dbelin.net (Belin, Daniel)
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 18:49:01 -0400
Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
Message-ID: <CAAUXzDMVr5M9Ru7YCtgYaV4L+OEBcxq-oznqc1s7HmDFyppk+g@mail.gmail.com>

Hello, all!

Today, the Washington Post published an editorial by Ellen Pao
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-cannot-let-the-internet-trolls-win/2015/07/16/91b1a2d2-2b17-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html>,
in which she asserted, "The Internet started as a bastion for free
expression."

This piqued my interest, as I felt it was an inaccurate characterization.
My understanding was always that the early research focused on improving
network facilities for research collaboration, and that these issues of
free speech really didn't start to come to the forefront until the 1990s
when the Internet began to take root in society. However, I wasn't there,
so I respectfully pose these questions to you all:

What were the attitudes towards speech/appropriate conduct early in the
ARPAnet project? Was an environment of collegiality and respect generally
expected?

Were there any incidents that led to either a written or *de facto* content
policy on ARPAnet? Were there individual policies enacted by the
institutions that were connected to ARPAnet?

When *did* the Internet emerge as a "bastion for free expression"? Was this
area of the Internet's societal impact explored before the Internet became
broadly publicly available?

I'd be really honored to hear your perspectives on this, and would
appreciate any you could provide.

With cordial thanks,

Dan Belin

*_______________________________________*
+1(703) 209-9608 | @dfbelin <https://twitter.com/dfbelin> | danielbel.in
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From vint at google.com  Fri Jul 17 04:40:36 2015
From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2015 07:40:36 -0400
Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <CAAUXzDMVr5M9Ru7YCtgYaV4L+OEBcxq-oznqc1s7HmDFyppk+g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAUXzDMVr5M9Ru7YCtgYaV4L+OEBcxq-oznqc1s7HmDFyppk+g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAHxHggf6Y=XExMBCbUn8-wiw=Zuge70j2PiQ1Fvb344aYWDiEA@mail.gmail.com>

The Internet and its predecessor, the ARPANET, were shaped in academic
settings where free exchange of information was the coin of the realm. On
the other hand, there was consternation when a job offer appeared on an
ARPANET mailing list, leading to a major warning about abuse of the
research facility. Once we had commercial Internet service and, especially,
once the WWW appeared, the feeling for freedom to express one's self was
far more evident.

vint cerf


On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 6:49 PM, Belin, Daniel <dbelin at dbelin.net> wrote:

> Hello, all!
>
> Today, the Washington Post published an editorial by Ellen Pao
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-cannot-let-the-internet-trolls-win/2015/07/16/91b1a2d2-2b17-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html>,
> in which she asserted, "The Internet started as a bastion for free
> expression."
>
> This piqued my interest, as I felt it was an inaccurate characterization.
> My understanding was always that the early research focused on improving
> network facilities for research collaboration, and that these issues of
> free speech really didn't start to come to the forefront until the 1990s
> when the Internet began to take root in society. However, I wasn't there,
> so I respectfully pose these questions to you all:
>
> What were the attitudes towards speech/appropriate conduct early in the
> ARPAnet project? Was an environment of collegiality and respect generally
> expected?
>
> Were there any incidents that led to either a written or *de facto* content
> policy on ARPAnet? Were there individual policies enacted by the
> institutions that were connected to ARPAnet?
>
> When *did* the Internet emerge as a "bastion for free expression"? Was
> this area of the Internet's societal impact explored before the Internet
> became broadly publicly available?
>
> I'd be really honored to hear your perspectives on this, and would
> appreciate any you could provide.
>
> With cordial thanks,
>
> Dan Belin
>
> *_______________________________________*
> +1(703) 209-9608 | @dfbelin <https://twitter.com/dfbelin> | danielbel.in
>
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
>
>
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From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Fri Jul 17 06:32:35 2015
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2015 09:32:35 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
Message-ID: <20150717133235.83CC118C0EB@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > asserted, "The Internet started as a bastion for free expression."

IMO, to explore the roots of this question, one really needs to dig back into
the ARPANET, because i) the APRANET 'community' imperceptibly evolved into the
Internet, and ii) that's where the free speech issues first came up.

    > This piqued my interest, as I felt it was an inaccurate
    > characterization.  My understanding was always that the early research
    > focused on improving network facilities for research collaboration, and
    > that these issues of free speech really didn't start to come to the
    > forefront until the 1990s when the Internet began to take root in
    > society.

I think that's broadly correct.

    > What were the attitudes towards speech/appropriate conduct early in
    > the ARPAnet project? Was an environment of collegiality and respect
    > generally expected?

One needs to distinguish between official policy, and community standards. As
to the latter, as Vint says, since it was rooter in academia, it generally
followed the standards there.

As to the former, I'm reluctant to rely on my memory. I had a quick look to
see if any of the standard works on the subject (e.g. "Where Wizards") discuss
the issue, and I didn't find a definitive answer.

It is pretty clear that to _connect_ to the ARPANET, one had to have some sort
of government association, i.e. be a part of the government, or have a
government contract (e.g. from DARPA). For more detail, see "Inventing the
Internet", pp. 84-85.

(In this connection, I should note tht the nature of the ARPANET, with its
centralized control from BBN, made it harder for someone to just 'join
in'. BBN was the only source of IMPs, they ran the network from a central NOC,
etc. The Internet was much easier; one got a network number from Postel, and
then one could join up to someone else who was already 'on the Internet'.
That's how I connected Proteon up to the Internet; MIT had its own PDP-11
based IP routers, and we just put one at at Proteon, and rented a leased
line.)

And in theory, just because an _organization_ was connected, that didn't mean
everyone who worked there was authorized to use the ARPANET; one had to have
some work function which was related to work for ARPA. Some sites put in real
access controls to enforce this; IIRC, MIT-Multics had mechanisms so that only
authorized users (a subset of of the larger set of users of the machine) could
get access to the ARPANET.

However, what one could _do_ on the network, once one was connected, was a
different matter, of course. My _vague recollection_ is that there was a
policy that the network be used only for 'official government business', which
broadly included anything covered in a DARPA contract. So if one had a
contract to do computer science research, anything that fell under that was
legit. (Which is not exactly your question, I realize, but if speech is
limited to 'government business', it's pretty clearly not free speech, yes?)

Where exactly the boundary was, I don't think was clearly drawn. So things
like SF-Lovers and the 'wine lovers' list were clearly pushing the
limits. (SF-Lovers was semi-officially accepted, as a source of traffic which
loaded the network, to explore the limits of its ability to handle load.)

    > Were there any incidents that led to either a written or *de facto*
    > content policy on ARPAnet? Were there individual policies enacted by the
    > institutions that were connected to ARPAnet?

In "Where Wizards", there is mention of an incident involving the Quasar
'robot'; see pp. 208-211. I have this bit set that there were other ones, but
I don't recall the details.

    > When *did* the Internet emerge as a "bastion for free expression"? Was
    > this area of the Internet's societal impact explored before the Internet
    > became broadly publicly available?

Again, one has to get back to pre-Internet roots. The UUCP network (which was
_not_ government funded) supported email and NetNews, which had a much more
open and free-wheeling ethos. I suspect the "bastion for free expression" is
as much (more?) rooted there than anywhere else. NetNews eventually migrated
pretty much 'en bloc' to the Internet, and the UUCP network slowly disappeared
as people joined the Internet. "Inventing the Internet", pp. 200-201, 204
provides a brief look at this, and I think there are papers about Usenet
which go into more detail.

      Noel


From amckenzie3 at yahoo.com  Fri Jul 17 07:28:41 2015
From: amckenzie3 at yahoo.com (Alex McKenzie)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2015 14:28:41 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <CAAUXzDMVr5M9Ru7YCtgYaV4L+OEBcxq-oznqc1s7HmDFyppk+g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAUXzDMVr5M9Ru7YCtgYaV4L+OEBcxq-oznqc1s7HmDFyppk+g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <513027795.146561.1437143321406.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>

There is a book by Hauben & Hauben, the title includes the word "Netizens", which as I recall deals with free speech issues in the "early days".? 

Maybe this will help,Alex McKenzie
      From: "Belin, Daniel" <dbelin at dbelin.net>
 To: internet-history at postel.org 
 Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2015 6:49 PM
 Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
   
Hello, all!
Today, the Washington Post published an editorial by Ellen Pao, in which she asserted,?"The Internet started as a bastion for free expression."
This piqued my interest, as I felt it was an inaccurate characterization. My understanding was always that the early research focused on improving network facilities for research collaboration, and that these issues of free speech really didn't start to come to the forefront until the 1990s when the Internet began to take root in society. However, I wasn't there, so I respectfully pose these questions to you all:
What were the attitudes towards speech/appropriate conduct early in the ARPAnet project? Was an environment of collegiality and respect generally expected?
Were there any incidents that led to either a written or de facto?content policy on ARPAnet? Were there individual policies enacted by the institutions that were connected to ARPAnet?
When did?the Internet emerge as a "bastion for free expression"? Was this area of the Internet's societal impact explored before the Internet became broadly publicly available??
I'd be really honored to hear your perspectives on this, and would appreciate any you could provide.
With cordial thanks,
Dan Belin
_______________________________________+1(703) 209-9608 | @dfbelin |?danielbel.in
_______
internet-history mailing list
internet-history at postel.org
http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.


  
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From cos at aaaaa.org  Fri Jul 17 07:57:04 2015
From: cos at aaaaa.org (Ofer Inbar)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2015 10:57:04 -0400
Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <CAAUXzDMVr5M9Ru7YCtgYaV4L+OEBcxq-oznqc1s7HmDFyppk+g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAUXzDMVr5M9Ru7YCtgYaV4L+OEBcxq-oznqc1s7HmDFyppk+g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20150717145704.GA11521@mip.aaaaa.org>


I got on the Internet when Brandeis University got its connection in
January 1990, and a few things I remember about those first few years:

* People spoke of "the net" in a broad way a lot, with the actual
  Internet being just a part.  Usenet was a big deal, and we also had
  CSnet (for email) and BITNET (for email, chat, file transfers).

* There was this idea that the Internet - the TCP/IP net - was for
  research purposes, but that seemed to be mostly teasing by then.
  Everyone was using the net for fun and personal interest too, and
  would joke about how what they were doing was related to research.

* However, there was one thing people did mostly seem to abide by,
  which was no commercial use.  That was sort of a speech restriction.
  People did test the line on that IIRC, but there was enough peer
  pressure to make commercial speech effectively restricted, even if
  not completely.

  -- Cos


From mfidelman at meetinghouse.net  Fri Jul 17 10:34:26 2015
From: mfidelman at meetinghouse.net (Miles Fidelman)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2015 13:34:26 -0400
Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <20150717145704.GA11521@mip.aaaaa.org>
References: <CAAUXzDMVr5M9Ru7YCtgYaV4L+OEBcxq-oznqc1s7HmDFyppk+g@mail.gmail.com>
	<20150717145704.GA11521@mip.aaaaa.org>
Message-ID: <55A93CA2.2000501@meetinghouse.net>

Ofer Inbar wrote:
> I got on the Internet when Brandeis University got its connection in
> January 1990, and a few things I remember about those first few years:
>
> * People spoke of "the net" in a broad way a lot, with the actual
>    Internet being just a part.  Usenet was a big deal, and we also had
>    CSnet (for email) and BITNET (for email, chat, file transfers).
>
> * There was this idea that the Internet - the TCP/IP net - was for
>    research purposes, but that seemed to be mostly teasing by then.
>    Everyone was using the net for fun and personal interest too, and
>    would joke about how what they were doing was related to research.
>
> * However, there was one thing people did mostly seem to abide by,
>    which was no commercial use.  That was sort of a speech restriction.
>    People did test the line on that IIRC, but there was enough peer
>    pressure to make commercial speech effectively restricted, even if
>    not completely.
>

Well, sort of.  I seem to recall an awful lot of traffic RFPs and 
proposals going back and forth, and a lot of traffic involving 
"sanctioned" ARPANET users (i.e., government contractors).  I expect 
folks in various labs were placing a lot of orders w/ DEC, over the net, 
as well.  Advertising was frowned upon, more direct commercial traffic - 
particularly as email - well, that was a different story.


-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra



From jeanjour at comcast.net  Fri Jul 17 10:55:03 2015
From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2015 13:55:03 -0400
Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <20150717133235.83CC118C0EB@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20150717133235.83CC118C0EB@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <0C98734D-2B27-482C-9525-54DC03737494@comcast.net>

Those rules were on the books to keep the bureaucrats happy, but in reality it was really benign neglect.  Noel is right. One has to go back to the early ARPANET days for the origins.

Noel probably doesn?t remember the various well-known sockets at BBN, one returned time of day (pretty innocent), one returned a one-liner sometimes with attribution (not exactly government business), one returned the weather forecast I think, etc. Parties were organized over the Net.  Jokes played,

I don?t know of anyone being reprimanded for anything.

John
> On Jul 17, 2015, at 09:32, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
> 
>> asserted, "The Internet started as a bastion for free expression."
> 
> IMO, to explore the roots of this question, one really needs to dig back into
> the ARPANET, because i) the APRANET 'community' imperceptibly evolved into the
> Internet, and ii) that's where the free speech issues first came up.
> 
>> This piqued my interest, as I felt it was an inaccurate
>> characterization.  My understanding was always that the early research
>> focused on improving network facilities for research collaboration, and
>> that these issues of free speech really didn't start to come to the
>> forefront until the 1990s when the Internet began to take root in
>> society.
> 
> I think that's broadly correct.
> 
>> What were the attitudes towards speech/appropriate conduct early in
>> the ARPAnet project? Was an environment of collegiality and respect
>> generally expected?
> 
> One needs to distinguish between official policy, and community standards. As
> to the latter, as Vint says, since it was rooter in academia, it generally
> followed the standards there.
> 
> As to the former, I'm reluctant to rely on my memory. I had a quick look to
> see if any of the standard works on the subject (e.g. "Where Wizards") discuss
> the issue, and I didn't find a definitive answer.
> 
> It is pretty clear that to _connect_ to the ARPANET, one had to have some sort
> of government association, i.e. be a part of the government, or have a
> government contract (e.g. from DARPA). For more detail, see "Inventing the
> Internet", pp. 84-85.
> 
> (In this connection, I should note tht the nature of the ARPANET, with its
> centralized control from BBN, made it harder for someone to just 'join
> in'. BBN was the only source of IMPs, they ran the network from a central NOC,
> etc. The Internet was much easier; one got a network number from Postel, and
> then one could join up to someone else who was already 'on the Internet'.
> That's how I connected Proteon up to the Internet; MIT had its own PDP-11
> based IP routers, and we just put one at at Proteon, and rented a leased
> line.)
> 
> And in theory, just because an _organization_ was connected, that didn't mean
> everyone who worked there was authorized to use the ARPANET; one had to have
> some work function which was related to work for ARPA. Some sites put in real
> access controls to enforce this; IIRC, MIT-Multics had mechanisms so that only
> authorized users (a subset of of the larger set of users of the machine) could
> get access to the ARPANET.
> 
> However, what one could _do_ on the network, once one was connected, was a
> different matter, of course. My _vague recollection_ is that there was a
> policy that the network be used only for 'official government business', which
> broadly included anything covered in a DARPA contract. So if one had a
> contract to do computer science research, anything that fell under that was
> legit. (Which is not exactly your question, I realize, but if speech is
> limited to 'government business', it's pretty clearly not free speech, yes?)
> 
> Where exactly the boundary was, I don't think was clearly drawn. So things
> like SF-Lovers and the 'wine lovers' list were clearly pushing the
> limits. (SF-Lovers was semi-officially accepted, as a source of traffic which
> loaded the network, to explore the limits of its ability to handle load.)
> 
>> Were there any incidents that led to either a written or *de facto*
>> content policy on ARPAnet? Were there individual policies enacted by the
>> institutions that were connected to ARPAnet?
> 
> In "Where Wizards", there is mention of an incident involving the Quasar
> 'robot'; see pp. 208-211. I have this bit set that there were other ones, but
> I don't recall the details.
> 
>> When *did* the Internet emerge as a "bastion for free expression"? Was
>> this area of the Internet's societal impact explored before the Internet
>> became broadly publicly available?
> 
> Again, one has to get back to pre-Internet roots. The UUCP network (which was
> _not_ government funded) supported email and NetNews, which had a much more
> open and free-wheeling ethos. I suspect the "bastion for free expression" is
> as much (more?) rooted there than anywhere else. NetNews eventually migrated
> pretty much 'en bloc' to the Internet, and the UUCP network slowly disappeared
> as people joined the Internet. "Inventing the Internet", pp. 200-201, 204
> provides a brief look at this, and I think there are papers about Usenet
> which go into more detail.
> 
>      Noel
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.




From jeanjour at comcast.net  Fri Jul 17 13:05:00 2015
From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2015 16:05:00 -0400
Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <20150717133235.83CC118C0EB@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20150717133235.83CC118C0EB@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <84AE0C98-AA5D-4F04-9184-D3939879312B@comcast.net>

Per chance, I happened to be looking at Abbate?s book this afternoon.  In Chapter 4, she describes the rather draconian rules imposed by DCA in the early 80s prior to MILNET being separated from the ARPANET.  This would seem to dispute the claim of a ?bastion of free speech.?


> On Jul 17, 2015, at 09:32, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
> 
>> asserted, "The Internet started as a bastion for free expression."
> 
> IMO, to explore the roots of this question, one really needs to dig back into
> the ARPANET, because i) the APRANET 'community' imperceptibly evolved into the
> Internet, and ii) that's where the free speech issues first came up.
> 
>> This piqued my interest, as I felt it was an inaccurate
>> characterization.  My understanding was always that the early research
>> focused on improving network facilities for research collaboration, and
>> that these issues of free speech really didn't start to come to the
>> forefront until the 1990s when the Internet began to take root in
>> society.
> 
> I think that's broadly correct.
> 
>> What were the attitudes towards speech/appropriate conduct early in
>> the ARPAnet project? Was an environment of collegiality and respect
>> generally expected?
> 
> One needs to distinguish between official policy, and community standards. As
> to the latter, as Vint says, since it was rooter in academia, it generally
> followed the standards there.
> 
> As to the former, I'm reluctant to rely on my memory. I had a quick look to
> see if any of the standard works on the subject (e.g. "Where Wizards") discuss
> the issue, and I didn't find a definitive answer.
> 
> It is pretty clear that to _connect_ to the ARPANET, one had to have some sort
> of government association, i.e. be a part of the government, or have a
> government contract (e.g. from DARPA). For more detail, see "Inventing the
> Internet", pp. 84-85.
> 
> (In this connection, I should note tht the nature of the ARPANET, with its
> centralized control from BBN, made it harder for someone to just 'join
> in'. BBN was the only source of IMPs, they ran the network from a central NOC,
> etc. The Internet was much easier; one got a network number from Postel, and
> then one could join up to someone else who was already 'on the Internet'.
> That's how I connected Proteon up to the Internet; MIT had its own PDP-11
> based IP routers, and we just put one at at Proteon, and rented a leased
> line.)
> 
> And in theory, just because an _organization_ was connected, that didn't mean
> everyone who worked there was authorized to use the ARPANET; one had to have
> some work function which was related to work for ARPA. Some sites put in real
> access controls to enforce this; IIRC, MIT-Multics had mechanisms so that only
> authorized users (a subset of of the larger set of users of the machine) could
> get access to the ARPANET.
> 
> However, what one could _do_ on the network, once one was connected, was a
> different matter, of course. My _vague recollection_ is that there was a
> policy that the network be used only for 'official government business', which
> broadly included anything covered in a DARPA contract. So if one had a
> contract to do computer science research, anything that fell under that was
> legit. (Which is not exactly your question, I realize, but if speech is
> limited to 'government business', it's pretty clearly not free speech, yes?)
> 
> Where exactly the boundary was, I don't think was clearly drawn. So things
> like SF-Lovers and the 'wine lovers' list were clearly pushing the
> limits. (SF-Lovers was semi-officially accepted, as a source of traffic which
> loaded the network, to explore the limits of its ability to handle load.)
> 
>> Were there any incidents that led to either a written or *de facto*
>> content policy on ARPAnet? Were there individual policies enacted by the
>> institutions that were connected to ARPAnet?
> 
> In "Where Wizards", there is mention of an incident involving the Quasar
> 'robot'; see pp. 208-211. I have this bit set that there were other ones, but
> I don't recall the details.
> 
>> When *did* the Internet emerge as a "bastion for free expression"? Was
>> this area of the Internet's societal impact explored before the Internet
>> became broadly publicly available?
> 
> Again, one has to get back to pre-Internet roots. The UUCP network (which was
> _not_ government funded) supported email and NetNews, which had a much more
> open and free-wheeling ethos. I suspect the "bastion for free expression" is
> as much (more?) rooted there than anywhere else. NetNews eventually migrated
> pretty much 'en bloc' to the Internet, and the UUCP network slowly disappeared
> as people joined the Internet. "Inventing the Internet", pp. 200-201, 204
> provides a brief look at this, and I think there are papers about Usenet
> which go into more detail.
> 
>      Noel
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.




From bernie at fantasyfarm.com  Fri Jul 17 13:56:53 2015
From: bernie at fantasyfarm.com (Bernie Cosell)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2015 16:56:53 -0400
Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <84AE0C98-AA5D-4F04-9184-D3939879312B@comcast.net>
References: <20150717133235.83CC118C0EB@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>,
	<84AE0C98-AA5D-4F04-9184-D3939879312B@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <55A96C15.23015.A53ADB07@bernie.fantasyfarm.com>

On 17 Jul 2015 at 16:05, John Day wrote:

> Per chance, I happened to be looking at Abbate?s book this afternoon. 
> In Chapter 4, she describes the rather draconian rules imposed by DCA in
> the early 80s prior to MILNET being separated from the ARPANET.  This
> would seem to dispute the claim of a "bastion of free speech."

And who can forget the huge flap over "SF-Lovers"?   /b\
-- 
Bernie Cosell                     Fantasy Farm Fibers
mailto:bernie at fantasyfarm.com     Pearisburg, VA
    -->  Too many people, too few sheep  <--       






From craig at aland.bbn.com  Fri Jul 17 13:59:23 2015
From: craig at aland.bbn.com (Craig Partridge)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2015 16:59:23 -0400
Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
Message-ID: <20150717205923.08F0828E137@aland.bbn.com>


> I don't know of anyone being reprimanded for anything.

I do, though I remember because they were rare and proved the point.

The two I remember are:

* A vendor rep sent a list of products in what we'd now call a spam mailing
  in 1984.  Vendor was on the 'net because they sold stuff to ARPANET
  users.  Vendor rep got reprimanded.  I wish I remember the name of the
  vendor.

* Circa 1985, a student tried to notify everyone on campus of a local 'Net
  outage via the wall command.  I think he wrote "wall all", which in that day
  meant writing to the walld socket on every machine in your /etc/hosts
  file.  Except he was on ARPANET, so the command read /etc/hosts
  and wrote to every logged in user on ARPANET who was on a machine
  that had a walld.  Parts of DoD got a message that appeared to say
  the 'Net was going down.   Before folks realized it was a scoping
  bug in wall, there was initially an attempt to determine if the student
  was an authorized user and if so, why his university had authorized him.
  
Craig


From johnl at iecc.com  Fri Jul 17 14:49:17 2015
From: johnl at iecc.com (John Levine)
Date: 17 Jul 2015 21:49:17 -0000
Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <20150717205923.08F0828E137@aland.bbn.com>
Message-ID: <20150717214917.38902.qmail@ary.lan>

In article <20150717205923.08F0828E137 at aland.bbn.com> you write:
>
>> I don't know of anyone being reprimanded for anything.
>
>I do, though I remember because they were rare and proved the point.
>
>The two I remember are:
>
>* A vendor rep sent a list of products in what we'd now call a spam mailing
>  in 1984.  Vendor was on the 'net because they sold stuff to ARPANET
>  users.  Vendor rep got reprimanded.  I wish I remember the name of the
>  vendor.

Was that the infamous DEC salesman spam in 1978?

http://www.templetons.com/brad/spamreact.html

R's,
John


From craig at aland.bbn.com  Fri Jul 17 23:13:11 2015
From: craig at aland.bbn.com (Craig Partridge)
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2015 02:13:11 -0400
Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
Message-ID: <20150718061311.CC1F928E137@aland.bbn.com>


Multiple people have mentioned the DEC one.  That was before my time (I
joined the 'Net in 1983).  So either I was told the story of the DEC salesman or
maybe memory of that event colored what I remember as reaction to a milder
incident.

Thanks!

Craig

> In article <20150717205923.08F0828E137 at aland.bbn.com> you write:
> >
> >> I don't know of anyone being reprimanded for anything.
> >
> >I do, though I remember because they were rare and proved the point.
> >
> >The two I remember are:
> >
> >* A vendor rep sent a list of products in what we'd now call a spam mailing
> >  in 1984.  Vendor was on the 'net because they sold stuff to ARPANET
> >  users.  Vendor rep got reprimanded.  I wish I remember the name of the
> >  vendor.
> 
> Was that the infamous DEC salesman spam in 1978?
> 
> http://www.templetons.com/brad/spamreact.html
> 
> R's,
> John
********************
Craig Partridge
Chief Scientist, BBN Technologies
E-mail: craig at aland.bbn.com or craig at bbn.com
Phone: +1 517 324 3425


From brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com  Fri Jul 17 23:56:45 2015
From: brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com (Brian E Carpenter)
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2015 18:56:45 +1200
Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <513027795.146561.1437143321406.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
References: <CAAUXzDMVr5M9Ru7YCtgYaV4L+OEBcxq-oznqc1s7HmDFyppk+g@mail.gmail.com>
	<513027795.146561.1437143321406.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <55A9F8AD.1060609@gmail.com>

1. Alex, please note that since you use Yahoo, and Yahoo imposes DMARC on its
users, your mail is liable to be tagged as spam after it is sent via a mailing
list. It is for example tagged as spam for all gmail recipients.

2. I'm pretty sure that the free speech meme arrived via usenet, but I'm
surprised to (re)discover that alt.* only dates back to 1987. Maybe somebody
should ask Steve Bellovin for his recollection.

Regards
   Brian

On 18/07/2015 02:28, Alex McKenzie wrote:
> There is a book by Hauben & Hauben, the title includes the word "Netizens", which as I recall deals with free speech issues in the "early days".  
> 
> Maybe this will help,Alex McKenzie
>       From: "Belin, Daniel" <dbelin at dbelin.net>
>  To: internet-history at postel.org 
>  Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2015 6:49 PM
>  Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
>    
> Hello, all!
> Today, the Washington Post published an editorial by Ellen Pao, in which she asserted, "The Internet started as a bastion for free expression."
> This piqued my interest, as I felt it was an inaccurate characterization. My understanding was always that the early research focused on improving network facilities for research collaboration, and that these issues of free speech really didn't start to come to the forefront until the 1990s when the Internet began to take root in society. However, I wasn't there, so I respectfully pose these questions to you all:
> What were the attitudes towards speech/appropriate conduct early in the ARPAnet project? Was an environment of collegiality and respect generally expected?
> Were there any incidents that led to either a written or de facto content policy on ARPAnet? Were there individual policies enacted by the institutions that were connected to ARPAnet?
> When did the Internet emerge as a "bastion for free expression"? Was this area of the Internet's societal impact explored before the Internet became broadly publicly available? 
> I'd be really honored to hear your perspectives on this, and would appreciate any you could provide.
> With cordial thanks,
> Dan Belin
> _______________________________________+1(703) 209-9608 | @dfbelin | danielbel.in
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 
> 
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
> 


From johnl at iecc.com  Sat Jul 18 06:33:54 2015
From: johnl at iecc.com (John Levine)
Date: 18 Jul 2015 13:33:54 -0000
Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <55A9F8AD.1060609@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20150718133354.42676.qmail@ary.lan>

>2. I'm pretty sure that the free speech meme arrived via usenet, but I'm
>surprised to (re)discover that alt.* only dates back to 1987. Maybe somebody
>should ask Steve Bellovin for his recollection.

The alt.* hierarchy was invented as a response to the Great Renaming
in 1987.  Before that, stuff was mod.blah for moderated groups (I ran
mod.compilers), fa.blah for stuff gatewayed from Arpanet mailing
lists, and net.blah for everything else.

The GR named stuff by topic rather than source, and gave us the major
groups we still have such as comp.* (I still run comp.compilers),
sci.*, and so forth.  They also invented a fairly bureaucratic process
for creating and deleting groups in the major hierarchies. Brian Reid
created alt.sex in 1988, in response to Spaf's refusal to create
soc.sex.

http://www.livinginternet.com/u/ui_alt.htm

R's,
John


From amckenzie3 at yahoo.com  Sat Jul 18 09:19:00 2015
From: amckenzie3 at yahoo.com (Alex McKenzie)
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2015 16:19:00 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [ih] Fw:  Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <513027795.146561.1437143321406.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
References: <CAAUXzDMVr5M9Ru7YCtgYaV4L+OEBcxq-oznqc1s7HmDFyppk+g@mail.gmail.com>
	<513027795.146561.1437143321406.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <542799442.91890.1437236340256.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>


There is a book by Hauben & Hauben, the title includes the word "Netizens", which as I recall deals with free speech issues in the "early days".? 

Maybe this will help,Alex McKenzie
   

   From: "Belin, Daniel" <dbelin at dbelin.net>
 To: internet-history at postel.org 
 Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2015 6:49 PM
 Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
   
Hello, all!
Today, the Washington Post published an editorial by Ellen Pao, in which she asserted,?"The Internet started as a bastion for free expression."
This piqued my interest, as I felt it was an inaccurate characterization. My understanding was always that the early research focused on improving network facilities for research collaboration, and that these issues of free speech really didn't start to come to the forefront until the 1990s when the Internet began to take root in society. However, I wasn't there, so I respectfully pose these questions to you all:
What were the attitudes towards speech/appropriate conduct early in the ARPAnet project? Was an environment of collegiality and respect generally expected?
Were there any incidents that led to either a written or de facto?content policy on ARPAnet? Were there individual policies enacted by the institutions that were connected to ARPAnet?
When did?the Internet emerge as a "bastion for free expression"? Was this area of the Internet's societal impact explored before the Internet became broadly publicly available??
I'd be really honored to hear your perspectives on this, and would appreciate any you could provide.
With cordial thanks,
Dan Belin
_______________________________________+1(703) 209-9608 | @dfbelin |?danielbel.in

  
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From jaap at NLnetLabs.nl  Sat Jul 18 23:29:44 2015
From: jaap at NLnetLabs.nl (Jaap Akkerhuis)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2015 08:29:44 +0200
Subject: [ih] Fw: Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <542799442.91890.1437236340256.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
References: <CAAUXzDMVr5M9Ru7YCtgYaV4L+OEBcxq-oznqc1s7HmDFyppk+g@mail.gmail.com>
	<513027795.146561.1437143321406.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
	<542799442.91890.1437236340256.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <201507190629.t6J6TibC082013@bela.nlnetlabs.nl>

 Alex McKenzie writes:

 > There is a book by Hauben & Hauben, the title includes the word "Netizens",
 >  which as I recall deals with free speech issues in the "early days".
 > 
 > Maybe this will help,Alex McKenzie

When I got interviewed for this by both Haubens they where they
were already convinced that ARPA was all about "Free Speech" etc.
and stating that that was not the reason I got involved ws waved
away.

	jaap


From vint at google.com  Sun Jul 19 04:46:31 2015
From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2015 07:46:31 -0400
Subject: [ih] Fw: Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <201507190629.t6J6TibC082013@bela.nlnetlabs.nl>
References: <CAAUXzDMVr5M9Ru7YCtgYaV4L+OEBcxq-oznqc1s7HmDFyppk+g@mail.gmail.com>
	<513027795.146561.1437143321406.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
	<542799442.91890.1437236340256.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
	<201507190629.t6J6TibC082013@bela.nlnetlabs.nl>
Message-ID: <CAHxHggeRmouOQ-qeeEAZY2CL7E1V9LoJRGr9PSTF6mdueiJmTw@mail.gmail.com>

The Haubens had a particular slant on ARPANET and Internet and no facts
were allowed to get in the way.

v


On Sun, Jul 19, 2015 at 2:29 AM, Jaap Akkerhuis <jaap at nlnetlabs.nl> wrote:

>  Alex McKenzie writes:
>
>  > There is a book by Hauben & Hauben, the title includes the word
> "Netizens",
>  >  which as I recall deals with free speech issues in the "early days".
>  >
>  > Maybe this will help,Alex McKenzie
>
> When I got interviewed for this by both Haubens they where they
> were already convinced that ARPA was all about "Free Speech" etc.
> and stating that that was not the reason I got involved ws waved
> away.
>
>         jaap
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
>
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From randy at psg.com  Sun Jul 19 04:55:27 2015
From: randy at psg.com (Randy Bush)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2015 13:55:27 +0200
Subject: [ih] Fw: Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <CAHxHggeRmouOQ-qeeEAZY2CL7E1V9LoJRGr9PSTF6mdueiJmTw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAUXzDMVr5M9Ru7YCtgYaV4L+OEBcxq-oznqc1s7HmDFyppk+g@mail.gmail.com>
	<513027795.146561.1437143321406.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
	<542799442.91890.1437236340256.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
	<201507190629.t6J6TibC082013@bela.nlnetlabs.nl>
	<CAHxHggeRmouOQ-qeeEAZY2CL7E1V9LoJRGr9PSTF6mdueiJmTw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <m27fpwcqfk.wl%randy@psg.com>

> The Haubens had a particular slant on ARPANET and Internet and no facts
> were allowed to get in the way.

luckily, none of the rest of us have such problems

randy


From nigel at channelisles.net  Sun Jul 19 05:10:46 2015
From: nigel at channelisles.net (Nigel Roberts)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2015 13:10:46 +0100
Subject: [ih] Fw: Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <CAHxHggeRmouOQ-qeeEAZY2CL7E1V9LoJRGr9PSTF6mdueiJmTw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAUXzDMVr5M9Ru7YCtgYaV4L+OEBcxq-oznqc1s7HmDFyppk+g@mail.gmail.com>	<513027795.146561.1437143321406.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>	<542799442.91890.1437236340256.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>	<201507190629.t6J6TibC082013@bela.nlnetlabs.nl>
	<CAHxHggeRmouOQ-qeeEAZY2CL7E1V9LoJRGr9PSTF6mdueiJmTw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <55AB93C6.9090900@channelisles.net>

It was very clear that when I connected to the ARPA net in 1978, first 
of all from the Post Office experimental X.25 network (EPSS) and then 
later from work at DEC, that there were particularl restrictions.

Specifically, I always understood there was a strict "no business use on 
the net" policy, though I hesitate to say there was a definitive 
statement I could point to. This, of course, completely contradicts the 
idea of ARPAnet == 'free speech', no matter what revisionist histories 
might say today.

I'm more with the viewpoint previously expressed, that the freebooting 
nature of the Internet was imported more from Usenet than the ARPAnet.



On 07/19/2015 12:46 PM, Vint Cerf wrote:
> The Haubens had a particular slant on ARPANET and Internet and no facts
> were allowed to get in the way.
>
> v
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 19, 2015 at 2:29 AM, Jaap Akkerhuis <jaap at nlnetlabs.nl> wrote:
>
>>   Alex McKenzie writes:
>>
>>   > There is a book by Hauben & Hauben, the title includes the word
>> "Netizens",
>>   >  which as I recall deals with free speech issues in the "early days".
>>   >
>>   > Maybe this will help,Alex McKenzie
>>
>> When I got interviewed for this by both Haubens they where they
>> were already convinced that ARPA was all about "Free Speech" etc.
>> and stating that that was not the reason I got involved ws waved
>> away.
>>
>>          jaap
>> _______
>> internet-history mailing list
>> internet-history at postel.org
>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
>>
>
>
>
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
>


From ocl at gih.com  Sun Jul 19 07:07:38 2015
From: ocl at gih.com (Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2015 16:07:38 +0200
Subject: [ih] Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <CAAUXzDMVr5M9Ru7YCtgYaV4L+OEBcxq-oznqc1s7HmDFyppk+g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAUXzDMVr5M9Ru7YCtgYaV4L+OEBcxq-oznqc1s7HmDFyppk+g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <55ABAF2A.5020105@gih.com>

Hello all,

On 17/07/2015 00:49, Belin, Daniel wrote:
> Today, the Washington Post published an editorial by Ellen Pao
> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-cannot-let-the-internet-trolls-win/2015/07/16/91b1a2d2-2b17-11e5-bd33-395c05608059_story.html>,
> in which she asserted, "The Internet started as a bastion for free
> expression."
>
> This piqued my interest, as I felt it was an inaccurate
> characterization. My understanding was always that the early research
> focused on improving network facilities for research collaboration,
> and that these issues of free speech really didn't start to come to
> the forefront until the 1990s when the Internet began to take root in
> society. However, I wasn't there, so I respectfully pose these
> questions to you all:
>
> What were the attitudes towards speech/appropriate conduct early in
> the ARPAnet project? Was an environment of collegiality and respect
> generally expected?

Internet <-> ARPAnet  -- is it the intent that the two are mixed
together? When I joined in 1988 there certainly was no freedom of speech
per-se. I had several immature student colleagues that got banned from
the privilege of using the Internet after having posted stupid comments
on mailing lists. Yes, even then, there were some pretty strong self
appointed vigilantes that would email your system administrator to
complain about your postings. Some systems of course allowed free speech
but a bastion for free expression? You were better off standing on a
soap box at Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park.
The nineties saw the collapse of several Acceptable Use Policies on many
networks, yet the Green Card Lottery ppl got attacked:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Canter_and_Martha_Siegel and even
Julf's Penet.fi server was shut down eventually
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penet_remailer

In short: for as long as I remember, there has always been a struggle
between the partisans of free speech and others. Thinking that
yesteryear was better is just nostalgia. :-)
Kindest regards,

Olivier

-- 
Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond, PhD
http://www.gih.com/ocl.html

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From johnl at iecc.com  Sun Jul 19 12:24:26 2015
From: johnl at iecc.com (John Levine)
Date: 19 Jul 2015 19:24:26 -0000
Subject: [ih] Fw: Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <201507190629.t6J6TibC082013@bela.nlnetlabs.nl>
Message-ID: <20150719192426.48804.qmail@ary.lan>

> > There is a book by Hauben & Hauben, the title includes the word "Netizens",
> >  which as I recall deals with free speech issues in the "early days".
>
>When I got interviewed for this by both Haubens they where they
>were already convinced that ARPA was all about "Free Speech" etc.
>and stating that that was not the reason I got involved ws waved
>away.

I exchanged a fair amount of mail with Ronda Hauben and it was clear
that "netizens" was at least as much a political project as a
historical one.

R's,
John


From johnl at iecc.com  Sun Jul 19 12:54:28 2015
From: johnl at iecc.com (John Levine)
Date: 19 Jul 2015 19:54:28 -0000
Subject: [ih] Fw: Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <55AB93C6.9090900@channelisles.net>
Message-ID: <20150719195428.48880.qmail@ary.lan>

>I'm more with the viewpoint previously expressed, that the freebooting 
>nature of the Internet was imported more from Usenet than the ARPAnet.

I was never on the Arpanet (our department chair at Yale for some
reason didn't think it was interesting) but it was always my
impression that beyond the commercial restrictions of the AUP, nobody
was anonymous and it was generally understood that if you were unduly
annoying there would be repercussions.

Usenet, on the other hand, was an unfunded project that ran under the
radar for a long time.  Many (most?) of the servers were Unix systems
whose primary job was to do something else, and the substantial
telephone costs of the uucp transfers were mostly hidden in corporate
phone budgets, particularly the ones at Bell Labs.  There was also a
lot of friendly cooperation -- I spent one summer at our house at the
NJ shore, brought my server with me, carefully looked at the phone
rates and found that the node at the FAA's test center was a free
local call even though it was over 30 miles away, and the guy who ran
it kindly gave me a login to use for uucp and usenet.

Given the sketchiness of the setup, we all (or nearly all) understood
that if we were annoying we were likely to lose our connections, but
given the much lower overall visibility, the discussions were pretty
unfettered.

R's,
John


From touch at isi.edu  Sun Jul 19 15:22:52 2015
From: touch at isi.edu (Joe Touch)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2015 15:22:52 -0700
Subject: [ih] bogus list unsubscribe requests seen
Message-ID: <55AC233C.2010308@isi.edu>

Hi, all,

Over the past few days, I've received four reports from recent posters
to this list who have received list unsubscribe messages that they did
not request.

These messages appear to be generated from ISI's mailman system. The
system does not require a login or confirmation to issue the unsubscribe
to any email address - that is a "feature" of mailman, and I am not
aware of a way to configure it otherwise.

If you receive such a request and did not intend to unsubscribe, you can
just ignore it.

Joe (as list admin)


From dbelin at dbelin.net  Sun Jul 19 15:25:58 2015
From: dbelin at dbelin.net (Belin, Daniel)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2015 18:25:58 -0400
Subject: [ih] Fw: Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <20150719195428.48880.qmail@ary.lan>
References: <55AB93C6.9090900@channelisles.net>
	<20150719195428.48880.qmail@ary.lan>
Message-ID: <CAAUXzDOg3Z_JC09Qdm9Qd9+mBx-aKzzUkKGfMqRX9hFTE+G0vw@mail.gmail.com>

All,

I just wanted to thank everyone here who responded, provided interesting
perspectives and a lot of new knowledge (at least for me!).

It's really so cool to see this great conversation from you all, who were
actually there at the beginning (!).

Thanks so much.

Cordially,

Dan

*_______________________________________*
+1(703) 209-9608 | @dfbelin <https://twitter.com/dfbelin> | danielbel.in

On Sun, Jul 19, 2015 at 3:54 PM, John Levine <johnl at iecc.com> wrote:

> >I'm more with the viewpoint previously expressed, that the freebooting
> >nature of the Internet was imported more from Usenet than the ARPAnet.
>
> I was never on the Arpanet (our department chair at Yale for some
> reason didn't think it was interesting) but it was always my
> impression that beyond the commercial restrictions of the AUP, nobody
> was anonymous and it was generally understood that if you were unduly
> annoying there would be repercussions.
>
> Usenet, on the other hand, was an unfunded project that ran under the
> radar for a long time.  Many (most?) of the servers were Unix systems
> whose primary job was to do something else, and the substantial
> telephone costs of the uucp transfers were mostly hidden in corporate
> phone budgets, particularly the ones at Bell Labs.  There was also a
> lot of friendly cooperation -- I spent one summer at our house at the
> NJ shore, brought my server with me, carefully looked at the phone
> rates and found that the node at the FAA's test center was a free
> local call even though it was over 30 miles away, and the guy who ran
> it kindly gave me a login to use for uucp and usenet.
>
> Given the sketchiness of the setup, we all (or nearly all) understood
> that if we were annoying we were likely to lose our connections, but
> given the much lower overall visibility, the discussions were pretty
> unfettered.
>
> R's,
> John
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
>
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From johnl at iecc.com  Sun Jul 19 16:36:38 2015
From: johnl at iecc.com (John Levine)
Date: 19 Jul 2015 23:36:38 -0000
Subject: [ih] bogus list unsubscribe requests seen
In-Reply-To: <55AC233C.2010308@isi.edu>
Message-ID: <20150719233638.49552.qmail@ary.lan>

>These messages appear to be generated from ISI's mailman system. The
>system does not require a login or confirmation to issue the unsubscribe
>to any email address - that is a "feature" of mailman, and I am not
>aware of a way to configure it otherwise.

You might want to look at the logs and see if the fake unsubscribes
come from a consistent place.

It's rather odd, I'm on a zillion mailman lists and this is the only
one from which I get fake unsubs.

R's,
John


From touch at isi.edu  Sun Jul 19 16:42:57 2015
From: touch at isi.edu (Joe Touch)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2015 16:42:57 -0700
Subject: [ih] bogus list unsubscribe requests seen
In-Reply-To: <20150719233638.49552.qmail@ary.lan>
References: <20150719233638.49552.qmail@ary.lan>
Message-ID: <55AC3601.9080405@isi.edu>



On 7/19/2015 4:36 PM, John Levine wrote:
>> These messages appear to be generated from ISI's mailman system. The
>> system does not require a login or confirmation to issue the unsubscribe
>> to any email address - that is a "feature" of mailman, and I am not
>> aware of a way to configure it otherwise.
> 
> You might want to look at the logs and see if the fake unsubscribes
> come from a consistent place.

I'll check on that, but even if we know where they originate there's no
way to disable them within Mailman.

> It's rather odd, I'm on a zillion mailman lists and this is the only
> one from which I get fake unsubs.

I've been running a dozen lists for a long time and haven't seen this
behavior before either. It seems not very productive given how easy it
is for users to ignore the messages.

Joe


From johnl at iecc.com  Sun Jul 19 17:40:19 2015
From: johnl at iecc.com (John R. Levine)
Date: 19 Jul 2015 20:40:19 -0400
Subject: [ih] bogus list unsubscribe requests seen
In-Reply-To: <55AC3601.9080405@isi.edu>
References: <20150719233638.49552.qmail@ary.lan> <55AC3601.9080405@isi.edu>
Message-ID: <alpine.OSX.2.11.1507192039500.68728@ary.lan>

> I'll check on that, but even if we know where they originate there's no
> way to disable them within Mailman.

If it's a small IP range, you can probably put packet filters on them.

R's,
John


From jaap at NLnetLabs.nl  Sun Jul 19 23:25:53 2015
From: jaap at NLnetLabs.nl (Jaap Akkerhuis)
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2015 08:25:53 +0200
Subject: [ih] Fw: Free Speech and ARPAnet?
In-Reply-To: <20150719195428.48880.qmail@ary.lan>
References: <20150719195428.48880.qmail@ary.lan>
Message-ID: <201507200625.t6K6PrFW019081@bela.nlnetlabs.nl>

 "John Levine" writes:

 > Many (most?) of the servers were Unix systems
 > whose primary job was to do something else, and the substantial
 > telephone costs of the uucp transfers were mostly hidden in corporate
 > phone budgets, particularly the ones at Bell Labs.

Actually, Armando Stettner of decvax got the 1M$ monthly bills.

	jaap


From touch at isi.edu  Thu Jul 23 10:01:03 2015
From: touch at isi.edu (Joe Touch)
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2015 10:01:03 -0700
Subject: [ih] bogus list unsubscribe requests seen
In-Reply-To: <55AC233C.2010308@isi.edu>
References: <55AC233C.2010308@isi.edu>
Message-ID: <55B11DCF.2060806@isi.edu>

Hi, all,

As an update, we checked and confirmed that there is no additional
information available in the logs or traces associated with these events.

Joe (list admin)

On 7/19/2015 3:22 PM, Joe Touch wrote:
> Hi, all,
> 
> Over the past few days, I've received four reports from recent posters
> to this list who have received list unsubscribe messages that they did
> not request.
> 
> These messages appear to be generated from ISI's mailman system. The
> system does not require a login or confirmation to issue the unsubscribe
> to any email address - that is a "feature" of mailman, and I am not
> aware of a way to configure it otherwise.
> 
> If you receive such a request and did not intend to unsubscribe, you can
> just ignore it.
> 
> Joe (as list admin)
> 


From vint at google.com  Fri Jul 24 02:21:10 2015
From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 05:21:10 -0400
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
Message-ID: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>

Oxford English Dictionary looking for early usage of the term "email"

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/07/oed-appeals-email/

        Before email was email it was electronic mail. Although
        the shorter form is by far the more common name today, the full
        form electronic mail of course came first (otherwise how would
        anybody know what the 'e' meant?). It was only as people became
        more familiar with the system that they could shorten this to
        the snappier email. E- is now used in this way to form a
        plethora of technology words such as e-commerce and e-book, but
        email is where it all began.  The OED currently has a first
        quotation for electronic mail in this sense from 1975; the
        shorter email is first attested four years later, in 1979.
        Although this doesn't seem like a very large gap in time, it
        seems unlikely that the 1979 quotation represents the coinage of
        email, taken as it is from a professional journal: 1979
        Electronics 7 June 63 (heading) Postal Service pushes ahead with
        E-mail.

 - - -
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From jabley at hopcount.ca  Fri Jul 24 03:21:37 2015
From: jabley at hopcount.ca (Joe Abley)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 12:21:37 +0200
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3301726552044239971@unknownmsgid>

Hi Vint,

Something vaguely related to came up recently in the context of RFC
boilerplate: the question of whether the authors' section should label an
author's electronic mail address as "email" or "e-mail". (I think actually
the issue of the hyphen was a tangent from whatever the original question
was.)

Interesting that having cited the 1979 reference that includes the
reference, the blog post omits it in its commentary.


Joe (in favour of hyphens in this instance)

On Jul 24, 2015, at 11:33, Vint Cerf <vint at google.com> wrote:

Oxford English Dictionary looking for early usage of the term "email"

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/07/oed-appeals-email/

        Before email was email it was electronic mail. Although
        the shorter form is by far the more common name today, the full
        form electronic mail of course came first (otherwise how would
        anybody know what the 'e' meant?). It was only as people became
        more familiar with the system that they could shorten this to
        the snappier email. E- is now used in this way to form a
        plethora of technology words such as e-commerce and e-book, but
        email is where it all began.  The OED currently has a first
        quotation for electronic mail in this sense from 1975; the
        shorter email is first attested four years later, in 1979.
        Although this doesn't seem like a very large gap in time, it
        seems unlikely that the 1979 quotation represents the coinage of
        email, taken as it is from a professional journal: 1979
        Electronics 7 June 63 (heading) Postal Service pushes ahead with
        E-mail.

 - - -

_______
internet-history mailing list
internet-history at postel.org
http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
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From dave.walden.family at gmail.com  Fri Jul 24 03:41:55 2015
From: dave.walden.family at gmail.com (dave.walden.family at gmail.com)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 06:41:55 -0400
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <F54C0FC4-C9C5-4A89-9486-362144122833@gmail.com>

I believe there was considerable discussion of this on the sigcis.org list back when the guy claimed to have invented at a young age.  I think the sigcis.org archive can be accessed without  a password.

Sent from my iPad

On Jul 24, 2015, at 5:21 AM, Vint Cerf <vint at google.com> wrote:

> Oxford English Dictionary looking for early usage of the term "email"
> 
> http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/07/oed-appeals-email/
> 
>         Before email was email it was electronic mail. Although
>         the shorter form is by far the more common name today, the full
>         form electronic mail of course came first (otherwise how would
>         anybody know what the 'e' meant?). It was only as people became
>         more familiar with the system that they could shorten this to
>         the snappier email. E- is now used in this way to form a
>         plethora of technology words such as e-commerce and e-book, but
>         email is where it all began.  The OED currently has a first
>         quotation for electronic mail in this sense from 1975; the
>         shorter email is first attested four years later, in 1979.
>         Although this doesn't seem like a very large gap in time, it
>         seems unlikely that the 1979 quotation represents the coinage of
>         email, taken as it is from a professional journal: 1979
>         Electronics 7 June 63 (heading) Postal Service pushes ahead with
>         E-mail.
> 
>  - - -
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
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From vint at google.com  Fri Jul 24 04:16:13 2015
From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 07:16:13 -0400
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <F54C0FC4-C9C5-4A89-9486-362144122833@gmail.com>
References: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<F54C0FC4-C9C5-4A89-9486-362144122833@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAHxHggf=NGJcLj4jwToATxqkWd80jQy4zYc=GmrR_noMJWgjew@mail.gmail.com>

i read the material there but found little to help determine whether the
formulation "email" was found prior to 1979. It is so common now, it is
hard to believe we were not using this abbreviation of "electronic mail'
shortly after the 1971 development of SNDMSG's extension to inter-computer
messaging.

vint


On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 6:41 AM, <dave.walden.family at gmail.com> wrote:

> I believe there was considerable discussion of this on the sigcis.org
> list back when the guy claimed to have invented at a young age.  I think
> the sigcis.org archive can be accessed without  a password.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Jul 24, 2015, at 5:21 AM, Vint Cerf <vint at google.com> wrote:
>
> Oxford English Dictionary looking for early usage of the term "email"
>
> <http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/07/oed-appeals-email/>
> http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/07/oed-appeals-email/
>
>         Before email was email it was electronic mail. Although
>         the shorter form is by far the more common name today, the full
>         form electronic mail of course came first (otherwise how would
>         anybody know what the 'e' meant?). It was only as people became
>         more familiar with the system that they could shorten this to
>         the snappier email. E- is now used in this way to form a
>         plethora of technology words such as e-commerce and e-book, but
>         email is where it all began.  The OED currently has a first
>         quotation for electronic mail in this sense from 1975; the
>         shorter email is first attested four years later, in 1979.
>         Although this doesn't seem like a very large gap in time, it
>         seems unlikely that the 1979 quotation represents the coinage of
>         email, taken as it is from a professional journal: 1979
>         Electronics 7 June 63 (heading) Postal Service pushes ahead with
>         E-mail.
>
>  - - -
>
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
>
>
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From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Fri Jul 24 04:29:16 2015
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 07:29:16 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
Message-ID: <20150724112916.30BAA18C0E2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > Oxford English Dictionary looking for early usage of the term "email"

Well, going on the thought that they likely wanted a published reference, I
immediately turned to the RFC's. I looked at almost every RFC with 'mail' in
the name, but as of 1978 (after their cited first use), the term 'electronic
mail' still had not appeared.

The term in use in the ARPANET community seems to have been 'network mail';
so I would expect that 'electronic mail' originated elsewhere, and only
became the common name in the ARPANET/Internet community once it was the de
facto name everywhere else.

	Noel


From nigel at channelisles.net  Fri Jul 24 04:53:34 2015
From: nigel at channelisles.net (Nigel Roberts)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 12:53:34 +0100
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <20150724112916.30BAA18C0E2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20150724112916.30BAA18C0E2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <55B2273E.90706@channelisles.net>

I recall it was referred to it as simply "mail" internally at DEC when I 
joined in 1980.

It was obviously electronic, so there was no need to say so.

My recollection is that "electronic mail" or "e-mail" only came into 
widespread use when the likes of The Source, and MCImail started 
offering mail services to the outside world, and a distinguishing 
adjective was needed to separate it from postal (a.k.a 'snail') mail.

So a cited first use of 'email' is not unreasonable, IMO.



On 24/07/15 12:29, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>      > Oxford English Dictionary looking for early usage of the term "email"
>
> Well, going on the thought that they likely wanted a published reference, I
> immediately turned to the RFC's. I looked at almost every RFC with 'mail' in
> the name, but as of 1978 (after their cited first use), the term 'electronic
> mail' still had not appeared.
>
> The term in use in the ARPANET community seems to have been 'network mail';
> so I would expect that 'electronic mail' originated elsewhere, and only
> became the common name in the ARPANET/Internet community once it was the de
> facto name everywhere else.
>
> 	Noel
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
>


From mfidelman at meetinghouse.net  Fri Jul 24 06:20:42 2015
From: mfidelman at meetinghouse.net (Miles Fidelman)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 09:20:42 -0400
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <55B23BAA.4030505@meetinghouse.net>

Assuming that they're looking for a published reference, I expect that 
we're talking literature that predates stuff that's easily findable on 
the web - old journal articles, technical documentation, science 
fiction, maybe a transcript of talk by or interview with someone like 
Vannevar Bush, Licklider, or Doug Engelbart (maybe one of those Cerf or 
Kahn guys).

A lot of that stuff is online - but not easily searchable (e.g., the PDF 
document collection at bitsavers), older articles that have been scanned 
as images from microfiche, and such.

It occurs to me that there's this search outfit, I believe the name is 
Google, that might be able to help dig through some of that stuff. :-)

Miles Fidelman

Vint Cerf wrote:
> Oxford English Dictionary looking for early usage of the term "email"
>
> http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/07/oed-appeals-email/
>
>         Before email was email it was electronic mail. Although
>         the shorter form is by far the more common name today, the full
>         form electronic mail of course came first (otherwise how would
>         anybody know what the 'e' meant?). It was only as people became
>         more familiar with the system that they could shorten this to
>         the snappier email. E- is now used in this way to form a
>         plethora of technology words such as e-commerce and e-book, but
>         email is where it all began.  The OED currently has a first
>         quotation for electronic mail in this sense from 1975; the
>         shorter email is first attested four years later, in 1979.
>         Although this doesn't seem like a very large gap in time, it
>         seems unlikely that the 1979 quotation represents the coinage of
>         email, taken as it is from a professional journal: 1979
>         Electronics 7 June 63 (heading) Postal Service pushes ahead with
>         E-mail.
>
>  - - -
>
>
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.


-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra



From mfidelman at meetinghouse.net  Fri Jul 24 06:22:17 2015
From: mfidelman at meetinghouse.net (Miles Fidelman)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 09:22:17 -0400
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <55B23B83.2040401@meetinghouse.net>
References: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<55B23B83.2040401@meetinghouse.net>
Message-ID: <55B23C09.50308@meetinghouse.net>

Or just credit Shiva Ayyadurai with inventing the term, and be done with 
it ;-)

Miles Fidelman wrote:
> Assuming that they're looking for a published reference, I expect that 
> we're talking literature that predates stuff that's easily findable on 
> the web - old journal articles, technical documentation, science 
> fiction, maybe a transcript of talk by or interview with someone like 
> Vannevar Bush, Licklider, or Doug Engelbart (maybe one of those Cerf 
> or Kahn guys).
>
> A lot of that stuff is online - but not easily searchable (e.g., the 
> PDF document collection at bitsavers), older articles that have been 
> scanned as images from microfiche, and such.
>
>
>
> Vint Cerf wrote:
>> Oxford English Dictionary looking for early usage of the term "email"
>>
>> http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/07/oed-appeals-email/
>>
>>         Before email was email it was electronic mail. Although
>>         the shorter form is by far the more common name today, the full
>>         form electronic mail of course came first (otherwise how would
>>         anybody know what the 'e' meant?). It was only as people became
>>         more familiar with the system that they could shorten this to
>>         the snappier email. E- is now used in this way to form a
>>         plethora of technology words such as e-commerce and e-book, but
>>         email is where it all began.  The OED currently has a first
>>         quotation for electronic mail in this sense from 1975; the
>>         shorter email is first attested four years later, in 1979.
>>         Although this doesn't seem like a very large gap in time, it
>>         seems unlikely that the 1979 quotation represents the coinage of
>>         email, taken as it is from a professional journal: 1979
>>         Electronics 7 June 63 (heading) Postal Service pushes ahead with
>>         E-mail.
>>
>>  - - -
>>
>>
>> _______
>> internet-history mailing list
>> internet-history at postel.org
>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>> Contactlist-owner at postel.org  for assistance.
>
>
> -- 
> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
> In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra
>


-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra



From el at lisse.NA  Fri Jul 24 06:37:00 2015
From: el at lisse.NA (Dr Eberhard Lisse)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 14:37:00 +0100
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <55B23BAA.4030505@meetinghouse.net>
References: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<55B23BAA.4030505@meetinghouse.net>
Message-ID: <55B23F7C.3090101@lisse.NA>

Miles,

you are aware that you just told Vint to look up his own stuff?

ROTFL

el

On 2015-07-24 14:20, Miles Fidelman wrote:
> Assuming that they're looking for a published reference, I expect
> that we're talking literature that predates stuff that's easily
> findable on the web - old journal articles, technical
> documentation, science fiction, maybe a transcript of talk by or
> interview with someone like Vannevar Bush, Licklider, or Doug
> Engelbart (maybe one of those Cerf or Kahn guys).
> 
[...]
> Vint Cerf wrote:
>> Oxford English Dictionary looking for early usage of the term
>> "email"
[...]

-- 
Dr. Eberhard W. Lisse  \        / Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (Saar)
el at lisse.NA            / *     |   Telephone: +264 81 124 6733 (cell)
PO Box 8421             \     /
Bachbrecht, Namibia     ;____/


From mfidelman at meetinghouse.net  Fri Jul 24 07:21:54 2015
From: mfidelman at meetinghouse.net (Miles Fidelman)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 10:21:54 -0400
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <55B23F7C.3090101@lisse.NA>
References: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>	<55B23BAA.4030505@meetinghouse.net>
	<55B23F7C.3090101@lisse.NA>
Message-ID: <55B24A02.1020003@meetinghouse.net>

Ummm.... yes.  ;-)

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Vint used the term rather early on 
- in some talk or other - and that it can't be found.

Funny, and illustrative story:  I've been quoting Vint's definition of 
infrastructure for years ("it's everywhere, you use it all the time, you 
only notice it when it breaks").  The thing is, he gave that definition 
at a workshop Richard Civille and I organized around 1994 - and it only 
made it into print in the 100 or so copies of the workshop handouts (and 
I seem to have misplaced my only copy).  Other than buried deep in 
archived files, on my personal server - probably in a now-unreadable 
format - I don't think that talk ever made it online.

Miles

Dr Eberhard Lisse wrote:
> Miles,
>
> you are aware that you just told Vint to look up his own stuff?
>
> ROTFL
>
> el
>
> On 2015-07-24 14:20, Miles Fidelman wrote:
>> Assuming that they're looking for a published reference, I expect
>> that we're talking literature that predates stuff that's easily
>> findable on the web - old journal articles, technical
>> documentation, science fiction, maybe a transcript of talk by or
>> interview with someone like Vannevar Bush, Licklider, or Doug
>> Engelbart (maybe one of those Cerf or Kahn guys).
>>
> [...]
>> Vint Cerf wrote:
>>> Oxford English Dictionary looking for early usage of the term
>>> "email"
> [...]
>


-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra



From faber at isi.edu  Fri Jul 24 07:48:36 2015
From: faber at isi.edu (Ted Faber)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 07:48:36 -0700
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <20150724112916.30BAA18C0E2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20150724112916.30BAA18C0E2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <55B25044.2050002@isi.edu>

On 07/24/2015 04:29, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>     > Oxford English Dictionary looking for early usage of the term "email"
> 
> Well, going on the thought that they likely wanted a published reference, I
> immediately turned to the RFC's. I looked at almost every RFC with 'mail' in
> the name, but as of 1978 (after their cited first use), the term 'electronic
> mail' still had not appeared.
> 
> The term in use in the ARPANET community seems to have been 'network mail';
> so I would expect that 'electronic mail' originated elsewhere, and only
> became the common name in the ARPANET/Internet community once it was the de
> facto name everywhere else.

This is completely anecdotal, but Mike Padlipsky never used the term
"e-mail" without adding "or netmail as we called it when we were
inventing it."  This was years after the fact, but he definitely
preferred the earlier term.


-- 
Ted Faber, Computer Scientist, USC/ISI
http://www.isi.edu/~faber
http://www.isi.edu/~faber/contact.html

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From vint at google.com  Fri Jul 24 07:54:45 2015
From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 10:54:45 -0400
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <55B24A02.1020003@meetinghouse.net>
References: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<55B23BAA.4030505@meetinghouse.net> <55B23F7C.3090101@lisse.NA>
	<55B24A02.1020003@meetinghouse.net>
Message-ID: <CAHxHggfnsJMCAt3-oTEJf=5DKPr8LEueZN-tFfvecgYcHzbgVw@mail.gmail.com>

i haven't been a very good academic - very modest publication record...

I think I used "email" for a post office report but that was 1981.
Note that RFC 773 used "mail":

Comments on NCP/TCP Mail Service Transition Strategy

So I reluctantly imagine that the "email" or "e-mail" term may indeed have
come long after 1971's networked SNDMSG.

Maybe Dave Walden can check with Tom Haigh?

v


On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 10:21 AM, Miles Fidelman <mfidelman at meetinghouse.net
> wrote:

> Ummm.... yes.  ;-)
>
> Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Vint used the term rather early on
> - in some talk or other - and that it can't be found.
>
> Funny, and illustrative story:  I've been quoting Vint's definition of
> infrastructure for years ("it's everywhere, you use it all the time, you
> only notice it when it breaks").  The thing is, he gave that definition
> at a workshop Richard Civille and I organized around 1994 - and it only
> made it into print in the 100 or so copies of the workshop handouts (and
> I seem to have misplaced my only copy).  Other than buried deep in
> archived files, on my personal server - probably in a now-unreadable
> format - I don't think that talk ever made it online.
>
> Miles
>
> Dr Eberhard Lisse wrote:
> > Miles,
> >
> > you are aware that you just told Vint to look up his own stuff?
> >
> > ROTFL
> >
> > el
> >
> > On 2015-07-24 14:20, Miles Fidelman wrote:
> >> Assuming that they're looking for a published reference, I expect
> >> that we're talking literature that predates stuff that's easily
> >> findable on the web - old journal articles, technical
> >> documentation, science fiction, maybe a transcript of talk by or
> >> interview with someone like Vannevar Bush, Licklider, or Doug
> >> Engelbart (maybe one of those Cerf or Kahn guys).
> >>
> > [...]
> >> Vint Cerf wrote:
> >>> Oxford English Dictionary looking for early usage of the term
> >>> "email"
> > [...]
> >
>
>
> --
> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
> In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra
>
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
>
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From jeanjour at comcast.net  Fri Jul 24 08:40:21 2015
From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 11:40:21 -0400
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <55B25044.2050002@isi.edu>
References: <20150724112916.30BAA18C0E2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
	<55B25044.2050002@isi.edu>
Message-ID: <FD0F40E1-F07B-49B7-A384-7C7D8137BAB3@comcast.net>

It does sound more like a term a journalist would create than an engineer, since to our minds it really isn?t *electronic*.

> On Jul 24, 2015, at 10:48, Ted Faber <faber at ISI.EDU> wrote:
> 
> On 07/24/2015 04:29, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>>> Oxford English Dictionary looking for early usage of the term "email"
>> 
>> Well, going on the thought that they likely wanted a published reference, I
>> immediately turned to the RFC's. I looked at almost every RFC with 'mail' in
>> the name, but as of 1978 (after their cited first use), the term 'electronic
>> mail' still had not appeared.
>> 
>> The term in use in the ARPANET community seems to have been 'network mail';
>> so I would expect that 'electronic mail' originated elsewhere, and only
>> became the common name in the ARPANET/Internet community once it was the de
>> facto name everywhere else.
> 
> This is completely anecdotal, but Mike Padlipsky never used the term
> "e-mail" without adding "or netmail as we called it when we were
> inventing it."  This was years after the fact, but he definitely
> preferred the earlier term.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Ted Faber, Computer Scientist, USC/ISI
> http://www.isi.edu/~faber
> http://www.isi.edu/~faber/contact.html
> 
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.




From faber at isi.edu  Fri Jul 24 08:46:44 2015
From: faber at isi.edu (Ted Faber)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 08:46:44 -0700
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <FD0F40E1-F07B-49B7-A384-7C7D8137BAB3@comcast.net>
References: <20150724112916.30BAA18C0E2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
	<55B25044.2050002@isi.edu>
	<FD0F40E1-F07B-49B7-A384-7C7D8137BAB3@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <55B25DE4.20104@isi.edu>

On 07/24/2015 08:40, John Day wrote:
> It does sound more like a term a journalist would create than an engineer, since to our minds it really isn?t *electronic*.

Yes.  Mike would make that point with some frequency (and amplitude) as
well.

The media has these regular flirtations with single letter prefixes
(e-mail, iPhone).  Odd, but predictable.  I'm kind of hoping that the
next one is a kana or emojii.

-- 
Ted Faber, Computer Scientist, USC/ISI
http://www.isi.edu/~faber
http://www.isi.edu/~faber/contact.html

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From patrick.davison at gmail.com  Fri Jul 24 09:00:23 2015
From: patrick.davison at gmail.com (Patrick Davison)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 09:00:23 -0700
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <55B25DE4.20104@isi.edu>
References: <20150724112916.30BAA18C0E2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
	<55B25044.2050002@isi.edu>
	<FD0F40E1-F07B-49B7-A384-7C7D8137BAB3@comcast.net>
	<55B25DE4.20104@isi.edu>
Message-ID: <CAMUG9QLHdjURBE=03WNNOz6UCC=o0_5k3Wj=Ogw7HbZSZo2S2g@mail.gmail.com>

Hi -

I have the archive of the Msg Group messages that were exchanged between
1978 and 1985 on my computer for other research. I just did a quick search
and "email" doesn't appear in the corpus, but "e-mail" appears exactly
once, in a message from J. Pickens from May of 1979 (predating the journal
article by a month):

Subject: Msggroup#1175  The medium is *not* the mechanism
>


> Perhaps a significant reason why environments have not adopted
> electronic tools is because of a growing awareness of the revolutionary
> impact of such tools.  E-Mail, for example, levitates toward horizontal
> rather than vertical communications.  Such impacts are content
> *independent*.


Not sure if that changes anything significant about the provenance of the
term, but an interesting blip on the radar.

Patrick

On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 8:46 AM, Ted Faber <faber at isi.edu> wrote:

> On 07/24/2015 08:40, John Day wrote:
> > It does sound more like a term a journalist would create than an
> engineer, since to our minds it really isn?t *electronic*.
>
> Yes.  Mike would make that point with some frequency (and amplitude) as
> well.
>
> The media has these regular flirtations with single letter prefixes
> (e-mail, iPhone).  Odd, but predictable.  I'm kind of hoping that the
> next one is a kana or emojii.
>
> --
> Ted Faber, Computer Scientist, USC/ISI
> http://www.isi.edu/~faber
> http://www.isi.edu/~faber/contact.html
>
>
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
>
>
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From vint at google.com  Fri Jul 24 12:39:46 2015
From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 15:39:46 -0400
Subject: [ih] Fwd: Netmail Spreads Common Cold (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.OSX.2.19.9991.1507241221320.63437@auge.attlocal.net>
References: <alpine.OSX.2.19.9991.1507241221320.63437@auge.attlocal.net>
Message-ID: <CAHxHggeioH1+Dj14PNLij9j2Jfj3Kp+V9qXQTSCxPVmod2F5fg@mail.gmail.com>

Casner unearths a howler...

v

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Stephen Casner <casner at acm.org>
Date: Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 3:23 PM
Subject: Re: Netmail Spreads Common Cold (fwd)
To: Vint Cerf <vint at google.com>


Vint,

As I looked through some old email, er netmail, in response to the
current discussion on internet-history, I ran across this amusing one
from you.

                                                        -- Steve

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 4 Dec 1983 11:32-PST
From: CERF at USC-ISI
To: ROGERS at USC-ISIB
Cc: TCP-IP at SRI-NIC
Subject: Re: Netmail Spreads Common Cold

CRAIG,

MCI MAIL PASSES THROUGH THE X.25 FILTER BEFORE IT CAN GO
ANYWHERE.  AS A CONSEQUENCE, NO GERMS SURVIVE.  HELL, THE PACKETS
ALMOST DON'T SURVIVE GOING THROUGH X.25, LET ALONE SOME POOR
BACTERIUM...

VINT CERF
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From dave.walden.family at gmail.com  Fri Jul 24 12:44:50 2015
From: dave.walden.family at gmail.com (Dave Walden)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 15:44:50 -0400
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <FD0F40E1-F07B-49B7-A384-7C7D8137BAB3@comcast.net>
References: <20150724112916.30BAA18C0E2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
	<55B25044.2050002@isi.edu>
	<FD0F40E1-F07B-49B7-A384-7C7D8137BAB3@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <55b295bb.2547340a.c4a99.7c42@mx.google.com>


>What computing historian Tom Haigh says on this topic is in the section
    Did He At Least Create the Word "Email"?
at
    http://www.sigcis.org/ayyadurai



>


--
home address: 12 Linden Rd., E. Sandwich, MA 02537
home ph=508-888-7655; cell phone = 774-205-3202;
email address:  dave at walden-family.com; website: 
<http://www.walden-family.com/bbn/>http://www.walden-family.com/  
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From bill.n1vux at gmail.com  Fri Jul 24 14:05:38 2015
From: bill.n1vux at gmail.com (Bill Ricker)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 17:05:38 -0400
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <CAAbKA3WRZ3tzgVFeQGjRU-bLi-bsEJ=h+HKu0XMtptzc10Gc_w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20150724112916.30BAA18C0E2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
	<55B25044.2050002@isi.edu>
	<CAAbKA3WRZ3tzgVFeQGjRU-bLi-bsEJ=h+HKu0XMtptzc10Gc_w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAbKA3WOcdu=wRG9QSBi0Rs1C6uC_iR_nrGRv90V-OR5kgBQ3Q@mail.gmail.com>

Oops, accidentally replied off-list.  But that gives me opportunity to
expand my remarks ...


On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 11:26 AM, Bill Ricker <bill.n1vux at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 10:48 AM, Ted Faber <faber at isi.edu> wrote:
>
>> This is completely anecdotal, but Mike Padlipsky never used the term
>> "e-mail" without adding "or netmail as we called it when we were
>> inventing it."  This was years after the fact, but he definitely
>> preferred the earlier term.
>>
>
> ?Absolutely he did.
>
> Thinking back to how i heard tales from MAP, I've inferred 'netmail' was
> like 'neted' in that it was intended to convey the interoperable
> multiplatform version of a tool of which you likely already had an
> idiosyncratic vendor-specific local-only version that guest users from
> other {institutions|nodes} wouldn't be expected to learn. 'Netmail' would
> initially have referred both to the protocol and the standard minimalist
> user client app.   The CLI user clients 'netmail' and 'neted' faded, but
> RFC-compliant 'netmail' formats and protocols won out.
>

?In fact, the success of 'neted' (RFC 569)  was inspiration for
'netmail'-the-client.

  In RFC 666 (the real one),  "Specification of the Unified User-Level
Protocol", November 1974?, MAP suggests the beginnings of
netmail-the-common-client as part of a common user CLI for ARPAnet nodes.
       https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc666
  In the rather long discussion of the proposed common 'mail' client,  it
is always 'mail'. It is not yet named 'netmail' (obviously coined later to
avoid conflicting with existing local, proprietary 'mail' commands).
?

?Mike's specific comments on murky history of 'e-mail' ?are preserved as
"And They Argued All Night..."
at http://www.multicians.org/allnight.html . (Wherein he suggests SMTP is
the mail that made it take off so John should get any specific credit for
getting it right.)

FYI the OED query ("appeal") was posted in ?October 2012 and discussed on
> this list in 2013.
> ?http://public.oed.com/appeals/email/?
>

?(Not criticizing.  It was re-posted it elsewhere as new (including on
Twitter, i think it was OED official post)? so no surprise it showed up
here again. Just noting the prior thread's existence if anyone wanted to
check back.?

?http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/internet-history/2013-June/002891.html
)?
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From agmalis at gmail.com  Fri Jul 24 14:30:25 2015
From: agmalis at gmail.com (Andrew G. Malis)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 23:30:25 +0200
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <CAAbKA3WOcdu=wRG9QSBi0Rs1C6uC_iR_nrGRv90V-OR5kgBQ3Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20150724112916.30BAA18C0E2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
	<55B25044.2050002@isi.edu>
	<CAAbKA3WRZ3tzgVFeQGjRU-bLi-bsEJ=h+HKu0XMtptzc10Gc_w@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAAbKA3WOcdu=wRG9QSBi0Rs1C6uC_iR_nrGRv90V-OR5kgBQ3Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAA=duU1v=SiXHbHE-h0AP9wns8fxy7soTvwabb8KWt7X-oqQeA@mail.gmail.com>

As I recall, one of MAP's favorite uses of netmail was to discuss scotch
whisky.

Cheers,
Andy


On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Bill Ricker <bill.n1vux at gmail.com> wrote:

> Oops, accidentally replied off-list.  But that gives me opportunity to
> expand my remarks ...
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 11:26 AM, Bill Ricker <bill.n1vux at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 10:48 AM, Ted Faber <faber at isi.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> This is completely anecdotal, but Mike Padlipsky never used the term
>>> "e-mail" without adding "or netmail as we called it when we were
>>> inventing it."  This was years after the fact, but he definitely
>>> preferred the earlier term.
>>>
>>
>> ?Absolutely he did.
>>
>> Thinking back to how i heard tales from MAP, I've inferred 'netmail' was
>> like 'neted' in that it was intended to convey the interoperable
>> multiplatform version of a tool of which you likely already had an
>> idiosyncratic vendor-specific local-only version that guest users from
>> other {institutions|nodes} wouldn't be expected to learn. 'Netmail' would
>> initially have referred both to the protocol and the standard minimalist
>> user client app.   The CLI user clients 'netmail' and 'neted' faded, but
>> RFC-compliant 'netmail' formats and protocols won out.
>>
>
> ?In fact, the success of 'neted' (RFC 569)  was inspiration for
> 'netmail'-the-client.
>
>   In RFC 666 (the real one),  "Specification of the Unified User-Level
> Protocol", November 1974?, MAP suggests the beginnings of
> netmail-the-common-client as part of a common user CLI for ARPAnet nodes.
>        https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc666
>   In the rather long discussion of the proposed common 'mail' client,  it
> is always 'mail'. It is not yet named 'netmail' (obviously coined later to
> avoid conflicting with existing local, proprietary 'mail' commands).
> ?
>
> ?Mike's specific comments on murky history of 'e-mail' ?are preserved as
> "And They Argued All Night..."
> at http://www.multicians.org/allnight.html . (Wherein he suggests SMTP is
> the mail that made it take off so John should get any specific credit for
> getting it right.)
>
> FYI the OED query ("appeal") was posted in ?October 2012 and discussed on
>> this list in 2013.
>> ?http://public.oed.com/appeals/email/?
>>
>
> ?(Not criticizing.  It was re-posted it elsewhere as new (including on
> Twitter, i think it was OED official post)? so no surprise it showed up
> here again. Just noting the prior thread's existence if anyone wanted to
> check back.?
>
> ?
> http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/internet-history/2013-June/002891.html
> )?
>
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
>
>
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From bill.n1vux at gmail.com  Fri Jul 24 15:38:19 2015
From: bill.n1vux at gmail.com (Bill Ricker)
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2015 18:38:19 -0400
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <CAA=duU1v=SiXHbHE-h0AP9wns8fxy7soTvwabb8KWt7X-oqQeA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20150724112916.30BAA18C0E2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
	<55B25044.2050002@isi.edu>
	<CAAbKA3WRZ3tzgVFeQGjRU-bLi-bsEJ=h+HKu0XMtptzc10Gc_w@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAAbKA3WOcdu=wRG9QSBi0Rs1C6uC_iR_nrGRv90V-OR5kgBQ3Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<CAA=duU1v=SiXHbHE-h0AP9wns8fxy7soTvwabb8KWt7X-oqQeA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAbKA3U_2AjoC+6HLggYyXXqAfVRZj1X8fr9JkuO6jZwp1cOhA@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 5:30 PM, Andrew G. Malis <agmalis at gmail.com> wrote:

> As I recall, one of MAP's favorite uses of netmail was to discuss scotch
> whisky


?Absolutely.
And the old DARPAnet  MALTS-L ? lives on in its ?4th?  incarnation.
?  MM-MALTS-L(-request)@grsnet.net ?

?[ Most activity is on the  MM&friends FB page now, but i make a point to
post to the list on MAP's birthday at least !  ]?

?Anyone whom MAP infected with the Scotch bug, feel free to contact me
offlist  to continue that conversation.?


-- 
Bill Ricker
bill.n1vux at gmail.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/n1vux
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From larrysheldon at cox.net  Fri Jul 24 22:44:51 2015
From: larrysheldon at cox.net (Larry Sheldon)
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2015 00:44:51 -0500
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <wDfB1q01G3VDnm801DfCwj>
References: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<wDfB1q01G3VDnm801DfCwj>
Message-ID: <55B32253.2070108@cox.net>

I predict that the origin will be hard to find--I have no cachet on the 
matter, but it seems like AOL (which had a very brief dalliance with) 
called it "mail", The WELL (and UUCP, and The Portal) called it mail, 
Sperrylink called it mail (or "just messages"), at the University where 
I worked through the '90s it was mail, I think.


-- 
sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Juvenal)


From brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com  Fri Jul 24 23:48:18 2015
From: brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com (Brian E Carpenter)
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2015 18:48:18 +1200
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <55B32253.2070108@cox.net>
References: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>	<wDfB1q01G3VDnm801DfCwj>
	<55B32253.2070108@cox.net>
Message-ID: <55B33132.6090806@gmail.com>

I just looked through a couple of papers written in 1987 by Denise Heagerty,
who ran the CERN mail gateway at that time. They mainly use "mail" and
in a few cases "electronic mail". If "email" had been in common use by
then, I think she'd have used it.

One of those papers cites Redell & White, "Interconnecting Electronic Mail
Systems", IEEE Computer, September 1983.  I'm on travel so can't easily check
whether they used "email".

The oldest RFC on my laptop disk that uses "email" (actually "EMail") is
RFC1123 (1989), and for "e-mail" (actually "E-Mail") it's RFC1724 (1994).
Somebody with a complete RFC corpus to hand could easily grep -i for earlier
occurrences.

Regards
   Brian Carpenter

On 25/07/2015 17:44, Larry Sheldon wrote:
> I predict that the origin will be hard to find--I have no cachet on the 
> matter, but it seems like AOL (which had a very brief dalliance with) 
> called it "mail", The WELL (and UUCP, and The Portal) called it mail, 
> Sperrylink called it mail (or "just messages"), at the University where 
> I worked through the '90s it was mail, I think.
> 
> 


From dhc2 at dcrocker.net  Sat Jul 25 01:32:30 2015
From: dhc2 at dcrocker.net (Dave Crocker)
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2015 10:32:30 +0200
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <55B3499E.8030500@dcrocker.net>

On 7/24/2015 11:21 AM, Vint Cerf wrote:
> Oxford English Dictionary looking for early usage of the term "email"


The OED entry appears to reflect what can be documented.

There was quite a bit of research attempted during the recent brouhaha
over who invented email.  While yes, there were various terms in use at
least during the early and mid-70s that had the string 'mail', no one
could find the string "email" (or e-mail) that early.

In fact in terms of documentation, there is a reasonable chance that
Shiva can lay claim to first use, though I believe none of us believe he
really was the first user of the term.

Certainly by the late 1970s the term became quite common.

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Sat Jul 25 04:45:24 2015
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2015 07:45:24 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
Message-ID: <20150725114524.61F5A18C102@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Brian E Carpenter

    > I just looked through a couple of papers written in 1987 .. They mainly
    > use "mail" and in a few cases "electronic mail".

I'm pretty sure that "electronic mail" would have preceded "e-mail";
"electronic mail" is rather a lengthy mouthful, and I'm sure that it was
pretty inevitable that i) someone would shorten it to "e-mail", and ii) once
that had happened, it would spread pretty quickly.

"Electronic mail" is even more of a mouthful than the ARPANET/Internet
community's preferred "network mail", which is why I suspect that that
community stuck with "network mail" (and its shortened "net-mail") until
"e-mail" was pretty well standardized elsewhere.

	Noel


From johnl at iecc.com  Sat Jul 25 10:09:53 2015
From: johnl at iecc.com (John Levine)
Date: 25 Jul 2015 17:09:53 -0000
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <55B33132.6090806@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20150725170953.76909.qmail@ary.lan>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

>The oldest RFC on my laptop disk that uses "email" (actually "EMail") is
>RFC1123 (1989), and for "e-mail" (actually "E-Mail") it's RFC1724 (1994).
>Somebody with a complete RFC corpus to hand could easily grep -i for earlier
>occurrences.

grep says the first E-mail was RFC 1048 in 1988:

          or by E-mail as: JKREYNOLDS at ISI.EDU

The first email appears to be in RFC 1060 in 1990:

   Email: JKREY at ISI.EDU

   Email: POSTEL at ISI.EDU

RFC 883 has the intriguing abbreviation EMAILBX but that turns out to
stand for error mailbox.

R's,
John


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From jack at 3kitty.org  Sat Jul 25 14:43:20 2015
From: jack at 3kitty.org (Jack Haverty)
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2015 14:43:20 -0700
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAHxHggf7psx_3=LJmkkutCWs87prc=jvz=VbQOq=PLVVGfq3WQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <55B402F8.1070107@3kitty.org>

After grubbing through my basement storage, I haven't found "email" in
any of my piles of old paper....sorry about that.

But I *do* recall the first time I saw the phrase "email", although not
exactly where and when that was.

Through the early and mid-70s, I was a student and subsequently staff
member in Professor Licklider's group at MIT project MAC.  Lick had been
promoting the ideas of man-computer synergy for a while -- how to use
the power of the computer to augment human communications.   While I was
there, he also returned for another tour of duty at ARPA; he bounced
back and forth between MIT and ARPA.

Lick, and his "Chief of Staff" Al Vezza, drove our group to explore
man/computer synergy, especially using the brand-new IMP sitting at the
end of our rows of PDP-10 cabinets.

For one project, I wrote the mail software for our PDP-10; Ken Pogran
did so for Multics; Ken Harrenstien wrote the code for the MIT-AI
PDP-10.  These had some interesting interactions during that era -
early-mid 70s!

Outside of writing code, we were engaged in a continuous conversation
with other people on the ARPANET, sorting out just what this new
technology was all about.   ARPA formed a committee called CAHCOM
(Computer Aided Human Communications) to explore the possibilities.

One of the aspects on which Lick and therefore Al were especially
focused was the spectrum of "human communications" which could be
"aided".  This included everything from short notes ("Lunch anyone?") to
formal documents (Proposals for next year's contract, as documents with
multiple authors, reviewers, approvals, readers, etc.).  It also
included many of the ancillary processes from the non-electronic world,
e.g., notarization, archival, proof-of-delivery, return-receipt,
restricted-delivery, mail-room routing (e.g., having an address such as
"support" go to the current person on duty in Tech Support), searching
and retrieval, etc.   I put support for "aiding" a lot of these
functions into the mail system I wrote, but there was no standardized
way to convey that information in the network protocols at the time (or
even now for that matter...)

There was no established terminology for the computer form of all this.
 I remember we tried to promote the use of different terms for different
kinds of such communications.   E.G., Al Vezza tried, unsuccessfully, to
get the community to use the term "Communique" for messages used in more
formal organization-to-organization types of interactions.

Sadly, little of this caught on.  The community was focused on getting
the basic person-person communications of what we called netmail to work
reliably.  Probably a good thing....

None of the terminology we discussed then included "email" or "e-mail".

But I do still recall first seeing that term, and being discouraged that
all of the work and discussions about the breadth of computer-aided
human communications was being lumped into a single vague and ambiguous
term "email" (or maybe "e-mail").

The term was used in one of the trade publications popular at the time,
which had grown up around the emerging technologies of computer
networking.   I'm sorry I can't remember which one.  Most likely it was
Network World, or Communications Week, which were very popular at the
time and had discovered the world of networking.   It was a "newspaper"
type of publication, not a magazine or journal.   The kind of thing you
read while eating lunch.

I remember cringing at the thought that someone took the simple approach
of coining an obvious new word without explaining what it actually
meant.  I don't know if they were the first to use the term; but it was
the first one I saw.

As for timing, I can be pretty sure that it happened while I was still
at MIT, which narrows it down to between 1966 and summer 1977.   That's
when I joined BBN to work on TCP/IP for Unix and other projects that
were part of the Internet, and stopped working in the "CAHCOM" world.

So, I think an appropriate place to search for "email" would be the
trade press of the 1977+- era.   Does anybody know of an archive of such
history?

HTH,
/Jack Haverty




On 07/24/2015 02:21 AM, Vint Cerf wrote:
> Oxford English Dictionary looking for early usage of the term "email"
> 
> http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2015/07/oed-appeals-email/
> 
>         Before email was email it was electronic mail. Although
>         the shorter form is by far the more common name today, the full
>         form electronic mail of course came first (otherwise how would
>         anybody know what the 'e' meant?). It was only as people became
>         more familiar with the system that they could shorten this to
>         the snappier email. E- is now used in this way to form a
>         plethora of technology words such as e-commerce and e-book, but
>         email is where it all began.  The OED currently has a first
>         quotation for electronic mail in this sense from 1975; the
>         shorter email is first attested four years later, in 1979.
>         Although this doesn't seem like a very large gap in time, it
>         seems unlikely that the 1979 quotation represents the coinage of
>         email, taken as it is from a professional journal: 1979
>         Electronics 7 June 63 (heading) Postal Service pushes ahead with
>         E-mail.
> 
>  - - -
> 
> 
> _______
> internet-history mailing list
> internet-history at postel.org
> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
> 


From Jeff.Hodges at KingsMountain.com  Thu Jul 30 01:21:37 2015
From: Jeff.Hodges at KingsMountain.com (=JeffH)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2015 01:21:37 -0700
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
Message-ID: <55B9DE91.5040007@KingsMountain.com>


 > I'm pretty sure that "electronic mail" would have preceded "e-mail";
 > "electronic mail" is rather a lengthy mouthful, and I'm sure that it was
 > pretty inevitable that i) someone would shorten it to "e-mail", and ii) once
 > that had happened, it would spread pretty quickly.

I tend to agre with the above. When I arrived at Xerox Office System 
Business Unit (responsible for STAR) in early 1984, the term "email" was 
already deeply ingrained.  I suspect that a search of PARC "blue & white" 
publications might yield something (or maybe not).

In terms of the use of the "electronic mail" term, my modest google scholar 
search-fu turns up this early occurance..

Distribution of electronic mail over the broad-band party-line 
communications network (July 1970)
Gross, W.B. ; General Electric Company, Philadelphia, Pa.
Proceedings of the IEEE  (Volume:58 ,  Issue: 7 )
pp 1002 - 1012
ISSN 0018-9219
DOI 10.1109/PROC.1970.7842


There's also this thesis which may yield some clues, although it seems to 
use the term "email" itself rather loosely..

The Evolution of ARPANET email
Ian R. Hardy
13 May 1996
http://www.livinginternet.com/References/Ian%20Hardy%20Email%20Thesis.txt


There is also this..

"Networked E-mail", chapter 19 by David Walden, in "A Culture of Innovation: 
Insider Accounts of Computing and Life at BBN", David Walden & Raymond 
Nickerson, Ed., Waterside Publishing, 2011.
http://www.cbi.umn.edu/hostedpublications/pdf/CultureInnovation_bbn.pdf


HTH,

=JeffH






From dhc2 at dcrocker.net  Thu Jul 30 14:46:29 2015
From: dhc2 at dcrocker.net (Dave Crocker)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2015 14:46:29 -0700
Subject: [ih] Any suggestions for first uses of "e-mail" or "email"?
In-Reply-To: <20150725114524.61F5A18C102@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20150725114524.61F5A18C102@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <55BA9B35.5090208@dcrocker.net>

On 7/25/2015 4:45 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote:
> I'm pretty sure that "electronic mail" would have preceded "e-mail";


I used "electronic mail" in my Rand report of 1977:

     Framework and Functions of the MS Personal Message System


https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB8QFjAAahUKEwj_8O-96YPHAhXQMogKHZ4TAgE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rand.org%2Fcontent%2Fdam%2Frand%2Fpubs%2Freports%2F2007%2FR2134.pdf&ei=e5q6Vb_HMtDloASep4gI&usg=AFQjCNH4hVCaxq7FtERc_XnY-GYUiHvtbQ&sig2=cwBnZ_gX7SoIK189TiighA&bvm=bv.99261572,d.cGU&cad=rja

and I do not believe for one second it was first usage.

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net