Email is a "store and forward" service where the sending and receiving machine need not be able to communicate directly with each other to make it work. Points of connection where the email between email networks are computers called "application gateways". They know enough about the email applications on both sides to reformat messages so they are legal on the new network. Sending a mail through a gateway needs a mail header and an address containing both information about how to get to the gateway and how to deliver the mail on the other side.
A mail reflector can implement a centrally maintained mail list if one wants to make a single change that is effective for everyone, and it works well for a private group. It is a special email address set up where any message sent to it will automatically be resent to everyone on a list. For a large public group, a nice utility named listserv maintains lists without human intervention grow up in the BITNET community on IBM/VM machines. Since BITNET listservs were popular, there has been a proliferation of listserve-like software -- like mailserv, majordomo, and almanac -- running on all sorts of computers, and these packages accept a similar command set. Table 1 shows how to subscribe to mailing lists.
| List Type | Subscription Address | Subscription Message | Termination Message | Posting Address |
| Listserv | listserv@hostname | Subscribe list yourname | Signoff list | list@hostname |
| majordomo | majordomo@hostname | Subscribe list yourname | Unsubscribe list | list@hostname |
| Internet | list-request@hostname | Anything | Anything | list@hostname |
| almanac | almanac@hostname | Subscribe list | Insubscribe list | list@hostname |
Fast Delivery
The time it takes to deliver electronic mail ranges from seconds to a day which depends on the function of how one's mail machine is connected to the network. Email is asynchronous. The sender/reader sends/reads the mail whenever he wants. This is so handy that if a person is trying to communicate a long distance, e.g. over many time zones, when daily schedules are quite different.
Moderate Formality
Email is a typed message, so there is no specified format on an email letter. Since it often flies between parties at a rate approaching a conversation and most people are more comfortable being friendly than combative, many people tend to drift into informality in their electronic messaging.
Any to All Conferencing
Email allows a user to set up arbitrarily large groups for making bulk mail. This makes group communications easier without time limitations and very useful both for disseminating information and for querying a group.
Low Security
Until now, the security of email is still a major concern. Since email takes a fairly predictable route through computers, some of whose security may be questionable. There is also the problem of error modes where a message might be undeliverable and a computer, not knowing what else to do, delivers it to a mail administrator.
Moderate Accountability
As mentioned before, many people tend to be informal in their email letter, there is a problem of accountability -- the necessity of writers to take responsibility for their messages -- where a copy of an email message in a file can be saved by senders.
Table 2 shows a comparison between communication techniques.
| Telephone | Post | ||
| Speed | High | Moderate | Low |
| Synchronized | Yes | No | No |
| Formality | Varies | Moderate | Varies |
| Accountability | Low | Moderate | High |
| Conferencing | Small group | Any to all | One-way only |
| Security | Moderate | Low | High |
The following sites are good places for email and list servers interests:
Outside Mailing Lists
Methods Used
Internet and books were used for searching email.
Sites Visited and Files Found
The following sites were used for searching email:
Outside Mailing Lists
Request to Add Your List
Web Mail Form
A Simple CGI Email Handler (2.1)
References
1."Smarter E-Mail Is Coming", Andy Reinhardt, Byte, March 1993, pp.90-108.
2."The Whole Internet", Ed Krol, 2nd, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.