> please try and remember the environment > that the Internet came out of. From inception > it was NEVER meant to be a consumer service.
Alan, I realize the point you are trying to make but I think we all need to try to avoid arguments that refer to the Internet as something special that was not meant to be a consumer service. I ask users (with regards to virii), If you opened your front door tomorrow and there was a chocolate cake sitting there with a typed note saying, "From Mom, with love." would you gobble it down or would you say, "why would mom leave a cake on my porch?" Users need to learn that computers aren't magic. Just because you saw it on your computer screen doesn't make it true. They wouldn't think, "The note says the cake is from Mom so it must be from mom" But they do think, "The e-mail says it's from Mom so it must be from mom because computers know everything." If I'm supposed to remember the environment that the internet came out of and that is was never meant to be a consumer service then what's your explanation for snail mail where I can write anything I darn well please in the top left corner of an envelope or even leave it blank if I choose? Was snail mail also designed in academia and never meant to be a consumer service? As the anthrax and ricin incidents in the US have shown, I can put anything I want in an envelope, write anything I want in the "From" field (top left corner) and mail it to anyone and be largely untraceable. To continue to say, "Well the internet was never meant to be a consumer service" is a disservice to users. We need to teach them that computers and e-mail are no more nor no less secure, safe or traceable than good ol' snail mail was. Through their lives people have learned how to spot junk snail mail (i.e. brown "government looking" envelopes that tend to appear in US mailboxes around tax time that are really just magazine sweepstakes ads) They need to build those same skills with e-mail and not expect the magic computer to somehow protect them from dangers and falsehoods that have always existed in all forms of communication. Don This is the discussion list for the IMS Free email server software. To unsubscribe send mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Delivered by Rockliffe MailSite http://www.rockliffe.com/mailsite Rock Solid Software (tm)
