Since the Net moved out of the halls of academia and into the "real world," email has all but replaced the fax machine and significantly reduced the amount of telephone tag we play each day. Even postal services all around the world are noticing its effect on the amount of regular snail mail being sent.

It's cheap, quick, and in most cases, fairly reliable. It really does sound like the ideal communications mechanism doesn't it?

So why would I dare suggest that it should be done away with?

Well let's take a look at the downsides of email.

In its standard form, it is one of the most insecure communications mediums we have -- second only to writing your message on the back of a postcard.

It isn't 100% reliable -- there's no guarantee, and often no way of knowing, that your message has been delivered.

It's becoming increasingly dangerous -- thanks to flaws in Microsoft's ubiquitous Outlook program, virus writers are having a field-day at our expense.

And speaking of expense, the cost of using email is skyrocketing.

Readers Say (updated hourly) Nothing Yet Have Your Say

I'm not talking about ISP fees, I'm talking about the cost of dealing with spam and that of suring up your defenses against those pesky email-borne threats to your system's security and integrity.

In short, email is great -- but it could (and should) be a whole lot better.

Here's my wishlist for a service to replace email. It should have:

• Built-in strong encryption that is consistent across all implementations so that messages are compatible with all email programs.

• A consistent and reliable method of reporting the delivery and opening of emails.

• A design that makes it easy to eliminate or ignore the results of unwanted commercial solicitations without affecting the flow of genuine correspondence.

• A design that eliminates email as a possible vector for viruses and trojans.

It looked for a while as if ICQ and other instant messaging (IM) services might just solve many of those problems -- but, unfortunately, the developers of these problems have kept adding new features and functions to the extent that they now suffer from many of the same flaws that affect email itself.

It strikes me that the history of email has closely followed that of sex in recent times.

A few decades ago people seldom talked about it in public but it was safe, fun and simple.

These days, everyone's talking about it, everyone's trying to sell you something using it, and you risk your wellbeing and safety every time you do it with an unknown third-party.

If technology now gives us the power to replace sex with cloning, surely we can do something about email?

Have Your Say
As always, your comments are welcomed. Please remember to select "For Publication" if you want them included on this site.

Have your say.

Add Aardvark To Your Own Website!
Got a moment? Want a little extra fresh content for your own website or page?

Just add a couple of lines of JavaScript to your pages and you can get a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated each and every week-day.

Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using the RSS format. More details can be found here.

Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and have any problems.

Linking Policy
Want to link to this site? Check out Aardvark's Linking Policy.

Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!