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I recall when I first came across "email" -- way back in the 1970s.

At the time I thought it was a mediocre idea.

To understand why you need to be aware that 25 years ago there was no Internet and even LANs were simply a dim light on the horizon.

The first email system I ever wrote ran on a stand-alone machine and actually worked very well -- huh?

Right now you're probably wondering what use email could be on a single-user, un-networked PC.

Well the machine in question was used by several people throughout the course of a day and by adding email, they could easily leave each other messages and discuss matters -- even though they might not actually meet.

Once LANs became commonplace, email became slightly more popular and allowed users to send messages to the person in the cubicle next door or even the office down the hall (wow!).

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Email only became the ubiquitous tool it is today however, once the Internet became a part of our lives.

Now it has all but totally replaced the fax and has certainly damaged the Post Office's profits.

One might be tempted to suggest that email is the perfect communications tool because:

• It's asynchronous. The recipient doesn't have to be "available" to receive it when it's sent
• It's cheap. There's no "per message" charge, just the fixed costs of your internet connection
• It's versatile, being able to deliver text, pictures, sound and even video.
• It's ubiquitous, everyone who's anyone has an email address these days.

The very characteristics that have made email so wonderful are also the ones that have spawned its biggest drawback -- spam!

It seems that every cheap huckster and his dog are taking advantage of email to try and separate fools and their money these days, and that's actually making the total cost of using email far more expensive than most people realise.

The most dangerous aspect of the spam tide is that an increasing number of genuine (and sometimes very important) messages are getting vacuumed up by spam-filters and rejected by content filters.

When someone says "I never got your email" there's an increasing chance that it's a message which has fallen foul of some overly agressive filter. I am astonished how many emails I get returned by MailMarshall or similar software which thinks that my message contains an objectionable term so refuses to deliver it to the intended recipient.

It seems that accountants and lawyers are the groups most likely to have their content filters wound right up. Is this because they get more than their fair share of abusive emails from disgruntled clients I wonder? Or could it be that they're just really sensitive souls who feel they and their workers must he shielded from any talk of body-parts, spam, porn or even evil navigational aids such as sextants?

Then there's way in which seemingly innocuous emails which some people think they've deleted manage to turn up as evidence in courtroom battles. It seems that in some organisations, email is a lot harder to destroy than is ink and paper.

Now there's talk of replacing the tired old email system which handles the transport of most Internet email. A new system could include the ability to kill spam in a manner far more efficient than filtering and some useful standards for authentication,security and tracking would also help eliminate some of the current problems.

Until then however, we'll just have to take the good with the bad.

And of course if any Aardvark readers have an opinion on today's column or want to add something you're also invited to chip in and have your say.

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