Re: Semantic mail

pat hayes <phayes@ai.uwf.edu> wrote:

> What I find startling (and
> alarming) is the apparently widespread assumption that sending an
> email is just like posting a web page, an assumption which completely
> ignores the rather fundamental distinction between private and public
> communication, treating the internet as a kind of world-wide Hyde
> Park Corner.

Pat, there's no need to get so upset! ;-)

If you're referring to my messages, I'd like to clarify that I do not intend
to make all email publicly available, and with any system I designed email
would be just as private, or likely more private (via encryption) than it is
now.

It's also important to remember that not all web pages a publicly available
either. There's Basic Authentication as well as SSL, a combination of which
could be used with any semantic mail system to insure privacy.

In fact, by keeping emails as web pages, one would actually _increase_
privacy, because you would keep control over who could or could not access
the email. With the current system, when you send an email, any machine in
between you and the person your sending the message to can read your email.
With a system similar to the one I envision, you'd invite people to read
your message and then they would have to display the proper credentials to
read it. Depending on the importance of the message, you could require a
password, encryption, etc.

Do you have a problem with that?

-- 
[ Aaron Swartz | me@aaronsw.com | http://www.aaronsw.com ]

Received on Saturday, 11 November 2000 23:00:47 UTC