Death By Email Blog

Steve Jobs Sites Email Proof To Get Girls

At today's Apple Computer annual developer conference, Steve Jobs stood in front of the throngs on enchanted attendees and told them that the iPad was "magical."  It was so magical that it could even attract girls.  His proof?  An email he received:   

"I was sitting in a café with my iPad, and it got a girl interested in me. Now that's what I call a magical device!"

iPhone Lust

I recently purchased a BlackBerry Curve.  What a great smartphone.  But, no matter what, it still is not as sexy as an iPhone.  Yet, it was hard to justify a device that did not synchronize with Microsoft Outlook.  The heart may say iPhone, but the mind says BlackBerry.

Well, today, Apple held an event announcing a software developer's kit and software store, plus support for Microsoft Exchange email, contacts and calendaring coming in June.  This could change the entire equation.  As more interesting business applications find their way to the iPhone, it can become a serious alternative to the BlackBerry.  (Now, guys, can you also fix the non-removable battery and the lock on AT&T as a service provider?)

Email is Broken. Can Mozilla Fix It?

David Ascher, the new CEO of the new Mozilla Messaging, says in his blog that "email is broken."  He says "the joy (email) communication can bring is too often replaced by frustration, confusion, or stress. Furthermore, as we transmit more and more digital data, privacy and control questions become more and more troublesome."

I agree.  And, I agree with his vision of the future:

Email is more important than ever, and yet it’s no longer the only game in town, or even the dominant one for younger generations or emerging economies. It is worthwhile considering what the right user experience could be for someone using multiple email addresses, multiple instant messaging systems, IRC, reading and writing on blogs, using VoIP, SMS, and the like. What parts of those interactions make sense to integrate, and where? I don’t believe that stuffing all of those communication models inside of one application is the right answer. But the walled gardens that we’re faced with today aren’t the right answer either.

How will the problem be solved?  His answer is vague.  Instead, he talks about the other open source work done by the Mozilla Foundation and how it makes great products like the Firefox browser. 

Indeed, rather than lay out a bold vision and convince people that we’re going to solve all their problems, we see our primary role as that of facilitating collaborative approaches to problem solving and incremental progress, through a combination of leadership and facilitation work. This is an unusual approach, and it can be chaotic and slow. ...

Our plan starts with building a great product. Firefox has shown that if you have a great product that tens of millions of people love to use daily, doors open and more opportunities become within reach. So we’ll focus on the product. ...

We’ll do that by responding to user feedback, by incorporating key contributions from third party developers, by providing a streamlined user experience which lets people focus on the interactions they want to have with other people rather than with the software that’s in front of them. We’ll do that by taking into consideration the needs that people have today, and planning for the needs that people will have tomorrow. We’ll do it by implementing the best software engineering and open source practices we can.

Maybe I have grown jaded from watching the Presidential Primary race.  I have heard to many candidates tell me about how great things are going to be -- but not much about how we will get there.

Email Archive Lost Permanently For 14,000 Users

In the ultimate "Death By Email", Charter Communications accidentally wiped out all of the email data for 14,000 email users while doing "routine maintenance" on Monday.  If you are one of the 2.6-million customers in 29 states who use Charter, you may want to check your account.  If you are one of the affected people, the company said it sent an email to let you know.  (Ironic, isn't it?)

“We ordinarily go through and delete inactive accounts. In doing that, we erroneously erased those accounts,” said Anita Lamont, a Charter Communications spokeswoman.

Unfortunately, the affected content cannot be recovered, the email to customers said. (Charlotte Citizen-Times)  Charter gave a $50 credit to each affected person as an apology.

Earlier, this blog reported that some Gmail users reported losing all of their data from Google.  It would seem that if you use web mail of any kind, it would make sense to download your messages periodically.  It would be good to have a back-up. 

Thank you, Pete Warden

I want to thank Pete Warden for his kind and complimentary comments in PeteSearch, Tips and tools for Better Searching about the InBoxer Anti-Risk Appliance and the EnronEmail site.  He reviewed the product and said:

• "I believe the Inboxer team has done their homework, they've clearly tried a lot of different tools, and this is the one that seems most successful."
• "They've done a great job technically with Inboxer, it seems like a well-rounded service."

Can You Resist Your Cyberlover?

Russian programmers have created a piece of software known as Cyberlover (from Botmaster.ru) that can infiltrate dating sites and chatrooms and patiently seduce its victims, according to the Times of London. The "bot" solicits and collects information such as home addresses, telephone numbers and personal photographs, which are then used to compile a profile that can be sold on to identity thieves.

Botmaster says that the its software can make the acquaintance of between 10 and 20 people in half an hour. "It's a fact," it declares, "that not a single girl has yet guessed that she is talking with a computer programme!"

The company claims that the software, which so far is announced for the Russian language, allows computer-savvy men to link up with women (or women with men) without having to go through endless time-consuming introductions.  It would be a time saver to pre-screen people.  The software makers even claim that the program could also simulate virtual sex online.  (I cannot read the Russian site.  So I am dependent on PC Magazine for this news.)

A spokesman for PC Tools told PC Magazine the program had a "terrifyingly well-organized" interaction that could fool users into giving up personal details and could easily be converted to work in other languages.

"As a tool that can be used by hackers to conduct identity fraud, CyberLover demonstrates an unprecedented level of social engineering," Sergei Shevchenko, Senior Malware Analyst at PC Tools, said in a statement. "It employs highly intelligent and customized dialogue to target users of social networking systems."

Email After Death

Have you ever wanted to tell somebody something by email without any chance of them replying to you?  In the ultimate of one-way delivery, a handful of sites are not offering to send a final email on your behalf after you die.

Youdeparted.com, letterfrombeyond.com, mylastemail.com and postexpression.com will, for a fee, send your last word.  Each service seems to have a different slant.  Youdeparted.com refers to itself as a 24/7 electronic safe that can send things like passwords and lock combinations in case of your untimely demise, as well as things like "how to turn the sprinkler system off in winter."  Mylastemail emphasizes on-line memorials and the final chance to say to family and friends "how much we love them, or regret the harsh words we once had."

Of course, each service requires you to pay in advance.

JetBlue Launches In Flight Email

My favorite domestic airline, JetBlue, just announced the launch of free in flight email service.  Now, email junkies like me, can be in touch at any time.  The first WiFi enabled plane, an Airbus A320, will take-off on Tuesday for a test run of six months. It will then be rolled out system-wide.

No, you won't be able to watch You Tube or surf the web.  PC browsers, such as Internet Explorer, will not work -- so your Gmail account is off limits.  But, you will be able to connect with your POP3 email system and special light versions of Yahoo! mail and Yahoo! IM.  Your WiFi enabled BlackBerry will work for data as it does on the ground.  (Rush out to get your WiFi Blackberry.  I have been using a Blackberry Curve 8320 from T-mobile and I love it.)

How will all this work?  When a plane reaches 10,000 feet, three WiFi access points hidden in the cabin's ceiling are activated. The radios on board the plane monitor the 100 cell towers around the U.S., looking for the one with the strongest signal. As the plane flies, it leaves one cell tower and connects to another with a better signal, according to Time.

David Neeleman, JetBlue founder and chairman, told Time that he had been asking JetBlue's engineers about using his BlackBerry on their planes for years, thinking it should be pretty simple. Not only was connectivity more complicated than he thought, it was also extremely costly to create the software needed for full Web browsing. So instead, they came up with the idea of limited access for passengers, partnering with Yahoo and Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry.

"If we just give people email, that would solve 90% of the problem and would be one-tenth of the cost," Neeleman says. Full Web access would have been so expensive that the airline would have had to charge passengers to use it.  With email, the service is free.

Did I tell you that JetBlue was my favorite domestic airline? 

Embarassment, Breaches, and Confidential Leaks

Corporate embarrassment, compliance breaches and the loss of business critical information can sometimes be just a mistyped email address away.

70 percent of businesses are concerned about sensitive material falling into the wrong hands as a result of data leakage via email.  A further 50 percent of employees admit to having accidentally sent an embarrassing or sensitive email to the wrong person from the workplace, demonstrating that email leakage is a very real concern.

These statistics are the result of a study recently released by Sophos, Inc.  The company noted in a press release that "that there can also be a significant financial impact from data such as customer lists, engineering information, and financial statements falling into the wrong hands. Suffering economic loss is undoubtedly the most serious potential consequence of data leakage."

"As more and more business, and indeed personal interaction, is conducted via work email, the risk of slipping up and clicking send without double-checking the recipient's details is ever-growing," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "The fact that as many as half of employees have experienced that heart-stopping moment when they realize that their message is hurtling towards the wrong person shows that the human error factor is too significant to ignore. Businesses would be wise to check that their email security solutions have the facility to prevent this from happening by identifying when sensitive data or attachments are contained in the message, and if they don't, to consider a more water-tight alternative."

The Case of the Missing Gmail

More and more individuals and businesses are trusting their email to web-based services, such as Google's Gmail.  But, what happens when your Gmail goes missing?  IDG News reports: "Although Google denies systemwide issues with its Gmail service, many users have lost some or all of their stored email."

Is it time to get Detective Monk on the case?  IDG gave two examples:

• Jeneane Sessum found an empty inbox on the afternoon of Oct. 27.  A Gmail user since 2004, Sessum, a social media consultant and writer in Atlanta, had thousands of messages there, enough to use up almost 30 percent of her allotted storage space.
• Jessica Squazzo, a writer and editor, found that all messages from 2007 had disappeared from her inbox.

"Most issues like this are a result of phishing attacks or compromised passwords -- or sometimes simply messages mistakenly deleted or marked as spam -- not a data corruption issue," a Google spokesperson told IDG.  But, their report indicates a more widespread problem:

It seems that hardly a week goes by without at least several users reporting this problem on discussion boards, such as the official Gmail Help forum.

Asked to comment about multiple lost-message reports in 11 different threads created in September and October in the Gmail Help forum, a Google spokesman declined to address any of the specific situations, citing privacy reasons.

The IDG report asked for reactions from Sessum and Squazzo: