The Times: Tech column - IM wars/Un-free email/Virus hype
By David Rowan
COULD the days of e-mail be numbered? As spam, which already accounts for 60 per cent of e-mail traffic, heads for 80 per cent by Christmas, more and more companies are turning to instant messaging. You can chat with colleagues in real time, look at files held on their computers, and even talk to each other without a phone. No wonder number-crunchers such as Ferris Research are predicting the number of business users to rise from 23 million last year to 182 million by 2007.
Home users are also becoming hooked on "IM" (get used to the abbreviations the genre has inspired a shorthand that makes text-messaging look verbose). AOL, for years the dominant player, says that 93 per cent of its teenage customers regularly use its proprietary instant-messaging software -and 75 per cent of them spend more time doing so than e-mailing. Of course, AOL has an interest in talking up its products, but ask younger internet users and they will probably be swapping notes about NM (nothing much) before they have GG (got to go) to finish their HW (homework). Where teenagers go today, the rest of us follow tomorrow.
The biggest obstacle has been the incompatibility of the rival IM systems: if you use AOL's system, good luck communicating with friends using Microsoft's MSN Messenger. The fragmentation of the competing systems has, until now, had one major advantage over e-mail: users have not tended to receive much "spim", the unsolicited sales pitches that are the IM equivalent of spam, but that is starting to change. Last week Apple released a new version of its iChat software that lets Mac users video and audio-chat with AOL subscribers. Enjoy chatting freely while you can - but expect to be joined some time soon by an avalanche of junk.
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Free e-mail may be a thing of the past if some powerful IT companies have their way. Two weeks ago Bill Gates told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the best way to kill spam may be to make all of us pay to send e-mails. One plan being considered by Microsoft is a "Penny Black" system that would charge a fraction of a penny per message to root out bulk e-mailers. Yahoo is considering a separate e-mail postage plan being developed by a company called Goodmail. These desperate measures would work only if every internet service provider imposed similar charges. Nor is there any guarantee that the spammers would not find ways around the system. Wouldn't a more workable solution be for lawmakers to impose brutal penalties on the spammers? The weak anti-spam laws passed recently here and in the US almost make Viagra- peddling seem a worthwhile career option.
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Wasn't the world meant to have ended by now? As MyDoom panic hit last week, security firms such as mi2g were desperate to warn us of its $38.5 billion (£21 billion) cost. So how did mi2g, a British "security intelligence provider" that originally specialised in car data, come up with this figure? It claims to have calculated everything from "productivity erosion" to "management time reallocation". Rob Rosenberger, whose Vmyths website has tracked mi2g's previous claims, calls the figure "completely absurd". Yet the media quoted it without question.
Here is another number, from the research company IDC. Spending on IT security will rise from $16.9 billion in 2001 to $44.5 billion by 2006. Alas, I cannot say how much is due to media fear-mongering.
(The Times, February 10 2004)
COULD the days of e-mail be numbered? As spam, which already accounts for 60 per cent of e-mail traffic, heads for 80 per cent by Christmas, more and more companies are turning to instant messaging. You can chat with colleagues in real time, look at files held on their computers, and even talk to each other without a phone. No wonder number-crunchers such as Ferris Research are predicting the number of business users to rise from 23 million last year to 182 million by 2007.
Home users are also becoming hooked on "IM" (get used to the abbreviations the genre has inspired a shorthand that makes text-messaging look verbose). AOL, for years the dominant player, says that 93 per cent of its teenage customers regularly use its proprietary instant-messaging software -and 75 per cent of them spend more time doing so than e-mailing. Of course, AOL has an interest in talking up its products, but ask younger internet users and they will probably be swapping notes about NM (nothing much) before they have GG (got to go) to finish their HW (homework). Where teenagers go today, the rest of us follow tomorrow.
The biggest obstacle has been the incompatibility of the rival IM systems: if you use AOL's system, good luck communicating with friends using Microsoft's MSN Messenger. The fragmentation of the competing systems has, until now, had one major advantage over e-mail: users have not tended to receive much "spim", the unsolicited sales pitches that are the IM equivalent of spam, but that is starting to change. Last week Apple released a new version of its iChat software that lets Mac users video and audio-chat with AOL subscribers. Enjoy chatting freely while you can - but expect to be joined some time soon by an avalanche of junk.
+++
Free e-mail may be a thing of the past if some powerful IT companies have their way. Two weeks ago Bill Gates told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the best way to kill spam may be to make all of us pay to send e-mails. One plan being considered by Microsoft is a "Penny Black" system that would charge a fraction of a penny per message to root out bulk e-mailers. Yahoo is considering a separate e-mail postage plan being developed by a company called Goodmail. These desperate measures would work only if every internet service provider imposed similar charges. Nor is there any guarantee that the spammers would not find ways around the system. Wouldn't a more workable solution be for lawmakers to impose brutal penalties on the spammers? The weak anti-spam laws passed recently here and in the US almost make Viagra- peddling seem a worthwhile career option.
+++
Wasn't the world meant to have ended by now? As MyDoom panic hit last week, security firms such as mi2g were desperate to warn us of its $38.5 billion (£21 billion) cost. So how did mi2g, a British "security intelligence provider" that originally specialised in car data, come up with this figure? It claims to have calculated everything from "productivity erosion" to "management time reallocation". Rob Rosenberger, whose Vmyths website has tracked mi2g's previous claims, calls the figure "completely absurd". Yet the media quoted it without question.
Here is another number, from the research company IDC. Spending on IT security will rise from $16.9 billion in 2001 to $44.5 billion by 2006. Alas, I cannot say how much is due to media fear-mongering.
(The Times, February 10 2004)
posted by David Rowan at Tuesday, February 10, 2004
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