The
Basics
E-mail (electronic mail) is a way of sending text messages to people anywhere
virtually instantaneously. E-mail addresses are of the form login@domain (eg. support@ecpi.com) and represent the person
and machine that the messages go to or come from. Although the postal mail is
secure, e-mail is not, so never send your credit card or password through
e-mail.
How
It Works
Once you type and send your message, it does not go directly to that person.
First, it stops by our mail server which determines where the message needs to
go based on the address. Then it sends it the quickest way possible to the
recipient's mail server. This can take it through many different routing
servers (hence, the insecurity) and the path may not always be the same. Once
it gets to the other mail server, the message is processed and filed until the
receiver opens the mail client and retrieves the message (with various headers,
including who the message came from, what mail server it came from, and where
replies should be directed). Files can also be 'attached' to e-mail messages
and sent, even though the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
only supports text. Typically, your e-mail client will do the conversion of the
file to straight text for you. Because the message must go through various
servers with different file size limits, your messages should be generally no
larger than two megabytes in size.
What
You Need
All you need to send and receive e-mail is an e-mail client. Probably the most
popular one used today is Eudora. You can
download Eudora Light, a stripped down version of Eudora Pro, for free. The
Professional version requires purchasing and adds a few more features.
E-mail
Abuse
Because it's easy to send e-mail to anyone with an e-mail address, people can
simply send out lots of unsolicited junk e-mail (also known as Spam). At
ECPI.com, spam can be a reason for termination of an account, but most often,
spam comes from large mailing lists like Cyber Promotions. Other times, giving
out your e-mail address to discussion lists, newsgroups and web pages can lead
to spam, so be careful who you give your address to.