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E-mail from Bill (1994)

newyorker.com

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Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#31

Post by sandworm101 »

jm4 wrote: post #18
tinco wrote: post #17

There's a lot of interesting story in this article, but this sentence caught my eye: " Our email is completely secure. . . ." Why would Bill Gates say that? Surely he knew their e-mails were going plain text through a host of providers, network operators and mail relays, or weren't they? Apparently PGP is from 1991, but they are using msmail (judging from the headers) so I don't reckon they were using that. The movie…

Read the sentence right before that one where he says no one else reads his email. The implication is that he doesn't have an assistant screening his messages. His email is completely secure in the sense that it's a private one on one conversation, which is to say it's as private as a quiet conversation in a coffee shop or at a park for example. I don't think he is implying it's necessarily secure from hackers and ea…

Or he was just wrong.

Maybe the simplest understanding of his statements is that he simply didn't know of what he spoke. Or maybe he was telling a fib. Either of those two options seem more likely than some convoluted debate as to the common understanding of the word "secure".

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#32

Post by sverige »

maroonblazer wrote: post #26
nocman wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always bugged me EVERY time ANYONE every used the term "Information Superhighway" -- and still does. Marketing people make me want to puke -- that's where terminology like that comes from. Just call it the internet and be done with it already! Oh, and get off my lawn! xD

Does anyone still use "Information Superhighway" anymore? I think most people just say "internet". However in the 90's that analogy helped many non-technical people understand how to think about the internet. Back then did you have a better analogy? BTW, as a marketing guy, it always bugs me every time anyone uses the term "marketing" when they mean "advertising". I'm not referring to you/your post but rather a gener…

When I throw darts at marketing, I mean marketing, not advertising. I know the difference. Nice try though, marketing guy.

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#34

Post by jcrawfordor »

tinco wrote: post #17

There's a lot of interesting story in this article, but this sentence caught my eye: " Our email is completely secure. . . ." Why would Bill Gates say that? Surely he knew their e-mails were going plain text through a host of providers, network operators and mail relays, or weren't they? Apparently PGP is from 1991, but they are using msmail (judging from the headers) so I don't reckon they were using that. The movie…

Back when this article was written, plaintext transport across the internet would not be viewed as nearly the kind of security issue it is today. This wasn't just a shortcoming on Microsoft's part, it was a shortcoming on virtually the entire computer industry - which is, yes, why we are in the situation we're in today. Exactly none of the internet was designed to be secure by modern standards, and vulnerabilities that are obvious today were not obvious 20, 10, and even 5 years ago.

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#35

Post by maroonblazer »

sverige wrote: post #32
maroonblazer wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anyone still use "Information Superhighway" anymore? I think most people just say "internet". However in the 90's that analogy helped many non-technical people understand how to think about the internet. Back then did you have a better analogy? BTW, as a marketing guy, it always bugs me every time anyone uses the term "marketing" when they mean "advertising". I'm not referring to you/your post but rather a gener…

When I throw darts at marketing, I mean marketing, not advertising. I know the difference. Nice try though, marketing guy.

As long as you know the difference you can throw all the darts you want.

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#36

Post by Jaruzel »

mojoe wrote: post #12
a_small_island wrote: post #10

>"BILL GATES, aged thirty-eight, is one of the richest men in the country—the richest in 1992, and the second richest, after the investor Warren Buffett, in 1993, with a fortune of six billion one hundred and sixty million dollars, according to Forbes. " Very strange that only just 20-25 years ago, the richest people in the world were "only" worth <7,000,000,000

~12 billion inflation-adjusted, but your point stands.

How do you work out 'inflation adjusted' numbers? I've always wondered.

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#37

Post by lostlogin »

Viper007Bond wrote: post #14

It made me smile that I was reading this in digital form on a computer that fits in my pocket and is always connected to the "information highway".

Still has the same connection issues with telecos being asses just like then though. Or is your connection reliable?

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#38

Post by adventured »

Jaruzel wrote: post #36
mojoe wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~12 billion inflation-adjusted, but your point stands.

How do you work out 'inflation adjusted' numbers? I've always wondered.

The Fed provides estimates on the devaluation of the dollar over time. You'll find all sorts of other well known institutions and individuals that provide their own formulas however. The spectrum is pretty wide, from those that agree with the Fed's numbers, to people that think the Fed is intentionally significantly understating inflation.

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#39

Post by adventured »

wtbob wrote: post #21
tinco wrote: post #17

There's a lot of interesting story in this article, but this sentence caught my eye: " Our email is completely secure. . . ." Why would Bill Gates say that? Surely he knew their e-mails were going plain text through a host of providers, network operators and mail relays, or weren't they? Apparently PGP is from 1991, but they are using msmail (judging from the headers) so I don't reckon they were using that. The movie…

> Why would Bill Gates say that? Surely he knew their e-mails were going plain text through a host of providers, network operators and mail relays, or weren't they? He had to rewrite his 1995 book The Road Ahead to cover the Internet better ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Ahead_%28Bill_Gates_b... ), so it's entirely possible that he didn't actually know all that much about how email worked in 1994.

That's extremely unlikely. Microsoft had been using email since the late 1980s and Gates was famous for being deep on technical knowledge. Like most, he didn't expect the Web to take off as quickly as it did - that's a completely different matter from understanding how email works.

Re: E-mail from Bill (1994)

#40

Post by adventured »

f0under wrote: post #2

It's amazing to get a 90s perspective on the "information highway". Besides advanced home automation, self-driving cars wonder what types of immature technology we're working on today will just be mainstream in the next 2 decades.

> will just be mainstream in the next 2 decades

Robotic manufacturing and inventory management (and not just by Toyota and Amazon, nearly all manufacturers and retailers). Productivity related drones. Virtual reality. Artificial intelligence that is very difficult to do without for consumers and businesses (so much so, that the UN will declare it a human right to have access to various AI systems 20 years from now). Commercialized therapies that use CRISPR. Routine tissue repair via stem-cell therapy. Routine organ growing & replacement for less complex organs. Immune system regeneration for those with compromised immune systems. M.S., Parkinson's, alzheimer's, diabetes, HIV, will all be cured except for edge cases (might be closer to 30 years, but some of those will get knocked out in 20, HIV for example).

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