Email bombs

Grrr. I'm connected to the net with my laptop and a modem today, so I'm more conscious of download speeds and hassles than usual. The SoBig worm arrived just as I was leaving on this trip, so I didn't have time to innoculate my computers. Hence I am using webmail (via Horde). I've been getting 150 virus-generated emails a day. Re: Wicked Screensaver, Re: Your Report, etc.

Email, until recently the easiest networking tool of all, has become a pain in the ass. Once a tool for everyone, now it requires a specialist to explain worms and viruses, Symantec vs. McAfee, updated definitions, disinfection, and why an email from Aunt Tilly may have been sent by a cyber-terrorist spoofing Aunt Tilly. In an instant, you could lose the photos of the grandkids, last year's income tax figures, and the beginning of the Great American Novel. Opening email has all the thrills of walking alone in a dark corner of Central Park at 3:00 am.

eLearning relies on email for scheduling, assignments, announcements, and peer networking. Once upon a time, email seemed more reliable than snail mail. No longer. If an incoming email makes it through my Spam filters, it can still get lost among the junk that still gets to my email box. What's the world to do? Return to copy machines and paper memos?

Maybe the "e" stands for "entropy."