SPECIAL PROGRAM IN TECHNICAL VOCATIONAL

EDUCATION (SPTVE)

Internet and Computing Fundamentals

( ICF 9)

Quarter 2 –Week 1-2

WHAT IS ELECTRONIC MAIL?

USES OF ELECTRONIC MAIL

MODULE 1 Understanding Email Fundamentals

TOPIC What is Electronic Mail
What I need to know?
1. define and identify electronic mail, external and internal mail
2. Understand how email works
3. Discuss the types of mail servers

What Is It?

Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using
electronic devices. Email entered limited use in the 1960s, but users could only send to users of the same
computer, and some early email systems required the author and the recipient to both
be online simultaneously, similar to instant messaging. Ray Tomlinson is credited as the inventor of email;
in 1971, he developed the first system able to send mail between users on different hosts across the
ARPANET, using the @ sign to link the user name with a destination server. By the mid-1970s, this was the
form recognized as email.
Email operates across computer networks, primarily the Internet. Today's email systems are based on
a store-and-forward model. Email servers accept, forward, deliver, and store messages. Neither the users
nor their computers are required to be online simultaneously; they need to connect, typically to a mail
server or a webmail interface to send or receive messages or download it.
Originally an ASCII text-only communications medium, Internet email was extended by Multipurpose
Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) to carry text in other character sets and multimedia content
attachments. International email, with internationalized email addresses using UTF-8, is standardized but
not widely adopted.[2]
The history of modern Internet email services reaches back to the early ARPANET, with standards for
encoding email messages published as early as 1973 (RFC 561). An email message sent in the early 1970s
is similar to a basic email sent today.

Types
1. Web-based email
Many email providers have a web-based email client (e.g. AOL Mail, Gmail, Outlook.com and Yahoo! Mail).
This allows users to log into the email account by using any compatible web browser to send and receive
their email. Mail is typically not downloaded to the web client, so can't be read without a current Internet
connection.
2. POP3 email servers
The Post Office Protocol 3 (POP3) is a mail access protocol used by a client application to read messages
from the mail server. Received messages are often deleted from the server. POP supports simple download-
and-delete requirements for access to remote mailboxes (termed maildrop in the POP RFC's). [61]POP3 allows
you to download email messages on your local computer and read them even when you are offline.[62][63]
3. IMAP email servers
The Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) provides features to manage a mailbox from multiple devices.
Small portable devices like smartphones are increasingly used to check email while traveling and to make
brief replies, larger devices with better keyboard access being used to reply at greater length. IMAP shows
the headers of messages, the sender and the subject and the device needs to request to download specific
messages. Usually, the mail is left in folders in the mail server.
 4. MAPI email servers
Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) is used by Microsoft Outlook to communicate
to Microsoft Exchange Server - and to a range of other email server products such as Axigen Mail
Server, Kerio Connect, Scalix, Zimbra, HP OpenMail, IBM Lotus Notes, Zarafa, and Bynari where vendors
have added MAPI support to allow their products to be accessed directly via Outlook.

What Is the Difference Between Internal and External Mail?

The difference between internal and external mail is the location of the intended recipient. Internal mail is
communication via paper mail or email that is within a company. External mail is communication via mail or
email that is distributed outside the company.
Internal and external mail are typically very different in tone, style and delivery methods. Internal
communication in a business is less formal than correspondence that is sent outside the business. Internal
communication may be between people who are in close proximity or opposite ends of a building. On the
other hand, external mail is between people who are typically not in the same location.
The main purpose of both types of mail is to share information and ideas with the recipients. Internal mail is
used to share information between one or more recipients. The exchange of internal mail may be very quick
when email is used or somewhat slower when a courier is used.
External mail is most often addressed to a particular person and may not be an exchange of information.
External mail is often used to keep the lines of communication open for business purposes. External mail is
not as quick, and typically relies on the postal service. However, external mail may be in the form of email
and thus may be as quick as internal mail.

How does an email work?

To answer this question, a diagram is used to explain on how emails really work. The scenario
below is an example of a sender that uses the company account to send an email to someone at
a different company.
How email really works
Step 1: Sender creates and sends an email
The originating sender creates an email in their Mail User Agent (MUA) and clicks “Send”. The originating
sender uses software to compose and read email, such as Eudora, Outlook and so on.
Step 2: Sender’s MDA/MTA routes the email
In here, the sender’s MUA transfers the e-mail to a Mail Delivery Agent (MDA). The sender’s MTA also
handles the responsibilities of an MDA. This MDA/MTA accepts the email, then routes it to local mailboxes or
forwards it, if it is not locally addressed. In the above diagram, you will see an MDA forwards the email to
an MTA and it enters the first of a series of “network clouds”, labelled as a “Computer Network” cloud.
Step 3: Network cloud
The email can encounter a network cloud within a large company or ISP. This network cloud may include a
multitude of mail servers, DNS server, routers and other devices. Most of the time, these devices are
protected by firewalls, spam filters and malware detection software that may bounce or even delete an
email. When an email is deleted by this kind of software, it tends to fail silently, so the sender is given no
information about where or when the delivery failure occurred. Another reason why MTAs in the network
cloud are unable to deliver the mail as addressed is because the network did not identify themselves
properly to the Internet through the Domain Name System (DNS). If the network cloud does not identify
themselves properly to the Internet through the Doman Name System (DNS), the other MTAs in the
network cloud are unable to deliver the mail as addressed. Another reason why it is unable to receive an
email is because it has been taken down for maintenance.
Now most email service providers and other companies that process a large volume of email often have
their own, private network clouds. These types of organizations normally have multiple mail servers, and
route all email through central gateway server that redistributes mail to whichever MTA is available.
Normally the emails on these secondary MTAs must wait for the primary MTA to become available, at which
time the secondary mail server will transfer its message to the primary MTA.Step 4: Email queue
The diagram above shows that the email is addressed to someone at another company, so it enters an email
queue with other outgoing email messages. There will be a delay in sending the emails because of the high
volume of mail in the queue or either because there are many messages. The message will be delayed in
the queue until the MTA processes the messaged ahead of it.

Step 5: MTA to MTA transfer

As transferring an email, the sending MTA handles all aspects of mail delivery until the message has been
either accepted or rejected by the receiving MTA. While the email clears the queue, it enters the Internet
network cloud, where it is routed along a host to host chain of servers. Every MTA in the Internet network
cloud needs to stop and ask directions from the DNS in order to identify the next MTA in the delivery chain.
Now the exact route depends on server availability and mostly on which MTA can be found to accept email
for the domain specified in the address. Unfortunately, nowadays it is mostly spammers that specify any
part of the path, purposely routing the message through a series of relay servers in an attempt to distort
the true origin of the message. Because of this issue, the MTA must drill down through the DNS to find the
recipient’s IP address and mailbox.

Step 6: Firewalls, spam and virus filters

As explained in the previous step, where an email may be transferred to more than one MTA within a
network cloud and is likely to be passed to at least one firewall before it reaches its destination. An email
encountering a firewall may be tested by spam and virus filters before it is allowed to pass inside the
firewall. The purpose of this filter is to test if the message qualifies as spam or malware. The file will be
quarantined if the message contains malware and the sender will be notified. If the message is identified as
a spam, it will probably be deleted without notifying the sender.
Normally, spam is difficult to detect because it can assume so many different forms. Therefore, spam filters
test on a broad set of criteria and tend to misclassify a significant number of messages as spam, particularly
messages from the mailing list. So when an email from a list or other automated source seems to have
vanished somewhere in the network cloud, the culprit is usually a spam filter at the receiver’s ISP or
company. Let’s see what happens after the receiver’s MTA accepted the delivery. The MTA calls a local MDA
to deliver the mail to the correct mailbox, where it will sit until it is retrieved by the recipient’s MUA.

What have I learned ?

Activity 1
Directions: Answer the following questions on the space provided.

1. What is email?

2. Differentiate Internal and external mail.

What I Can Do ?

Activity 2

Discuss the following steps on how email works:

1. Sender creates and sends an email

2. Sender’s MDA/MTA routes the email
3. Network cloud
4. Email queue
5. MTA to MTA transfer
6. Firewalls, spam and virus filters

Activity 3

State the functions of the servers:

1. Web-based email
2. POP3 email servers
3. IMAP email servers
Assessment
MULTIPLE CBOICE: Read the statements carefully and encircle the correct letter of your answer.
1. A method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices.
A. Text message B. Email C. Phone call D. Chat

2. Who is the inventor of email?

A. Tim Berners Lee B. Charles Babbage C. Ray Tomlinson D. David Block

3. The email can encounter a network cloud within a large company or ISP. What step is referring to?
A. 1 B. 2 C. 3 4. 4

4. This mail is often used to keep the lines of communication open for business purposes.
A. Internal B. External C. Spam C. Flag

5. It shows the headers of messages, the sender and the subject and the device needs to request to
download specific messages.
A. ISP B. IMAP C. MTA D. MUA

6. This handles all aspects of mail delivery until the message has been either accepted or rejected by
the receiving.
A. ISP B. IMAP C. MTA D. MUA

7. The purpose of this software is to test if the message qualifies as spam or malware. The file will be
quarantined if the message contains malware and the sender will be notified
A. Filter B. Operating C. Malware D. Program

8. This is a mail access protocol used by a client application to read messages from the mail server.
Received messages are often deleted from the server.
A. IMAP B. DNA C. POP D. MAPI

9. This allows users to log into the email account by using any compatible web browser to send and
receive their email.
A. MAPI B. POP C. IMAP D. Web Server based

10. When was Ray Tomlinson developed the first system able to send mail between users on different
hosts across the ARPANET, using the @ sign to link the user name with a destination server?
A. 1970 B. 1971 C. 1973 D. 1975

REFERENCE
ICF 9 MODULE – LIVING ONLINE
Wikipedia
 MODULE 2 Understanding Email Fundamentals
TOPIC Uses of Electronic Mail

What I need to know?

At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to :
1. Identify the different uses of Email
2. Discuss the positive and negative impact of email to personal and to other aspects of
society
3. Enumerate the Limitations of Email

What Is It?

Uses of Email
1. Business and organizational use
Email has been widely accepted by businesses, governments and non-governmental organizations in the
developed world, and it is one of the key parts of an 'e-revolution' in workplace communication (with the
other key plank being widespread adoption of highspeed Internet). A sponsored 2010 study on workplace
communication found 83% of U.S. knowledge workers felt email was critical to their success and
productivity at work.[64]
It has some key benefits to business and other organizations, including:
Facilitating logistics
Much of the business world relies on communications between people who are not physically in
the same building, area, or even country; setting up and attending an in-person
meeting, telephone call, or conference call can be inconvenient, time-consuming, and costly. Email
provides a method of exchanging information between two or more people with no set-up costs
and that is generally far less expensive than a physical meeting or phone call.
Helping with synchronization
With real time communication by meetings or phone calls, participants must work on the same
schedule, and each participant must spend the same amount of time in the meeting or call. Email
allows asynchrony: each participant may control their schedule independently.
Reducing cost
Sending an email is much less expensive than sending postal mail, or long distance telephone
calls, telex or telegrams.
Increasing speed
Much faster than most of the alternatives.
Creating a "written" record
Unlike a telephone or in-person conversation, email by its nature creates a detailed written record
of the communication, the identity of the sender(s) and recipient(s) and the date and time the
message was sent. In the event of a contract or legal dispute, saved emails can be used to prove
 that an individual was advised of certain issues, as each email has the date and time recorded on
it.

Email marketing
Email marketing via "opt-in" is often successfully used to send special sales offerings and new
product information.[65] Depending on the recipient's culture,[66] email sent without
permission—such as an "opt-in"—is likely to be viewed as unwelcome "email spam".

2. Personal use

Personal computer
Many users access their personal emails from friends and family members using a personal
computer in their house or apartment.

Mobile
Email has become used on smartphones and on all types of computers. Mobile "apps" for email
increase accessibility to the medium for users who are out of their homes. While in the earliest years
of email, users could only access email on desktop computers, in the 2010s, it is possible for users to
check their email when they are away from home, whether they are across town or across the world.
Alerts can also be sent to the smartphone or other devices to notify them immediately of new
messages. This has given email the ability to be used for more frequent communication between
users and allowed them to check their email and write messages throughout the day. As of 2011,
there were approximately 1.4 billion email users worldwide and 50 billion non-spam emails that
were sent daily.[59]
Individuals often check emails on smartphones for both personal and work-related messages. It was
found that US adults check their email more than they browse the web or check
their Facebook accounts, making email the most popular activity for users to do on their
smartphones. 78% of the respondents in the study revealed that they check their email on their
phone.[67] It was also found that 30% of consumers use only their smartphone to check their email,
and 91% were likely to check their email at least once per day on their smartphone. However, the
percentage of consumers using email on a smartphone ranges and differs dramatically across
different countries. For example, in comparison to 75% of those consumers in the US who used it,
only 17% in India did.[68]
Declining use among young people
As of 2010, the number of Americans visiting email web sites had fallen 6 percent after peaking in
November 2009. For persons 12 to 17, the number was down 18 percent. Young people
preferred instant messaging, texting and social media. Technology writer Matt Richtel said in The New
York Times that email was like the VCR, vinyl records and film cameras—no longer cool and
something older people do.[69][70]
A 2015 survey of Android users showed that persons 13 to 24 used messaging apps 3.5 times as much
as those over 45, and were far less likely to use email.[71]

Limitations of Email
1. Attachment size limitation
Email messages may have one or more attachments, which are additional files that are appended to the
email. Typical attachments include Microsoft Word documents, PDF documents and scanned images of
paper documents. In principle there is no technical restriction on the size or number of attachments, but in
practice email clients, servers and Internet service providers implement various limitations on the size of
files, or complete email - typically to 25MB or less.[72][73][74] Furthermore, due to technical reasons,
attachment sizes as seen by these transport systems can differ to what the user sees, [75] which can be
confusing to senders when trying to assess whether they can safely send a file by email. Where larger
files need to be shared, various file hosting services are available and commonly used.[76][77]
2. Information overload
The ubiquity of email for knowledge workers and "white collar" employees has led to concerns that
recipients face an "information overload" in dealing with increasing volumes of email.[78][79] With the growth
in mobile devices, by default employees may also receive work-related emails outside of their working
day. This can lead to increased stress, decreased satisfaction with work, and some observers even argue
it could have a significant negative economic effect,[80] as efforts to read the many emails could
reduce productivity.
3. Spam
Email "spam" is unsolicited bulk email. The low cost of sending such email meant that, by 2003, up to 30%
of total email traffic was spam,[81][82][83] and was threatening the usefulness of email as a practical tool.
4. Malware
A range of malicious email types exist. These range from various types of email scams, including "social
engineering" scams such as advance-fee scam "Nigerian letters", to phishing, email
bombardment and email worms.
5. Email spoofing
Email spoofing occurs when the email message header is designed to make the message appear to come
from a known or trusted source. Email spam and phishing methods typically use spoofing to mislead the
recipient about the true message origin. Email spoofing may be done as a prank, or as part of a criminal
effort to defraud an individual or organization. An example of a potentially fraudulent email spoofing is if an
individual creates an email that appears to be an invoice from a major company, and then sends it to one
or more recipients. In some cases, these fraudulent emails incorporate the logo of the purported
organization and even the email address may appear legitimate.
6. Email bombing
Email bombing is the intentional sending of large volumes of messages to a target address. The
overloading of the target email address can render it unusable and can even cause the mail server to
crash.
7. Privacy concerns
Today it can be important to distinguish between the Internet and internal email systems. Internet email
may travel and be stored on networks and computers without the sender's or the recipient's control. During
the transit time it is possible that third parties read or even modify the content. Internal mail systems, in
which the information never leaves the organizational network, may be more secure, although information
technology personnel and others whose function may involve monitoring or managing may be accessing
the email of other employees.
Email privacy, without some security precautions, can be compromised because:

 email messages are generally not encrypted.

 email messages have to go through intermediate computers before reaching their destination,
meaning it is relatively easy for others to intercept and read messages.
 many Internet Service Providers (ISP) store copies of email messages on their mail servers before
they are delivered. The backups of these can remain for up to several months on their server, despite
deletion from the mailbox.
 the "Received:"-fields and other information in the email can often identify the sender, preventing
anonymous communication.
 web bugs invisibly embedded in email content can alert the sender of any email whenever an email is
read, or re-read, and from which IP address. It can also reveal whether an email was read on a
smartphone or a PC, or Apple Mac device via the user agent string.
8. Legal contracts
Emails can now often be considered as binding contracts as well, so users must be careful about what
they send through email correspondence.[89][90][91]
9. Flaming
Flaming occurs when a person sends a message (or many messages) with angry or antagonistic content.
The term is derived from the use of the word incendiary to describe particularly heated email discussions.
The ease and impersonality of email communications mean that the social norms that encourage civility in
person or via telephone do not exist and civility may be forgotten.[92]
10. Email bankruptcy
Also known as "email fatigue", email bankruptcy is when a user ignores a large number of email
messages after falling behind in reading and answering them. The reason for falling behind is often due to
information overload and a general sense there is so much information that it is not possible to read it all.
Internationalization
Originally Internet email was completely ASCII text-based. MIME now allows body content text and some
header content text in international character sets, but other headers and email addresses using UTF-8,
while standardized[94] have yet to be widely adopted.[2][95]
11. Tracking of sent mail
The original SMTP mail service provides limited mechanisms for tracking a transmitted message, and
none for verifying that it has been delivered or read. It requires that each mail server must either deliver it
onward or return a failure notice (bounce message), but both software bugs and system failures can cause
messages to be lost. To remedy this, the IETF introduced Delivery Status Notifications (delivery receipts)
and Message Disposition Notifications (return receipts); however, these are not universally deployed in

What have I learned ?

Activity 1

Directions: Answer the following questions on the space provided.

1. Can you cite some uses of Email?

2. How does email affects the business section?

What I Can Do ?
Activity 2

Directions: Give the specific problems based on the Limitations given:

1. Privacy Concerns
2. Attachment size limit
3. Email Bankruptcy
4. Email Spoofing
5. Malware

Activity 3

Directions: Cite the positive effects of Email in the following:

 1. Business
2. Personal

Assessment
Fill the Blanks with the correct answer. Write your answer in your answer sheet.

_____________1. These range from various types of email scams, including "social engineering" scams
such as advance-fee scam "Nigerian letters", to phishing, email
bombardment and email worms.
_____________2. When a person sends a message (or many messages) with angry or antagonistic
content.
_____________3. Unlike a telephone or in-person conversation, email by its nature creates a detailed
____________ of the communication, the identity of the sender(s) and recipient(s) and
the date and time the message was sent .
_____________4. Intentional sending of large volumes of messages to a target address. The overloading
of the target email address can render it unusable and can even cause the mail server
to crash.
_____________5. It occurs when the email message header is designed to make the message appear to
come from a known or trusted source.
_____________6. These are unsolicited bulk email.
______________7. The ubiquity of email for knowledge workers and "white collar" employees has led to
concerns that recipients face an __________ in dealing with increasing volumes of
Email.
_____________8. The original SMTP mail service provides limited mechanisms for tracking a transmitted
message, and none for verifying that it has been delivered or read.
_____________9. Invisibly embedded in email content can alert the sender of any email whenever an
email is read, or re-read, and from which IP address.
_____________10. Email has become used on __________ and on all types of computers. Mobile
"apps" for email increase accessibility to the medium for users who are out of
their homes.

REFERENCE
ICF 9 MODULE – LIVING ONLINE
google.com

KEY ANSWER:

Assessment 1

1. B 2. C 3. C 4. B 5. B 6. C 7. A 8. C 9. D 10. B

Assessment 2

1. Malware 6. Spam
2. Flaming 7. Information overload
3. Written record 8. Tracking of sent email
4. Email Bombing 9. Web page
5. Email spoofing 10. Smartphones
MA. RUBY P. LEDESMA
Teacher III, TVE Dept.- DMLMHS
The Writer

Published: October, 2020