A little less conversation

Just today I had a nice little conversation about my subject. Thought it might be interesting for others as well.

She: Hey! How are you?
Me: Oh well... still alive, I think. That’s the most important, isn’t it?
She: And what are you doing?
Me: You know, I’m doing my bachelor thesis right now.
She: Really? So you‘re nearly done studying!
Me: Na! I’m still in the research phase. Nothing solid yet.
She: Ow! But it’s half term now. What’s it about, then?
Me: Oh, I’m doing a policy analyses on German technological issues, on the example of the mail system - well actually “written conversation” is more accurate.
She: Ow! That sounds so awful boring. I could never write about something like that. Why are you doing that?!
Me: You know, I was never interested in such things as health policy, social policy, party analyses... I just stick to my subjects and that’s technology.
She: But Is there anything to write about, at all? Isn’t there anything more easily for you to write about??
Me: Oh, but it’s a very important subject! We once even had a ministry for that! So I figured there must be something to write about. You know, we have the freedom of speech and opinion - okay the freedom of press is probably a subject on its own - but there still is the privacy protection. Our constitution says that the state wouldn’t count, read or violate the mail he delivered. Nowadays the post is a private cooperation; still the privacy of correspondence is still intact. Article 10 of our constitution guarantees that ...
She: You can recite the articles of the constitution?! I barely know the first one...
Me: Oh, I researched it of course! It was first introduced in the Hesse constitution in the middle of the 19th century and then, when another constitution had to be written, reappeared regularly until it became one of the eternal rights in our national constitution, the basic laws to the Federal Republic of Germany - at least that’s what the books say - It states there, that our correspondence isn‘t to be touched. That it has to be delivered directly, without being delayed, registered or read and so on.
She: Right... So?
Me: It guarantees that the bill for your car, that you signed to make the buy legal and have to send back originally to get the car, keeps being a private matter. That none registers what kind of car you own, how expensive it was, therefore how wealthy you must be and not who you are corresponding with. That‘s private and there is no reason why anyone needs to know that.
She: Fine. ... So, since you know so much about that, can you explain me, what it is with this new electronic mail-system (ePostbrief) by the national post office (Deutsche Post AG) is all about? It’s a bit confusing to me right now.
Me: Oh, that‘s exactly what I‘m aiming for! Should I...?
She: Yes, of course!
Me: But, that’ll take a bit longer...
She: I’m fine.
Me: Okay. ... For beginners let’s start with the regular e-mail.
She: Is it like that?
Me: Not just like that... You might know, that if I use a mail account called “littlegirl19” for example, it’s possible to tell whether the mails are send by me or someone else. But that also means that I could easily use your name and create a new mail account.
She: Right...
Me: There would be no one asking me, if I’m really who I’m pretending to be. In that way I could send e-mails in your name, fooling around, without anyone recognising that it‘s not you writing spam.
She: Wow!
Me: So there is no saying, if the persons holding a conversation with each other are real or not. That’s unsecure and suspicious.
She: Yeah.
Me: And on top of that, e-mails are never originals. You can’t sign them, they are easily hacked, read, spied on and so on. To avoid that, you need encryption software, signing tools and ... you know, do you have any of those?
She: No, that’s way beyond me.
Me: See? And you are not the only one! We are all using e-mail. It‘s easy, cheap, fast, everyone has an account... but also unsecure and not legally valid. If you‘d try buying a car, you can’t sign the form unless you have the necessary tools and experience to use them. Then you can’t be sure if the guy on the other side is the real person and the other way around he doesn’t know if you’re real. The government knows that and it knows that it’s not reasonable to leave it to the people to find a proper solution.
She: Yeah. Would be great to have it all as easy as e-mail. It’s so simple!
Me: Yep. So the government called GMX, Web.de, Telekom and the national post office together at one table and discussed what to do. There were many proposals, like to automatically encrypt the communication and identification with your ID, however when everything was done and the concept of “de-Mail” was done, the national post office hopped off and build its own gateway. You know, why letting them build something, you could build on your own as well?
She: And that’s this ePostbrief? They stole it?!
Me: Yes. Though, it’s a bit different: In addition to the original you can also send mail from online to offline.
She: Yeah. I heard about that. But isn’t that a good thing? You save time and money, when the letter is send via internet to the local post office, then gets printed and delivered the last mile, while a normal letter has to be delivered throughout the country.
Me: Sure. At least that’s what they promised. So far I couldn’t try it and there’s probably a catch to it. However, it’s not legally valid or at least in some grey zone. So no car buys here either.
She: Hmm...
Me: At the CeBit this year I was explained to how the de-Mail thing was supposed to work. It at least sounded better. First, you can open an account with most of the German mail provider. Are you with Web.de or GMX? Maybe Telekom?
She: No.
Me: Never mind. If you were, you probably would have noticed the new button to create a de-Mail account. However, using a de-Mail account works a bit different to e-Mail. You can’t use mail clients to access your de-mails for starts. That’s because clients like Thunderbird or Outlook can easily be hacked and when that happens all mails and related information like timetables etc. can easily be spied on. Instead you have to log in via your browser, like you probably do with your normal mail account.
She: Yes.
Me: From there on everything looks the same but actually is encrypted. The connection, the server, the mail, the transfer... I can’t tell you what, but at the other end there must also be someone with a de-Mail account to receive your mails. And if you need to communicate extremely secure - because you’re sending important files for example - de-Mail promises you can identify with a one minute valid PIN you would receive on your mobile. And if you use that, the other one needs to do that as well every time he wants to read those mails.
She: That sounds complicated again. I like the normal e-mail better.
Me: That depends, I think. However, both new mail systems’ weak point is the browser, which can be hacked as well as the clients and it’s not yet running smoothly. So we have to wait and see, what’ll happen about that.
She: Hm. I think normal letters have something special to them. Why even bother about such things?
Me: You know when in the 16th century, the first regular post service was established; people recognized that communication became faster. Trading became therefore more profitable and administrating a state via orders and laws more easy and effective. For those advantages the communication-network called “post” gained more and more importance.
She: But who is nowadays using mail delivery anyway?
Me: Lawyers?
She: Ha-ha. No, honestly. No one’s using the post anymore. Take unemployed poor (Hartz IV-Empfänger) for example...
Me: Oh, they especially!
She: ...?
Me: They have to send their job applications all by post, especially because of the credentials.
She: Stop kidding.
Me: I’m not doing statistics here, but for most jobs (especially in the low-income and craftsmen sector) it’s still common to send hardcopies, rather than e-mails.
She: But it’s possible to apply via e-mail. Why not sending applications online?
Me: Yes of course. And it’s done, not only by mail but all sorts of ways. However, you can’t send originals. At best it’s a scanned copy. However, neither the ink nor a seal or anything, that could prove its authenticity, could be real then.
She: Sure. But we’ve already been there.
Me: Try to look at it from this perspective: decades ago you had to send letters for every kind of conversation. Nowadays this isn’t necessary anymore, because there are other ways to do it. To ask something like: “Do we really meet at 12 at the library?” we would nowadays send an e-mail or just a simple text. In the old times you had to write a formal letter, pay the postman and hope the letter arrives in time. New technologies are far more efficient!
She: Yes.
Me: However, originally they weren’t meant to do business. Just conversation - small talk - like that. And that’s what you recognize to be the difference between writing a letter and a mail.
She: Yeah. A letter is far more formal. It has some kind of dignity to it.
Me: Sure. And when you look at an a-mail, that’s been passed from one to another, replied and forwarded dozens of times, it becomes a hard to comprehend chain letter. Not to mention all the software caused comments, like commercials and technical details about the mail properties.
She: A real letter has at least a professional looking layout.
Me: Yes, and you can have things like a special imprinting or water sign, not to mention the effect of a perfumed love letter. You see, it’s not a better way to send messages or an alternative; it’s another way to send massages, with certain advantages over some way as well as certain disadvantaged compared to others. Take Facebook for example...
She: I hate Facebook...
Me: Never mind, it’s just an example. - ... real social networks are of course different to the networks you build on the internet. In reality your community consists of real friends, who’ll catch you if you fall. Your online so called „social network“ - even though it maybe consists of hundreds of so called „friends“ - won’t even notice your problems.
She: Right. Those are no friends.
Me: But the mistake is, that we take “friends” as friends. For Facebook friends are all kinds of connections, because it is indifferent about different kinds of relationships. Your brothers and sisters have probably a different relationship to you, than me, your professor, your future husband may have or your children could have, not to mention your real friends. However, Facebook allows you to stay in contact. It also is the perfect way of sharing information, pictures, movies and more. You can not only tell people what you like most, but also what is good, so that your contacts have a look as well. However, in spite of everything it can it can’t replace a face-to-face chat, a hug or a kiss. But that’s not what it’s meant for. And it’s the same with post, e-Mail and ePostbrief respectively de-Mail. One is meant for conversations the other is ideal for business. However, if there is a better way to do it, we have to make up our mind about that.
She: I still, can’t stand Facebook. And I still think this new mail stuff is too complicated.
Me: Never mind. By the way: Facebook will release another kind of messaging, just like e-Mail. They promised it’ll be easy...
She: Uff.
Me: Yeah. We’ll see about that.

;)