Interesting claims by Dr. V. A. Shiva Ayyadurai (http://inventorofemail.com ), and responses from the computing community.
http://www.sigcis.org/Ayyadurai http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/9/154586-seven-lessons-from-bad-history/fulltext Washigton Post has issued a correction to its story: "Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly referred to V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai as the inventor of electronic messaging. This version has been corrected. The previous, online version of this story also incorrectly cited Ayyadurai’s invention as containing, “The lines of code that produced the first ‘bcc,’ ‘cc,’ ‘to’ and ‘from’ fields.” These features were outlined in earlier documentation separate from Ayyadurai’s work. The original headline also erroneously implied that Ayyadurai had been “honored by [the] Smithsonian” as the “inventor of e-mail.” Dr. Ayyadurai was not honored for inventing electronic messaging. The Smithsonian National Museum of American History incorporated the paperwork documenting the creation of his program into their collection. A previous version also incorrectly stated that had Ayyadurai “pursued a patent, it could have significantly stunted the technology’s growth even as it had the potential to make him incredibly wealthy.” At the time, patents were not awarded for the creation of software." http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/va-shivaayyadurai-inventor-of-e-mail-honored-by-smithsonian/2012/02/17/gIQA8gQhKR_story.html Also, of relevance: http://gizmodo.com/5888702/corruption-lies-and-death-threats-the-crazy-story-of-the-man-who-pretended-to-invent-email http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/2012/05/shiva-ayyaduri-email-us-postal-service/ --------------- N. Ganesan
