fix: spelling and wording improvements

I now favor American spellings.

1 files changed, 16 insertions, 16 deletions

diff --git a/rethinking-email.md b/rethinking-email.md
index a930697..4fb7e1e 100644
--- a/rethinking-email.md
+++ b/rethinking-email.md
@@ -3,10 +3,10 @@
 I am tired of the existing Internet email system, both as a sender of
 email, as a recipient, and as an operator of an email server.
 
-There's spam, scam, and the email system is getting centralised in all
+There's spam, scam, and the email system is getting centralized in all
 sorts of bad ways. This essay is about sketching what a good email
 system would look like, if it were re-designed from scratch, using
-everything we've learnt over the decades, and not necessarily using any
+everything we've learned over the decades, and not necessarily using any
 part of the existing system.
 
 As an anecdote, I am currently not on any active email discussion lists,
@@ -49,13 +49,13 @@ valuable and would like a new system to retain them.
 * Anyone can email anyone. This lowers barriers for communication,
   globally. It's especially important for free and open source software
   projects, but also to allow people all over the world to easily
-  self-organise to build a better world in general.
+  self-organize to build a better world in general.
 
 * Distributed: sender and recipient don't need to use the same server.
   Anyone can set up their own server, assuming time, know-how, and a
   little money.
 
-* Standardised: there are many implementations and they're mostly
+* Standardized: there are many implementations and they're mostly
   inter-operable.
 
 * Supports off-line use. Not everyone can, or wants to, be online all
@@ -65,14 +65,14 @@ valuable and would like a new system to retain them.
 ## Problems with the existing email system
 
 * Spam, or unsolicited bulk messages. Worse, anti-spam measures drive
-  centralisation, and are still ineffective, especially for those not
-  using one of the huge centralised providers. End result: you either
+  centralization, and are still ineffective, especially for those not
+  using one of the huge centralized providers. End result: you either
   sacrifice privacy or you get tons of spam.
 
   - Spam is a result of the desirable feature that anyone can email
     anyone, combined with the fact that sending an email costs
     approximately nothing, even if you send millions of emails, and
-    aggravated by the fact that spamming has de facto no real financial
+    aggravated by the fact that spamming has de-facto no real financial
     or legal repercussions.
 
 * Scam, or trying to convince people to do something that they shouldn't
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ valuable and would like a new system to retain them.
     great, and the big providers of email software or service tend not
     to support them, or support them badly.
 
-* Becoming centralised to a few huge providers. This is bad for
+* Becoming centralized to a few huge providers. This is bad for
   privacy and can be catastrophic for security. If one of the big
   providers gets breached, up to hundreds of millions of people's
   communications are at risk.
@@ -104,7 +104,7 @@ valuable and would like a new system to retain them.
   not widely used, and tend to also leave metadata (headers)
   unencrypted. It's difficult to hide who is sending email to whom.
 
-* HTML email is not well standardised, and is a security and privacy
+* HTML email is not well standardized, and is a security and privacy
   risk. Different email clients implement HTML in different ways, and
   the web standards are not followed very closely.
 
@@ -112,8 +112,8 @@ valuable and would like a new system to retain them.
     from the Internet, which results in more security problems (images
     are complicated data provided by a potential attacker, and just
     viewing them is a security risk) and privacy issues (the image
-    hoster will be notified when you view the email, see tracking
-    pixels).
+    hosting service will be notified when you view the email, see
+    tracking pixels).
 
     There are moves to restrict this, but the problems have been known
     since HTML email was introduced, and the problems continue to exist.
@@ -127,7 +127,7 @@ valuable and would like a new system to retain them.
   mostly don't use them routinely.
 
 * There is no good support for group discussions. Massive dumps of
-  forwarded discussions are commonplace in most large organisations.
+  forwarded discussions are commonplace in most large organizations.
   Mailing list managers exist, but they tend to be clunky, and tend to
   not be great for having discussions among large groups of people.
   They're better at sending out announcements and newsletters.
@@ -185,7 +185,7 @@ The scam problem can be stated as follows:
 * All email is digitally signed using the cryptographic keys.
 
 * No email is delivered unless it carries a digital stamp issued by the
-  recipient, or someone authorised to issue one on behalf of the
+  recipient, or someone authorized to issue one on behalf of the
   recipient.
 
 The idea for stamps comes to me from [@fedispam], who seems to have
@@ -275,7 +275,7 @@ however, allows more features:
   spammer, the spammer can't use the stamp to send me email; further, I
   will know the shop gave the stamp to the spammer
 
-As an extra twist, digital stamps may also be an authorisation to
+As an extra twist, digital stamps may also be an authorization to
 someone else to issue stamps on your behalf. Rather than the stamp
 allowing them to send you an email, it lets them create a stamp that
 lets a third party send you an email. Your email software can put any
@@ -283,7 +283,7 @@ and all the constraints it puts on stamps you issue directly on the
 delegation.
 
 For example, if you and Alfred have a mutual friend, Bruce, you can give
-Bruce a stamp that authorises Bruce to issue single-use stamps to other
+Bruce a stamp that authorizes Bruce to issue single-use stamps to other
 identities. If Bruce thinks you and Alfred should know each other, Bruce
 can issue Alfred a stamp that lets Alfred send you a single email. If
 you like Alfred, you can issue further stamps to Alfred.
@@ -391,7 +391,7 @@ title: "Re-thinking electronic mail"
 author: Lars Wirzenius
 abstract: |
   There are many problems with the existing Internet email system,
-  such as spam, scam, surveillance, insecurity, centralisation, and 
+  such as spam, scam, surveillance, insecurity, centralization, and 
   complexity. The problems are starting to outweigh
   the benefits of the system. Fixing the problems by evolving the
   current system seems overwhelmingly difficult. This essay examines