Reading email Headers
From EDeskWiki
A header is some information which is sent along with all emails, that gives information about the sender, the sending computer, the intended recepients, and also details about the route from the source to the destination.
It provides valueable information to the recipient, regarding the authenticity of the email and the senders details.
Email headers prove to be useful to track and identify phishing, electronic spam , junk mail, fraud, forgery and other types of electronic crimes. In an e-mail, the text (body) is preceded by header lines indicating sender, recipient, subject, sending time stamp, receiving time stamps of all intermediate and the final mail transfer agents, and much more. (See RFC 822 for details.)
Example
Each machine which uses an email client, also requires an SMTP server address, through which it will send the email. Now the SMTP server is the one that logs the client machines information and sends it along with the email. The information is contained in the emails "HEADERS". Lets take a real life example.
Let us go through what the headers will look like.
Received: from (abcd.com [209.XX.XXX.83])
by mx.google.com with ESMTP id n22si527789pof.2007.04.20.03.46.22;
Fri, 20 Apr 2007 03:46:22 -0700 (PDT)
This is the SMTP servers time and details stamp. Note here how we are able to obtain the IP Address of abcd.com server ([209.XX.XXX.83]) and also able to see which mx record it is routing to. For MX Records see: [1]
Microsoft CDO for Windows 2000
Which means that you are using a Windows 2000 family machine or the server has a windows 2000 family OS that is either Windows 2000 Server or Windows 2003 server.
This reveals a host of details about the sender to the recepient, in a very simple way. Which means even if you are trying to mask your email id, the recepient will still be able to identify from where you have sent this email.
Of course, if you send it through the outlook express of your machine, then it will give the recepient, your machines information.
The best work around for this would be that you use a web based email account like gmail / yahoo / hotmail / eDesk Online, from its web interface, which will make the headers always point to the SAME providers servers, no matter from where you will be sending from. So that potential trouble makers will target the eDesk Online server, which is virtually invincible.
