[Closed] can you tell whre an email came from ?

if you used a webmail service on the other side of Tor I reckon you'd be OK.

Cougar probably knows better how to [s]evade capture by the security services[/s] protect one's privacy online.

Yes, you can view the header of the mail which gives you a list of the source and transit relays. You can still spoof sending a mail. Effectively all a mail program does is perform a telnet connection on port 25 using some special structure.

If you're using outlook, open the mail, go to File> Properties & you can then see the internet header for the message.

[quote=unfitgeezer ]For arguments sake if one made a fake email address with fictitious name can the receiver work out who actually sent it ? IE via ip address etc
For the record I'm not a stalker just asking usual office banter !

cut some letters out from the paper, get some pritstick and leave the note on their desk...

hot_fiat - Member

Yes, you can view the header of the mail which gives you a list of the source and transit relays. You can still spoof sending a mail. Effectively all a mail program does is perform a telnet connection on port 25 using some special structure.

way to technical for me

My brother inlaw is a computer nut. I had a potential scam from ebay where someone won the item and then started emails that basically stunk about me writing enormous cheques etc.
I don't know what he did but he managed to pin the sender down to the country of origin and then made a report to ebay on that basis.

So, it can be done, but I have no idea how.

Super helpful, I Know.

I don't know what he did but he managed to pin the sender down to the country of origin and then made a report to ebay on that basis.

so on that basis only the country can be worked out not the actual computer or internet connection that was used ?

To a point you can work out where it came from, there comes a level of detail that you might then need a court order to get beyond.

Not without a court order or something similar.

Take the UK as an example. You dial up/get assigned an IP by your ISP and they will have a record of what telephone number was assigned the IP in their DHCP logs.

Your email will probably send that information in the headers, so if you wanted to track it back, you 'd only have to find this information,then check the WHOIS database for information on who owns the block of IPs. Getting past that would be the bit that required legal intervention, but it could be done.

The whole thing falls down if you try and attribute for countries that don't care. China (as an example) more or less stops stuff at the firewall, so you know something came from China, but not which one of the billion people did it. Whether they would want to help you either is another matter, but a state owned telco would certainly know exactly wht computer did stuff.

If they are using webmail it is almost impossible now without a court order. We occasionally get threats against staff and although at one point it was possible to work out a lot of detail it's much tougher with webmail

so on that basis only the country can be worked out not the actual computer or internet connection that was used ?

Not sure TBH. Once we got as far as Nigeria we saw little point in qualifying it further.

^ all that only applies if you are using a mail client locally though surely.

If you create an email account at, say, yahoo whilst connected to their servers via the Tor network, then surely there is no recorded link between your local computer and the source of the email?

Stoner, I think you could still do it, but it would be a lot harder. Actually, a LOT harder.

The FBI can apparently track people through TOR and, as TOR is funded by the US Navy, it may have something that allows legitimate law enforcement to backtrail people (allegedly, maybe). Yahoo would also have web logs that would show IP addresses connecting to it and login details, so that part would be easy to pick up, although it would require a court order.

So, IF you could track through TOR and IF you had a court order for Yahoo, you could get an IP for the home PC/NAT router. Then it would be IF you could get a court order for the ISP IF that ISP cared and could be obliged to hand over the details.

Lots of IFs there.

so when I write my complaint to "company A" they wont know where its come from then ?

way to technical for me

Allow me to translate. "Yes, you can, to a point."

Our "hot_fiat" of this parish is bob on. An email has a body which is the bit everyone looks at, and a hidden part which is a record of everywhere it's been. When it arrives at a mail server, the server leaves its own mark as it passes it on. Email is basically the mucky woman of the IT world.

The hidden part is the "header" and will - well, should - contain IP addresses of its source, destination, and every other hop it's taken en route. By looking at that header you can see where it came from, theoretically at least.

Faking or "spoofing" an email address is trivial, but spoofing details gets increasingly difficult the farther up the food chain you go.

If you're using webmail rather than a traditional client then it's a bit different in so far as you aren't the origin of the email, the web server is. From the recipient's point of view they won't be able to tell where it's originated from; however, the service provider will have web logs showing where the sender connected from.

Though, as Matthew Broderick once said, there's ways around that.

(EDIT: sorry for repeating points made by others; the conversation moved on whilst I was typing that.)

*cough*
Sharpmail
*cough*

however, the service provider will have web logs showing where the sender connected from.

so in order for "company A " to work out if they wanted to where an email came from they would have to go to AOL or bt etc to find that info out ?

Assuming we're talking about webmail, yes.

Well, unless the service you're using does something proprietary to inject your connection details into the header, I suppose. I'm not aware offhand of any that do that (though in honesty I've not checked), but I can't immediately see any reason why it wouldn't be possible for them to do that if they wanted.

Pretty much Geezer, but it would be the police that would be doing the asking.

You don't even need a mail client or webmail account. You simply directly telnet to the recipients mail server or some open relay & away you go. You could then quite easily send messages as george.w.bush@thewhitehouse.gov. The commands are all listed out [url= https://workaround.org/ispmail/lenny/test-mail-through-telnet ]on't interweb[/url]. If you're in (or outside) a free wifi hotspot who'd be any the wiser?

Question answered we are all happy now !

laptop + 3g dongle, cash paid and used once.
i must say though, this is way below the op's usual standard of trolling

Trolling a ?troll? by calling the ?troll? a troll?

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BigButSlimmerBloke - Member

laptop + 3g dongle, cash paid and used once.
i must say though, this is way below the op's usual standard of trolling
Posted 10 minutes ago # Report-Post
gofasterstripes - Member

Trolling a ?troll? by calling the ?troll? a troll?

Was a genuine question ! why would it be a troll ?

I don't think you are, dude, hence the ?s 🙂 I can see this one has disappeared up it's own fundament, so I'm out.