Subject: Untraceable Messages ?

From: Matteo Mainetti <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 18:29:40 -0500

Is it possible to change the "from:" part of an outgoing message
in such a way that there is no way to recover the real sender ?
If that is possible, everybody could sign her outgoing message with 
my name and address and send it to whomever ?!

Thanks in advance,
                              \\|||//
                    matteo      @ @
                                 |      mainetti
                                \_/

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From: [email-masked] (Sven Guckes)
Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 03:32:10 +0100 (MET)

> my name and address and send it to whomever ?!

If that was possible to fake the From: line then, yes, anyone could send
letters to someone pretending to be you.
However, this cannot be done with (good) mailers.

Unfortunately, spoofing mail is very simple to do with other programs.
If you want to make sure that noone can pretend to be you
then you should add information (eg a PGP signature)
which allows a check to be done on the contents.
Read about such things in "alt.security.pgp".

Sven

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 20:28:06 +0100 (MET)

You can change the From-Header with PINE (You have to recompile it with another seting), but PINE is 
clever on this one: It wills end an extra Header with you original address.

Take a look at this email with H (Full Headers), you will see it.

Ciao,
 Michael

> Read about such things in "alt.security.pgp".

================================================================
Michael J. Joswig              [email-masked]

The people who really run organizations are usually found several
levels down, where it is still possible to get things done.

	(Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)

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From: [email-masked] (Mr. Sarang Gupta)
Date: 7 Nov 1995 21:57:06 -0700

In article <Pine.SUN.3.91.951102182503.15355A-100000@severi>,
>in such a way that there is no way to recover the real sender ?

On our work system, if you use ELM to send someone a message, the From
line looks like:

**From sgupta Wed Dec 15 1996 [etc]

except without the two astericks (I just added those to prevent
confusion). Pine ignores this From line and the message appears to
come from a mysterious unknown user. While this is cute for roughly 10
seconds, it can also be quite annoying ("hey, why are you sending me
anonymous mail and then signing it?") especially since the Reply
command doesn't work properly ("no valid receipients for this message"
or whatever).

So, the answer to your question is: "Use ELM and hope the receiver
uses Pine"... but my question is: "OK, it's cute.. now, how do I get
around it?"

Sarang ([email-masked])

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From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 19:54:39 -0800

The short answer to your question is that Elm and/or the mailer on your
system is misconfigured.

The message delimiter line which starts with "From " is not a From: header
line.  Furthermore, a From: line is required in all RFC-822 messages.

Elm on your system is configured not to generate a From: header,
apparently assuming that the mailer will insert the missing header.  The
mailer on your system is configured not to generate missing From: headers,
apparently assuming that no user mail programs would neglect to write
proper From: headers.  Correcting either of these behaviors will fix the
problem.

> Sarang ([email-masked])

-- Mark --

DoD #0105, R90/6 pilot, FAX: (206) 685-4045  ICBM: N 47 39'35" W 122 18'39"
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.