Have you ever wondered exactly where that spam or abusive email came from?
It's
not always possible to trace an email's origin but you can get really close. While you may not be
able to locate the exact sender, you may be able to locate the server
from which it originated and then be able to file an abuse complaint.
This article is written under the assumption that you are using Outlook
Express.
1. Please CLICK HERE
to read our disclaimer before getting started. Be sure to read through
this entire article before you actually start and if you DO NOT feel comfortable performing these steps, then STOP and DO NOT PROCEED any further.
2. Open the email you want to track and then click menu "File -> Properties":
3. Click on the "Details" tab to view the internet header information for that message:
4. You can copy and paste the header
information into a text document to make it easier to read. But if
you'll examine about the top 10 lines or so, you'll notice several
entries that start with the word "Received". These "Received" entries represent the number of mail server hops that email has taken before it reaches your mailbox. The "Received" entry closest to the top of the header information is usually your internet service provider's mail server. The "Received" closest to the "From" line entry is usually (but not always) the culprit you're looking for.
5. Now examine the "Received" section that is located closest to the "From" line entry and look for sets of numbers that represent IP addresses . In this case we see "10.10.142.201" and "65.243.133.29".
We already know that IPs beginning "10" as the first octet
are private IP addresses and thus will be virtually impossible to
trace. IPs that begin with "192" as the first octet are also private IP
addresses and likewise will be impossible to trace. However, we do have
a hit on "65.243.133.29".
NOTE: The IP address numbers in your email's header will be different!
6. Armed with that "65.243.133.29"
IP address, go to the following website where you can conduct a
thorough investigation and find out all sorts of information about who
that IP belongs to, what city it is located in, and maybe even an email
address to which you can file an abuse report. Unfortunately, in this
particular case, they've made it quite difficult but one can glean
enough useful information.
7.
Using this technique to trace email origins requires a bit of practice
but if you'll try this on other emails you'll see how quickly you can
get the hang of it.
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