Concealing E-Mail Address

[betwilm]

I have often wondered how people can send e-mails witholding their address so you can't reply, like in junk e-mails. I wondered if it was like witholding a telephone number. How do they do it?

[j2buttonsw]

It is quite easy: I run Exchange and I can input any email address (real or phoney) as an alias. If I then emailed you you could either not be able reply (if it were a fake address) or your reply would go to the real address I put in. Either way, I would not receive reply mail. A lot of spam is "relayed" through unknowing legitimate exchange servers like this.

[redpepper]

If spam is causing you problems, you might like to have a look here: http://www.webattack.com/freeware/comm/fwspam.shtm
l some good freeware anti spam tools for download.

[WendyW]

Best thing to do with Spam is report it. I use http://spamcop.net

[darth vader]

The answer to "how do they do it?" (which was in fact the question) is a limitation of the SMTP protocol (which is used to send emails - Simple Mail Transport Protocol) where by the protocol only requires the recipients address, and is not concerned with the senders address (which is only useful for the receiving email system). Try using a telnet session on port 25 to an email server, or to your ISP - it's pretty simple to send an email, and is explained at http://www.efplus.com/techref/inet/smtpsend.htm