E-Mail E-Mail E-Mail

Undercover Agents - MUA, MTA, MDA
What is the best way to get e-mail?
Mailing Lists (and WebBoards)
How do I keep my e-mail address and address book forever?
MIME is a terrible thing to waste
How secure do you want your e-mail to be?
Spam - what can I do?

Mail User Agents, Mail Transfer Agents, Mail Delivery Agents


Comparison of Mail User Agents / Clients

 
Telnet Text
Web Browser
POP3 Client
IMAP Client
Example
Pine
Hotmail, MailMan
Messenger, 
Outlook Express
Messenger, 
Outlook Express
Ease of use
Fair
Good
Excellent
Excellent
Ease of setup
Good
Excellent
Fair
Fair
Speed
Excellent
Fair
Good
Excellent
Attachment handling
Fair
Good
Excellent
Excellent
Flexibility, Capability
Good
Good
Excellent
Excellent
Password Security
Good
Good
Good
Excellent
Portability
Good
Excellent
Fair
Fair

Mailing Lists - The Ins and Outs

E-Mail Address Portability - yourname@yourdomain.com

Port Your Address Book

Some address book formats used for address book importing and exporting...
 
  • Comma-separated text file - .csv  (to/from Netscape Messenger and Microsoft Outlook Express)
  • LDAP Directory Interchange Format is an open standard - .ldif  (to/from Netscape Messenger).  LDAP is Lightweight Directory Access Protocol.

  • MIME - Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions

    Security and Privacy

    Spam - What to Do

    1. Find the sender's IP address by displaying full headers in your mail reader
    2. Find the sender's ISP by looking up the sender's IP address on the web at the American Registry for Internet Numbers at http://www.arin.net/whois/index.html
    3. Find the ISP's abuse address on the ISP's web site and send them your complaint.
    4. Go after the spammer's web site the same way.  For more information see http://www.sprint.net/faq.htm and http://www.abuse.net

    An Actual Example of Spam...


    Return-Path: <zptrtc234@mauimail.com> (1)
    Received: from ashley7.net  (2)
            ([199.1.88.151])  (3)
            by sjpc.sjpc.org (8.9.3/8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA02767
            for <alan.baker@sjpc.org>; Sun, 20 Feb 2000 16:17:06 -0800
    From: zptrtc234@mauimail.com  (1)
    Message-Id: <200002210017.QAA02767@sjpc.sjpc.org>
    To: alan.baker@sjpc.org
    Subject: Your Platinum Free Vacation and Airline Tickets !!
    Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2000 19:15:55 -0500

    Platinum Travel Club Would Like To Offer You A Complimentary Vacation Of A
    Lifetime And Two Free Airline Tickets.
    Please click on   http://www.platinumtravelclub.com (4)



    Analysis of this spam...
    1. This is an actual domain, but some spammers use a completely made-up domain.  In any case it has nothing to do with the sender and is only here to mislead us.
    2. This is a fake domain name made up by the spammer.
    3. This is the sender's real IP address.   http://www.arin.net/whois/index.html shows us that this IP address is a connection owned by Sprint...

    4.  
        US Sprint (NETBLK-SPRINT-BLKA)
        13221 Woodland Park Road,
        Herndon, VA 22071
        USA

        Coordinator:
        12490 SunriseValley Drive  (SPRINT-NOC-ARIN)
        NOC@SPRINT.NET
        800-232-6895 Fax- 703-478-5471


      The ISP's http://www.sprint.net/report_abuse.htm tells us who to contact.

      4.   Given the spammer's web domain, determine its IP address and use that to find out the ISP the spammer is using.  If the web site's address is a 10-digit number with no decimal points (for example, 3633726701), go to http://www.abuse.net/cgi-bin/unpackit  to translate it to a real IP address and domain.  Otherwise...

      From a Windows or DOS computer you can find a host's IP address from its domain name or vice-versa using hostinfo.exe.  You can download this program from http://www.sjpc.org/files/hostinfo.exe.  From a Linux or OS/2 computer use the host command.

      C:\>hostinfo platinumtravelclub.com

      Official name: platinumtravelclub.com
      Addresses: 199.1.88.143

      This IP address also turns out to be owned by Sprint  - they are hosting the spammer'se web page.