Thread: Fake Email Advice

Originally Posted by crazy

Hi all,
A friend of mine has had emails sent out to some of his clients/suppliers in an email address that is his the same as his name from gmail and "signed" by my mate.
Now these emails go along the lines of "i want work" to "what's happening with our contract" etc
We "assume" it is all comming from his previous employer as one of the emails sent would have no other way of knowing the address.

My question is the only way to obtain his email is to send one to this address and include a picture that they have to download. that picture would be hosted somewhere that is of course only linked to that email and we have access to the ip accessing it.

Is this a legal way to do it or is it a form of entrapment(which i don't think we have here)??

My thinking is it's all to do in the context of the sting email.

Any thoughts on this ?

It makes no difference if they are being sent by gmail the originating IP address is still visible in the header of the email itself , gmail , hotmail etc don't make the sender anonymous., if you open the email click view all headers and the IP address will be there.

As far as legalities are concerned the internet is not government owned or regulated , just like if you send me an email with a legal disclaimer on the bottom like a lot of people do saying "this email is for the intended recipient only etc" it means absolutely nothing at all , I could forward that email or even publish it all over the internet without breaking any laws.

The internet is made up totally of privately owned systems and networks , so once something leaves your network it becomes the property of whoever receives it to with it whatever they want.
ISP,s usually have restrictions on what you can use "their" network for , if the person sending these scam emails is doing it via his ISP he more than likely is breaking the terms and conditions or acceptable use policy he has with them.
But then you still have to prove he is doing something wrong ,publishing pictures , opening an email account that may contain someones full name is perfectly ok.

Originally Posted by Joey

It makes no difference if they are being sent by gmail the originating IP address is still visible in the header of the email itself , gmail , hotmail etc don't make the sender anonymous., if you open the email click view all headers and the IP address will be there.

Fastmail is anonymous you won't find your IP in their headers.