Headers contain a wealth of information about your email. They tell you which machines handled your message, and how long they took to send it to you. They can tell you who sent the message, and who it was destined for. However, headers can be misleading. It is fairly simple to write fake headers, which obscure information about the sender, recipient, and the machines that handled the mail.
Spammers frequently use fake headers to confuse the people they spam.
And because so few people know how to read headers, it often works. A working knowledge of email headers can help you track spam to its source, which makes it easier to stop spammers in their tracks. Here, we will analyze four examples of email headers. Two are from valid emails and two are forged headers from spams. Click here to continue learning about valid email headers Click here to learn about forged headers For more information, the Forum for Responible and Ethical Email, SpamFree.org , has links to additional resources that can assist you in reading email headers.