miss addressed mail

[Paul Howarth]

On Thu, 2004-11-04 at 01:10, Mike Witt wrote:
> It seems to me like I've had this happen too. See comments
> below ...
> 
> > The following is a mail header from from a miss addressed mail I received.
> > The
> > To: is "kent sykes <ibalycejaynew at attbi.com>. This is not for me. I am at
> > r.godzilla at comcast.net. Why am I receving this mail?
> > I would like to stop such mails. Is there anyway to do this? I would
> > appreciate any help you can give me to prevent such mails?
> >
> > Return-Path: draice at pammy.com
> > Return-Path: <draice at pammy.com>
> > Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])
> > 	by localhost.localdomain (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id iA3MQ439007547
> > 	for <rmiles at localhost>; Wed, 3 Nov 2004 14:26:04 -0800
>         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 
> I'm assuming that 'rmiles' is not an alias for you, right?
> AFAIK, the "for" line (like the line above) is the only indication
> of (for example) a BCCed msg. I've gotten mail which this for
> line was NOT to any alias of mine. I don't know how this happens.

It was either:

a) a forged header,
b) the address of a mailing list you are on, or
c) some webmail services, for reasons best known to themselves, but the
address of the *sender* in that clause.

> I would really be curious if someone could comment on whether
> it's possible for someone to get a message to you without ANY
> visible indication of who it's for in the header.

Yes it's possible. MTAs will only add the "for" clause to a Received:
header when there is only one recipient address. So if someone sends
mail to two users in the same domain, you won't see a "for" clause in
the Received: headers.

Paul.
-- 
Paul Howarth <paul at city-fan.org>