Email Spoofing

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Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 9:07 pm

So I'm baiting a lad who claims to be with the U.N. I asked him to send me an email from his official 'un.org' email address -- and he did. Now, I know how to spoof an email. In fact, I was thinking of randomly replying to some of his messages from my own 'un.org' address.

But I just realized I don't know if it's legal in the U.K. or U.S. Anyone have info on this? If it is legal, would it be ethical to do in a scambaiting context?

Just curious . . .

Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 9:21 pm

Taking into account all the email spoofers available on the internet where you can create any email address you want, I would say go ahead.

As long as you are not impersonating a genuine official from an known organization then there are no worries

Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 11:24 pm

Seems to me that you are educating the Mugu. We try not to do that because they will use it on victims.

Can't un-ring a bell...

Posted: Fri May 04, 2007 11:28 pm

^^^^What Paranoid said.. No need to get fancy.. Lads usually see words like Money...MTCN...$$$$..I'm sure you are familiar with the 'KISS' principle so please don't fall victim to the 'Peter Principle'.. Cool

Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 3:36 am

Spoofing an email only changes the 'FROM' field but the original information stays intact. It is not illegal. I don't think sending from a spoofed address teaches a lad anything about how to do it. But as the others have said, lads don't care about your address. Tell him you are the president of the UN and use the address [email protected] and he wouldn't care. Or use mail.com's "diplomats.com" domain.

Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 8:52 am

I think the OP is taking about sending a spoofed or fake Email, such as sending a lad an Email from [email protected] or something like that. Doing this will change more then the �from� info.

Depending on what your intent is, it can be considered a crime.

Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 1:31 pm

Trying to decide what is legal and what is not is a bit of a fool's game because it mostly depends on where you live and where you're sending to.

That said, in most places it's not a crime to spoof an e-mail to protect your own identity. It may be a crime if done for some other purpose, for instance, as part of a scheme to commit fraud (I think cash baiting, for example ,would fit here) or to impersonate someone like a law enforcement officer.

Good question, even if there's no really satisfactory answer.

Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 5:15 pm

You can not change the information that the server puts in the header of an email. You can log into a smtp server and using simple commands tell the server to make an email address be anything you want. But the server inserts its own data in the header to show the email route. So you can't full spoof an email to appear to come from [email protected] if you look at the headers. To spoof the whole email and headers you would have to log into the WU server.

Code:

Depending on what your intent is, it can be considered a crime.

Everything is intent. If you tell them you are from WU and ask for money, then yes it is a crime. I have sent joke emails to friends from the whitehouse and am still free.

Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 5:36 pm

How is that educating a lad? The lad obviously didn't ask the baiter how to spoof e-mails, he knew how to do it already.

Posted: Sun May 06, 2007 3:10 am

^^^My response was that the Baiter asked for a 'un.org' email address thereby telling the lad that he needed more authenticity in his scamming modality. I also qualified my post by saying, "Seems to me..."

anitamugu wrote:

I asked him to send me an email from his official 'un.org' email address -- and he did.

To me it still seems like the Baiter is teaching the scammer how to include more "veracity" in his modality. Asking for a more "believable" email addy isn't like asking for a trophy to me.

Just my opinion... Shocked

Posted: Sun May 06, 2007 7:11 pm

I agree with paranoid. I asked because I didn't think the lad was bright enough to pull if off. I thought I'd get a slap out of it. But now I realize there really wasn't any value to it. I'm just another newby doing some learning I guess. Thanks to everyone for your replies!

Not quite a Newb Joined: 25 Apr 2007 Posts: 20

There is no ethical reason i can think of not to spoof an email. The scammers are fair game for anything. if you can make them kill themselves i would consider it a result.
it is probably illegal too but so what. You could argue that scambaiting itself is illegal. do anything to them. if you can spoof an email and cause the scammer even a tiny loss as a result, go for it.

Posted: Sun May 06, 2007 9:34 pm

^^^