EMAIL TRACING AND SPOOFING

Abstract : E-mail spoofing is the forgery of an e-mail header so that the message appears to have originated from someone or somewhere other than the actual source. Distributors of spam often use spoofing in an attempt to get recipients to open, and possibly even respond to, their solicitations. Spoofing can be used legitimately. Classic examples of senders who might prefer to disguise the source of the e-mail include a sender reporting mistreatment by a spouse to a welfare agency or a "whistle-blower" who fears retaliation. However, spoofing anyone other than yourself is illegal in some jurisdictions. In this report we will study some ways of email spoofing as well as ways of tracing the spoofed email back.
1. INTRODUCTION

Spoofing refers to the act of using imitation to make parody of another work of media or entertainment. Similarly, in the digital world too, the word spoofing is used to highlight the act of tricking and fooling the unaware netizens through utterly believable imitations of trusted service providers.
Spoofing is basically of 4 types:
1) URL spoofing
2) Referral spoofing
3) Caller ID spoofing
4) E-mail address spoofing
In this report we will be dealing with only email address spoofing.This will include a detailed study of the techniques used in spoofing and the techniques used to trace the spammers indulging in the malicious act of email spoofing.

2. EMAIL SPOOFING

Email spoofing is the act of sending an email that shows an incorrect and inaccurate “From:” line. This means that someone receiving an email may believe it has come from a person or service he or she knows, when really the email may originate from somewhere else. These types of email spoofs are often used as part of a “phishing” scheme that also typically involves some time of URL spoofing as well.
For example, an attacker could send a