Reading Email Message Headers

What are Headers?
Headers are e-mail's equivalent of a postal envelope: It indicates the address of the sender, the address of the recipient, and the date the message was dispatched. But headers are even more informative. In some respects they resemble a suitcase covered in stickers from every country visited, because headers also include the name and location of every computer through which the message passed in its journey from the sender to the recipient.

Each email message has headers, but since headers look like confusing gobbledygook, many email software companies have hidden them far from view. This of course makes it more complicated to access them, particularly when you need to troubleshoot a problem, or to report a spam complaint. Because the "From:" line is the most easily falsified part in an email header, making it largely useless for investigative purposes, complete headers are absolutely required in order to accurately investigate spamming incidents.

What do Headers look like?
Here is an Example:

Received: from Mary [192.96.15.26] by arespond.com with ESMTP
(SMTPD32-7.10) id AEC487F00F4; Sat, 01 Nov 2003 21:49:24 -0600
From: "Mary" <mary@arespond.com>
To: <management@arespond.com>
Subject: To the Management of A-Respond
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2003 16:56:50 +1300
Message-ID: <PDEJIMBNKCGFHDIMKNGIAEELDAAA.mary@arespond.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0)
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106
Importance: Normal
X-RCPT-TO: <management@arespond.com>
Status: U
X-UIDL: 322372628

Netscape 3.03 and earlier
Netscape Communicator
Internet Mail for MSIE 3.0
MS Outlook 98
MS Outlook 2000
Pine (unix)

Netscape 3.03 and Earlier

While looking at the mail message, choose the Options Menu.
Click on Show Headers.
Click on All.
Click on the Forward button at the top.
Enter abuse@arespond.com in the To: line.
Click Send.

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Netscape Communicator

While looking at the mail message, choose the View Menu.
Click on Headers.
Click on All.
Click on the Forward button at the top.
Enter abuse@arespond.com in the To: line.
Click Send.

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Internet Mail for MSIE 3.0

While looking at the mail message, choose the File Menu.
Click on Properties.
Click on the Details tab.
Click on the Message Source button.
Highlight the whole message. (You can also click onto some of the text, then click your right mouse button and choose Select All.)
Hold the Control key and press C. This will copy the text into memory. (You can also click the right mouse button and choose Copy.)
Close the Message Source window.
Click OK to close the Properties window.
Click the Forward button.
Type abuse@arespond.com in the To: box.
Click at the top of the text of the mail message.
Hold down the Control key and press V. (You can also click the right mouse button and choose Paste.) This will paste the text you copied a few steps ago into the message.
Click Send.

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MS Outlook 98

Open the email message from the Inbox.
Choose the View Menu.

Click on Options

In the window that opens, there will be a text field called Internet headers. Highlight all the text in that field. (You can also click your right mouse button and choose Select All.)

Hold the Control key and press C. This will copy the text into memory. (You can also click the right mouse button and choose Copy.)

Click Close to close the Message Options window.

Click the Forward button on the open email message.

Type abuse@arespond.com in the To: box.

Click at the top of the text of the mail message.

Hold down the Control key and press V. (You can also click the right mouse button and choose Paste.) This will paste the text you copied a few steps ago into the message.

Click Send.

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MS Outlook 2000

Click once on the message in your Inbox to select it (but don't open it).

Click the right mouse button, choose Options...

In the window that opens, there will be a text field called Internet headers. Highlight all the text in that field. (You can also click your right mouse button and choose Select All.)

Hold the Control key and press C. This will copy the text into memory. (You can also click the right mouse button and choose Copy.)

Click Close to close the Message Options window.

Double click on the spam message in your Inbox to open it.

Click the Forward button.

Type abuse@arespond.com in the To: box.

Click at the top of the text of the mail message.

Hold down the Control key and press V. (You can also click the right mouse button and choose Paste.) This will paste the text you copied a few steps ago into the message.

Click Send.

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Pine

Before you forward a message, do this first:

Press M to go to the Main Menu.
Press S to go to Setup.
Press C to configure Pine.
Go to the enable-full-header-cmd and press X to set it.
Press E to exit, and Y for Yes if it asks to save changes.

To actually forward the message:

While looking at the mail message, type H to show all headers.
Press F to forward.
Press N to forward it normally (not as an attachment).
Type abuse@arespond.com in the To: box.
Hold the Control key, and press X.

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