[Novalug] Spam email, wondering about return/reply email

Jon LaBadie novalugml@jgcomp.com
Wed Dec 17 09:59:00 EST 2008


On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 08:24:41AM -0500, Jay Hart wrote:
> I received an email with the following header, (the email is totally spam).
> Viewing the header using Squirelmail, but I don't think that matters.  What
> I'm really asking is what address will be used if I click on 'reply', and what
> does the "Return-Path" line really mean?
> 
> Jay
> 
> Return-Path: <NLNQD6@hotmail.com>
> X-Original-To: jhart@kevla.org
> Delivered-To: jhart@kevla.org
> Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1])
>      by email.kevla.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1A292569B7
>      for <jhart@kevla.org>; Wed, 17 Dec 2008 05:21:05 -0500 (EST)

My reading says the Return-path header is added by the final
(delivery) smtp server.  It is somehow extracted from the
envelope added by the original smtp and may be distinct
from any From, or Reply-To, or ??? other lines that may
be modified by the sender's mail user agent.

The primary use of Return-path is as a destination for
delivery error notices.  It will often differ from
the other seemingly similar headers in things like
mailing lists.  You want the list admin to get delivery
error notices rather than the poster.

jl
-- 
Jon H. LaBadie                  jon@jgcomp.com
 JG Computing
 12027 Creekbend Drive		(703) 787-0884
 Reston, VA  20194		(703) 787-0922 (fax)



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