Somebody Please Help....

[Moriko Sora]

I have been accused of sending a number of emails to my best friend, which I did not send. But her family said that the emails traced back to me somehow (my address or my computer or something, I'm not really sure, they didn't elaborate). When I told them that I was not the one who sent them, they said that it is impossible for someone else to have sent the emails and still have them be traced to me. I have no way to prove I am telling the truth, and my friend will not believe me. I don't know much about computers, and I don't know what to do. Please can anyone help me?

[PCTuneups]

But it can be traced back to your ip address. There are a few possibilities as to what is happening. All of which can be determined and corrected.

The way to determine what is happening is to be able to look at and interpret the headers of the emails. Ask your friend to forward them back to you as an attachment, and if you want, you can forward them on to me and I will parse the headers to see where they originate. The crucial thing is that the full headers are available, which is why I suggest forwarding them as an attachment.

You can paste the headers here, but you are exposing email and ip addresses by doing that, so I don't suggest that route.

It is possible the emails (probably spam) did originate from your computer. Zombie computers are controlled by hackers to send spam. I spend my days cleaning out these zombies and I see what they can do.

If it's something other than spam, you likely have someone forging your email address. This is an easy thing to do, but it's not easy to forge the actual ip address.

[rocketcoffee]

IP is your internet provider...like AOL or cable.

Hope that helps,

www.rocketcoffeeroasters.com

[ofcdn]

anybody can use a ghost mail program. there are several free ones on the internet. you get to put in the e-mail that you want it to appear it is coming from and the "return e-mail." unless you contact the internet service provider, the common computer person will not know it was from you. (plus there are ways around that...which i will not post). they are fun programs, but can be used maliciously!

[Johnny Guitar]

How do they know your IP address?? IP address stands for Internet Protocol, but it is actually a unique identifier for you computer (i.e. 127.0.0.1). This could be a virus on your machine. What is the subject line of the email. Do you type the email address by hand, or is it a contact in your address book? I would do a thorough virus scan of your computer. I doubt very seriously there is a hacker in your system, although it is possible.

[ofcdn]

There are tons of e-mail spoofing programs. They don't need your ip address. All anyone has to have is the address....whoever@whereever.com....(for an example) and anyone can spoof it using a spoof e-mail program. It is bounced off any POP & SMTP server. It appears to come from the sender. Where do you think junk e-mail comes from. They are either spoofed or bogus e-mail addresses. If you don't believe me, post an e-mail address of yours (for research purposes) and with your permission I will send you an e-mail from yourself or a make believe address...such as moses@themount.com...or such.
I would only do this to educate...with permission...to prove a point.
:D