Better E-Mail Anonymity
by a295225(at)hotmail, 25 June 1999
Courtesy of Fravia's pages of reverse engineering
Better E-Mail Anonymity
Abstract:
==========
This essay adds to the basic knowledge gained from
+Fravia's introduction on
his Anonymity pages. The basics of SMTP and telnet
will be used to explain
how to enhance anonymity. My experiences with alias
creation will be
referred to occasionally.
Introduction
=============
I will assume in this essay, most of what is contained
in +Fravia's own
pages has been learned and applied (you have several
aliases, and several
email accounts, not in your name). This essay will
add to that knowledge to
create a very powerful tool which for the sending
of ***very*** hard to trace email.
The first difficult task is finding a UNIX shell
account. This may be done
in two ways. One I know, the other I don't . The way
I know invloves doing
a search on the internet for
+free+UNIX+shell+accounts". The kind you
really, really want, have telnet access right away
without any verification
process. The other way is to steal it somehow, like
as in hacking the
account of someone else (I've tried, and I haven't
been able to do this).
Your goal should be to get as many accounts as you
can, even multiple
accounts with the same provider. Once you have your
accounts, pick one, and
log in with telnet.
telnet
======
Telnet is probably one of the most important tools an
internet junkie can
have. Nearly every internet service devised can be
accessed with telnet and
a knowledge of the protocol. I will only talk about
it's uses in the
current context of email and SMTP hosts. The protocol
we are interested in,
is on TCP port 25. It is called SMTP, or Simple Mail
Transfer Protocol.
This is a text based
protocol, and very simple to
learn. A sample of the
commands and steps required
to send mail is presented below and is fully
commented:
localhost$ telnet remote.host.net 25 /* open an SMTP connection
/* to remote.host.net
next, the connection banner will appear. It will
describe the host, give
some other information, and let the connecting process
know what the exact
protocol is. SMTP is good and ESMTP is not so good
(more later).
Once connected send the following: helo any.server.com /* let the SMTP host
know who is /* calling The host replies with something like: Hello any.server.com,
Pleased to meet you. /* the SMTP host thinks /* that is you Then you send: mail
from: