With a few threads discussing spammers at the moment and how they are getting smarter in the way they try and steal from you. I thought it might be prudent to show members something that can assist, if you are unsure about an email you receive.

Inside each email is a heap of 'hidden code', one thing this code has, is the IP address of the sender. Once you know how to access that code and check an IP address for its geo-location, it can assist in determining if an email is spam.

Note that IP addresses can be made to appear like another, so do not rely on this as a sole source of determining if an email is legitimate or not, but it can help.

In this example, I will show screens for Yahoo and Outlook. If you use other software, you may need google assistance in how to get to the header information, embedded within the email.

Now, inside each email is a hidden header, that header contains all sorts of information about the email, sender, etc. The bit we are going to look for is the senders IP address.

Here is a Yahoo email (spam) that I received, as an example. It is obviously spam, but in some cases, people can be unsure.

email.jpg

In Yahoo to access the header information you click the tools menu (the little cog) and then choose 'view full header',
email-header-access.jpg
and the following pop-up displays. As you can see it is mostly unreadable code, but there is in amongst that, some useful details.
email-header.jpg

If you scroll down through the header details you will find an originating IP address (this is the IP address of the sender of the email, or their ISP at least. Once you have an IP address, you can geo-locate the sender.
email-originating-IP-address.jpg