How to block email from an unknown sender

[Christina Ludden]

Our organization hsa received mulitple emails from a blank/unknown sender.
No text, no subject. And since the sender is unknown we can't block it.
I've tried blocking it using the outlook junk mail settings and using McAfee
spamkiller settings. Each time the file size is 738 K. Any help would be
appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Vanguard]

Our organization hsa received mulitple emails from a blank/unknown
sender.
No text, no subject. And since the sender is unknown we can't block
it.
I've tried blocking it using the outlook junk mail settings and using
McAfee
spamkiller settings. Each time the file size is 738 K. Any help
would be
appreciated. Thanks.

There is no such thing as an unknown sender. The sender is known but it
doesn't necessarily identify who actually sent it. Look at the header,
especially the Received headers (assumably you know how to trace down
through the Received headers and stop at the first bogus one, if
present). Without giving us any information regarding the actual mails
that you receive, like the headers (munge out your e-mail address and
theirs, too, before posting), so no one can give you specific help.

--
How to post:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
http://www.newsreaders.com/guide/netiquette.html
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/emily-postnews/part1/

 

[Christina Ludden]

THere is no header. "(assumably you know how to trace down

through the Received headers and stop at the first bogus one, if
present)" No, I don't. How?

From Subject Received Size
9:08 AM 738 B
After copying and pasteing this is all I got. Thanks for the help.

 

[Christina Ludden]

Ok, I found how to view headers, and it's blank as well.

 

[Gordon]

Ok, I found how to view headers, and it's blank as well.

It can't POSSIBLY be completely blank - it must at least show the dns of the
server it's sent through.....

 

[Christina Ludden]

I will happily forward one to someone who doesn't believe me that the headers
are blank. HAPPILY.

That was good for a giggle though, thanks.

 

[Brian Tillman]

I will happily forward one to someone who doesn't believe me that the
headers are blank. HAPPILY.

OK. Select the message, click View>Options, and post the contents of that
window.

 

[Vanguard]

Ok, I found how to view headers, and it's blank as well.

If you used the View -> Options menu to see the headers, the only reason
they would be blank is if the mail was routed through an Exchange
server - but both the sender and recipient must be using the same
Exchange server (or farm of Exchange servers). You won't see the
headers for an interally routed e-mail in Exchange but then obviously
the sender cannot be bogus. The sender had to use their own mailbox on
the same Exchange server as you. Contact your Exchange admin as to who
sent you the e-mails.

If the e-mail was sent across the Internet using SMTP then there must be
headers. There would be no way to know how to route the e-mail without
the headers. Note that the "headers" is just another part of the body
of the e-mail. Many users think they are separate components of an
e-mail but headers and body are all transmitted within the DATA command
sent by the sender's e-mail program to their sending mail server.
However, the sending mail server will add its Received header(s) as will
the receiving mail server. So the sender won't be able to manipulate
the sending mail server's headers (unless the sender operates their own
mail server) and the sender won't be able to manipulate the receiving
mail server's header(s).

 

[Christina Ludden]

We don't use an Exchange server. Two more this morning.

Honestly, when I try to copy the headers it has nothing. It doesn't seem to
be doing anything, but it is a worry.

 

[Vanguard]

We don't use an Exchange server. Two more this morning.

Honestly, when I try to copy the headers it has nothing. It doesn't
seem to
be doing anything, but it is a worry.

Are you right-clicking on the mail item, selecting Options, and looking
in the Internet Headers text area for the headers?

If you don't use an Exchange server, what TYPE of mail server do you
use? POP3 maybe? Have you tried using the webmail interface to your
mailbox to see what the headers look like when reading the mail at the
server using a browser (assuming your e-mail provider, as yet
unidentified, gives you the option of viewing all the headers).

 

[Christina Ludden]

On any other message when I view the headers, as you stated, it shows the
whole list of headers, but this message when I go to the view headers the
internet headers box is browned out and empty. Our email server is POP3,
I'll check if I can get it via webmail.

 

[Christina Ludden]

Well, so much for that. Qwest doesn't have a webmail interface and when I
check on mail2web the blanks don't even show up. I'm about to give up. It's
just very strange that this just started last Thursday and we never had them
before.

 

[Vanguard]

Well, so much for that. Qwest doesn't have a webmail interface

According to http://www.qwest.com/internethelp/, you get stuck using
MSN's e-mail, and that is Hotmail. Only if you have a really old
account do you get the legacy POP3 service (see
http://snipurl.com/qkfx); otherwise, you get the HTTPmail service for
Hotmail - and that ain't POP3. Their help page specifically tells you
to configure an HTTPmail account, not a POP3 account. As I recall,
Hotmail required you to configure a global option as to how detailed
were the headers that they showed (they didn't provider a per-message
option to let you switch views with no headers and with all headers).