momadukes...
This question has a more complex answer than you may think.
There are entire organizations devoted to finding out this
information, specifically in the effort to track down the
origins of 'spam', or unsolicited email, in order to report
the perpetrators to their Internet Service Providers, or
ISPs, and get them to cease their activities.
The first thing you will need to learn is how to read the
email in its original format, which includes some detailed
routing information called the email 'headers'. This will
vary with the email program you use, but the SpamCop site
has a page which lists every concievable email program,
with subsequent links to instruct you on how to arrive
at the 'headers' using your specific email program:
Just select your email program from the list, and follow
the link to the instructions:
http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/19.html
If you're using Microsoft Outlook Express 6, for example,
you'd follow the 'Microsoft Products' link to the page
that lists all the Microsoft programs, and from there,
click on the link for 'Outlook Express 4,5 and 6', taking
you to this page:
http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/119.html
Here you'll see detailed instructions for reading the
email in its original form. You won't need to follow
the last step, of copying and pasting the data, unless
you want to preserve it in a text file for easy study.
The instructions for copying and pasting are given here
so that you can send the information to SpamCop if you
are utilizing their service. While you may not want to
do this, you may want to send the data to the contacts
who can potentially stop the person who is sending
unwanted email, as we shall see later on.
Once you've 'extracted the headers', you need to learn
how to comprehend the information they contain. An
excellent page, which provides this in great detail,
can be found on the StopSpam.org site:
http://www.stopspam.org/email/headers.html
This is where things get complicated, however this page
explains things very clearly. If you pay particular
attention to the discussion of 'relaying' mail, you
will see why it is possible, and likely, that a person
who is sending you spam has utilized this protocol to
hide his true location, and may have faked (forged) his
email address, as well, which means you may be unable
to determine who actually sent it, and from where.
On the brighter side, the article goes on to point out
how most modern email programs can cut through the
forgeries and provide the IP address of the sender,
which can then be looked up using a program or website
which provides reverse DNS (domain name service) lookup.
One such website is SamSpade.org:
http://www.samspade.org
The SamSpade site was down when I checked it, but I'm
sure this is just a temporary glitch. It is normally
very reliable, and you can enter the IP address you
find in the email header and click the button that
says 'Do Stuff'. In the data that results, you'll be
able to see who owns the 'block' of IP addresses which
contains the spammer's IP address. It may also provide
an Administrator or Spam contact's email address which
would allow you to report the spammer to someone who
may be able to do something. You may also be able to
see the geographic location from which it originated.
Please do not rate this answer until you are satisfied that
the answer cannot be improved upon by means of a dialog
established through the "Request for Clarification" process.
A user's guide on this topic is on skermit-ga's site, here:
http://www.christopherwu.net/google_answers/answer_guide.html#how_clarify
sublime1-ga
Searches done, via Google:
"origin of an email
://www.google.com/search?q=%22origin+of+an+email
spamcop
://www.google.com/search?q=spamcop |
