Can someone please have a look at the example below and tell me if you think whether it is suitable for public viewing? Is there anything else that should be munged or do you think all the private information of the recipient are adequately munged? The [at] sign will actually published literally as an @.

From - Tue Jun 24 18:03:03 2008
X-Account-Key: account2
X-UIDL: x
X-Mozilla-Status: 0001
X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000
X-Mozilla-Keys:
X-Apparently-To: x via 217.146.183.108; Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:30:08 +0000
X-YahooFilteredBulk: 83.110.77.240
X-Originating-IP: [83.110.77.240]
Authentication-Results: mta146.mail.ukl.yahoo.com from=frontier.net; domainkeys=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 83.110.77.240 (EHLO auh-b114972.alshamil.net.ae) (83.110.77.240)
by mta146.mail.ukl.yahoo.com with SMTP; Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:30:08 +0000
Message-ID: <x[at]suhrb>
From: "garrett damrongs" <amy[at]frontier.net>
To: x
Subject: NEW Viagra Super Active !! Your Coupon #oGRyE.
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:42:39 +0000
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0006_01C8D2E2.053C8EFF"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.3138
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3198

Any input are welcome. Thanks.

Not sure why you would want to munge anything. Spammer using services in Dubai.
Remember rule #3

Bummer, did I say munged? Boy do I feel stupid now, I actually meant hidden . Sorry Merlyn, I agree, there are no real merit in munging the From address (perhaps in one or two isolated cases) and absolutely no merit in munging the Message-ID (or any other header entry) .

What I actually meant is whether this header is anonymous enough for public viewing out of the recipient's point of view. Is there anything left in the header that could be linked to the recipient of the e-mail. (Apart from getting a court order and instructing Yahoo to give you the personal details of the recipient ). I believe most of the private info is removed, just want to make sure I'm not missing anything?

Another thing I would like to know is, whether it is a good idea to publish the "From:" header entry in public. Spammers love to abuse this part by spoofing the header with real e-mail addresses of innocent victims. By publishing these in public areas, wouldn't you be exposing these e-mail addresses to more spam?

Possibly, but since spammers trade and sell lists constantly, so if it is already on one spam list, it is probably already as exposed as it is going to get.

I guess that is the case 99.999999999% of the time. The chances of clearing your e-mail address from all spam lists are most likely 1 in a trillion. But don't you think it would have some effect if we cleared the web from all the e-mail addresses lying around, waiting to be snatched by a spam harvester?

Once it is out there, it is out there. IME, there is little difference in the amount of spam to an address that is now published and an address that is no longer published on the web, but once was.

Miss Betsy

Truth. A long-term 'published' address of mine has been off the internet for years now, has not been used to send for years (although just occasionally - maybe 5 times in three years - used as a contact address in registrations) and still it attracts an apparently growing stream of spam - and has been forged 3 times in the past year as the "From:" address in major spam runs.

I was given the task to update all the registrations for our company (currently 135 domains) because there was nobody who knew how many we even had... to aid in that, I needed to re-enable a number of email addresses of previous administrators.

It is amazing to me how many legitimate IT newsletters do not re-confirm their lists. Some of these addresses had not been used for 5 or more years. At first I thought they were also ignoring bounces, but I recently determined those were never configured on our end (Postini).

A useful observation (though I wander OT) - 'legitimacy' often bears its own brand of arrogance (or perhaps 'complacency' would be kinder characterization), a failing which those of us who use email for marketing and client contact need to continually guard against. It helps in that regard to monitor effectiveness - in the case of newsletters they presumably set click-through referrer flags, cookies, whatever - and (obviously) then ignore the data. Dunno, I'm not a designated marketer, but ...