Finding IP?

Question

If I sent some one an e-mail using my friends redundant address, would the recipient be able to find out that it was really me? Can they find my IP?
I'm not a fraudster by the way, it was valentine messages!

Thanks for your answers, boy I'm blushing now!

Answer 1

You can hide your IP, domain and email address.

The best way to do it is to write your own email program (Its not actually that difficult) and then use an anonymous relay server.

You can even spoof the email return/reply address to that of the recipient (very confusing to the recipient, it looks like they sent it.)

The trace IPs are in the headers of the emails (what you cant normally see) . However unscrupulous relay servers can (if requested) replace or delete header segments to give a false trace.
These traces are called hops, it takes from 2 to 10 hops (servers) to get to a destination domain you can normally track the path of an email using the hop addresses (IPs)

Ultimately yes you can hide your IP address
(but you need to know what you are doing)

Hope this helps.


Addendum, I noticed some other comments indicating that your email address is always traceable, This is not the case.
It is quite easy to get another server or PC to send the email on your behalf and therefore it would not have your IP address against it, depending on the depth of logging this is untraceable.

Answer 2

Not really, the IP is only read by the host, for example in GMAIL the IP is read only from Google because, you send a message to Google and Google sends it to the receiver, so their is no direct connection. Someone can find your IP with a direct connection, for example peer-to-peer programs. This requires, IP forwarding to work, I think.

Answer 3

Yes you can trace any IP address, your IP address is unique to your machine any and each time you log on, ask yourself can anyone have the same telephone number at the same time in this world? The answer is no, the answer is the same for your IP address, no one else in the world can possibly have the same IP address as you in this world at the same time as you. You can hide your IP address behind a proxy server, """BUT"" the proxy server will know your original IP address, so , to be true you are never invisible, also for your information, the proxy server will also have 'cached' (kept) all of the data that you have passed through it for economical reasons. Just think of an IP as a phone number, and we all know that any phone number can be traced to a time and place.

Answer 4

Yes, any e-mail sent contains an IP address, even when sent on Yahoo, Gmail etc. However, even if the sender did discover this address, the only way they could trace it back to you would be if they knew that was your exact IP address or else they would need the police or Internet Service provider (ISP) to trace it to an exact address.

Answer 5

It is normally possible to track someone's IP address but they really need to know what they're doing.

Answer 6

It all depends on the server that they're using. I'm sure there is a way to manipulate it, but if you're worried about them finding out who it was from (ie a love letter or something secret), then they'd only be able to find out your address at most. And I doubt that someone would do that just to find out about a valentine.

Answer 7

Creed4545 is correct... the email can be traced back to the ISP that provided the internet connection when it was sent. However, it would require a court order to the ISP to release the costomer using that IP at that exact time.

Answer 8

If this email account is Web based, like hotmail or yahoo or gmail... then no they cant trace it back to your IP address.