e-mail through proxy server

ankur8819

Hi friends,
Actually i was watching some news channel some days back and was listening about those tragic serial bomb blasts in ahemdabad..I heard that some investigations revealed that the emal was sent through a hacked account and there was something like "it was sent through a proxy server"..!!
what exaclty does that mean ??? i Mean sending email through Proxy servers...and please explain the concept of proxy servers too..what do they serve...what exaclty are these..and whats their use in positive and negative sense !!!

Another question...how can one track the mail sent to some Pc...yeah i know the answer would be through IP address....but like as i receive a mail in my iNBOX I FIND NO "ip address" thing in the whole mail....
how can i know the IP ADDRESS OF THE computer which sent me the mail??

The_Big_K

Alright.

Let me explain the concept of 'proxy'. You know, in college we ask our friends to be our proxy in boring lectures. So your friend attends the class, answers the roll call for you while you gulp cola/pepsi in the canteen.

Proxy servers are similar - they do the stuff on behalf of you!

I'll leave it there for our talented CS engineers to take the topic further.

About finding IP addresses in emails - you've to dig into the headers of your email.

For example in gmail - follow these steps to see the full headers -

1. Log into your account.
2. Open the email you want to view headers for.
3. Click the 'down' arrow next to 'Reply' button on top right corner of mail.
4. Click 'Show Original'.

There you go!

esakiraja

Proxy is nothing but a server which lies between client application, such as browsers, and a real server. It intercepts all requests to the real server to see if it can fulfill the requests itself. If not, it forwards the request to the real server. Apparently its nothing but an intermediate between the browser and web server.

Proxy servers mainly serves 2 purpose
1) improving the performance and saves bandwidth
2)Filtering the unwanted requests.

gauravtiwari89

Proxy server is a server which is chosen to sit between the browser(client) and the actual server,ie: it creates a diversion for the data arriving to the client.

What actually Happens is that the server from which you are recieving the data sees the ip address of the server is between, thus you can say that your identity is hidden.
Proxies are basically used for purposes such as secured data transfer , but they sometimes backfire .. for eg: in institiutions where the internet is governed by firewalls, you can use proxy to view the blocked content , without anyone knowing..

koli

I think Ankur is talking about the case of recent bombings in Gujrat. Police caught some visitors (non indians) from New-Bombay. Police tracked the email sent by attaker and they got hold of an IP through email trace.

ashish007greats

Alright.

Let me explain the concept of 'proxy'. You know, in college we ask our friends to be our proxy in boring lectures. So your friend attends the class, answers the roll call for you while you gulp cola/pepsi in the canteen.

Proxy servers are similar - they do the stuff on behalf of you!

I'll leave it there for our talented CS engineers to take the topic further.

About finding IP addresses in emails - you've to dig into the headers of your email.

For example in gmail - follow these steps to see the full headers -

1. Log into your account.
2. Open the email you want to view headers for.
3. Click the 'down' arrow next to 'Reply' button on top right corner of mail.
4. Click 'Show Original'.

There you go!..................................

ankur8819

tell me some proxy servers to send emails!! and the problem is that if proxy server hides my identity then how come you track the IP address...???
i mean if the receving server sees the Ip address of the proxy server then how come original sender be traced???
hey isthis proxy server somewhat related to VPNs??? i think the concept is same!!

Rahuljam

Hi ,

Proxy server is a server that does not allow direct contact between the client (not necessarily a browser) and the server to which we are connecting.

It is use to isolate two network from each other. Which is not possible with the help of firewall. Firewall allows direct connectivity between two machines that are communicating with the rules that are applied on the firewall.

Proxy acts on Application layer of OSI model whereas Firewall generally (not necessarily )works with layer 3.

Hence Proxy is supposed to be more secure than firewall (it provides physical isolation).

Now proxy can be a web proxy, mail proxy , CVS proxy ...... likewise...

It also acts as bandwidth saver (as web proxy) by caching data for specified amount of time.

HOwever even with proxy it is possible to trace the ip address of the sender or the culprit. It has its own authenticaction, ACL and log mechanism to store the records.

At the same time if you use ids like yahoo , gmail ot hotmail, it may not be possible to trace the location of the sender unless and untill law enforcement aencies comes into picture.

gautam2503

ok... got proxy n firewall..but can anyone tell me how to bypass a server which is using a proxy as well as a firewall????