How to send an anonymous mail via Python script

[Chris Angelico]

On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 10:29 PM, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Sep 2013 11:36:16 +0000, Alister wrote:
>
>> To put it even more simply
>> If you have a legitimate reason to send me emails then you have no
>> legitimate reason to withhold your true Identity.
>
> "Dear Alister,
>
> Forgive this anonymous email, but I don't wish to get fired from my job
> and sued for breaking the confidentiality agreement I signed, but
> somebody needs to speak out about this matter.

There are definitely the odd times when a person needs anonymity. I do
not know of any times when an email-sending *computer* does. To send
your whistleblower email, I would recommend an HTTPS connection to
some free webmail service, or some sort of bouncer, or something - but
that bouncer can identify itself honestly to the receiver.

Same goes for other situations. I received your email, not from
pearwood.info, but from python.org - courtesy of Mailman. It's not
being sneaky about it, but the 'from' header is quite different from
the mail's actual origin. What I want to know here, primarily, is the
identity of the server who's giving me the message - ie python.org -
and MTAs will be adding tracking headers that identify that server.

(The concepts here are somewhat clouded by the c.l.py gateway, but
pick any other mailing list as your example and it'll be correct.)

ChrisA