[Spambayes] questions

[Jeff Epler]

On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 04:56:36PM -0000, John Gleave wrote:
>    I don't know if you will reply to this.  I wonder if you can tell me how
>    (porno) emails get through to my mailbox when they are actually addressed
>    to someone else?  (cjreeves or cjreid or similar)?Thanks for anything you
>    can tell me!
>    C Gleave

The names in the "To:" and "Cc:" lines mean very little.  In the mail
software you use there is probably the ability to fill out a "Bcc:"
field, which is a list of people who get the message but who are not
listed in the headers of the message (blind carbon-copy).   Mailing
lists use this fact to send mail that is From: me and To: the mailing
list, but which is delivered to your mailbox.

If you are directly interfacing with SMTP (as spammers do), there's no
need for the names listed in the "To:" and "Cc:" lines to even get a
copy of the message.  SMTP looks in a different location (the "rcpt to"
lines of the SMTP conversation) for the list of people it will deliver
the message to.

Jeff