Originally Posted by Wella
Thanks for the tip about checking out the source code, though. I doubt I'll ever use it, but still, it's interesting.  |
See the problem I find with looking at the title or subject line of the email is it smacks too much of ...of ... well I'm not sure what word to use but it's sort of like basing your decision on things the other party "won't do".
Blizzard won't do this ... Blizzard won't do that ..... Timmy wouldn't shoot Bill in the foot .....See where I'm going with this ?
It depends solely on you making the correct judgmental decision at the right point.
Looking at the source code of the email itself is like looking at the physical evidence itself. The "smoking gun" if you will. You don't have to depend on making the right decision to judge if the email is legit or not.
You're looking at exactly where the email actually come from. It's not subject to interpretation as once you've practiced how to do you can do it pretty quickly.
If on Gmail open up the message and go to the drop down on the right (little triangle) and select "Show Original"
Look straight at the "Return-Path" field. If in doubt then move to "X-Originating-Email" and failing that then check the receive history.
Once you've done this a few times for a few fake emails those 2 fields filled out with something strange just pops right out at you like something you can't fail to notice. Often times I just look for a hotmail.com address.
"Return-Path" is the field that is right at my eye level when I open up the source code of the email on Gmail
