From John Carney
Anyone who thinks that “spoofed” headers is a reliable indication of spam is living in a fantasy world (7 February, p 26). Spoofing email headers is a legitimate and widespread practice. In fact, many small businesses and individuals with private websites would have difficulty operating otherwise.
It is not unusual for someone to host their domain name with one company and use another ISP for their dialup or broadband connection. It is also not unusual for ISPs to block outgoing connections to external mail servers. In these cases the only way for you to send an email “branded” by your domain name is to “spoof” the address it comes from. It should be pointed out that spoofing is hardly an arcane practice – all email software lets you enter whatever you please for the sender address when you configure your account.
Melbourne, Australia
