Email Issues and Good Practice:

• Use BCC (blind copy) when sending a message to a large and/or diverse group of people. From the recipient's perspective this makes the message much shorter (and easier to read) because the other recipients' addresses cannot be seen. This also serves to protect the privacy of the recipients who have been "BCC-ed".
  • Outlook and Outlook Express do not provide the BCC capability by default (that is, when they are first installed). Instead, you have to turn on this function by hand (it's easy but not intuitive):
    • When viewing the "New Message" window, click on the "View" menu item and select "All Headers".  This will open up a BCC address area (which is used exactly like the normal TO and CC address areas).
• Outlook and Outlook Express (a component of Internet Explorer) are simple and easy to use, but they have been unusually vulnerable to viruses sent through email. The problem has been so serious that companies and institutions are starting to prohibit the use of these programs on their systems. Microsoft has published patches for these programs to make them (your PC, that is) less vulnerable, but installing these patches may be a daunting task to many people. Other email programs, such as Eudora and Netscape Messenger for example, offer the same features (and sometimes more) as Outlook but without the hazards.
• Email headers are like postmarks on US Mail — they show where a message came from and how it was delivered. Since the basic FROM information can be forged easily, headers are important when trying to determine the actual sender of a message.
  • Most email programs do not normally show a message's full email headers by default. The method for displaying full email headers depends on the program you're using. The SpamCop FAQ has good program-specific instructions. When displayed, a typical message's full headers look something like this:
     
    Return-Path: <myfriend@email.unc.edu>
    Received: from poserver.mail.duke.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1])
            by poserver.mail.duke.edu (Cyrus v2.0.17); Tue, 01 Apr 2003 14:06:41
            -050X-Sieve: cmu-sieve 2.0
    Received: from incoming.mail.duke.edu (incoming.mail.duke.edu [152.3.xxx.x])
            by poserver.mail.duke.edu (8.12.9/8.12.9/Duke-5.0.0) with ESMTP id
            h31J6fof016433
            for <frobob@poserver.mail.duke.edu>; Tue, 1 Apr 2003 14:06:41 -0500
            (ESTReceived: from smtp.unc.edu (outgoing.mail.unc.edu [152.2.yyy.y])
            by incoming.mail.duke.edu (8.12.9/8.12.9/Duke-5.0.0) with ESMTP id
            h31J6UiQ020290
            for <frobob@duke.edu>; Tue, 1 Apr 2003 14:06:31 -0500 (EST)
    Received: from email.unc.edu (workstation.dept.unc.edu [152.2.zzz.z])
            (authenticated bits=0)
            by smtp.unc.edu (8.12.2/8.12.2) with ESMTP id h31J5l4H009239;
            Tue, 1 Apr 2003 14:05:47 -0500 (EST)
    Message-ID: <3E89E30B.11C51DB@email.unc.edu>
    Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 14:05:47 -0500
    From: My Friend <myfriend@email.unc.edu>
    X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.78 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U)
    MIME-Version: 1.0
    To: "Sly O. Frobobnowitz" <frobob@duke.edu>
    Subject: Meeting on Friday
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
    X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-milter, Duke University (http://amavis.org/)
     
  • When reporting spam (junk mail) or offensive email, you will need to forward the full email headers to your ISP's postmaster or abuse department. You are wasting everyone's time if you complain without forwarding the offending message's full email headers.
  • The EarthLink Support Center has a good basic description of email headers.
  • The StopSpam site has a more thorough description of email headers.