No sender shown on received e-mail?

[Guest]

How is it possible for someone to send me an e-mail with a blank in the
received from block? I received a meaningful e-mail from someone that
obviously knows me but there is no name showing who sent the e-mail. I've
tried everything Microsoft offers and am unable to expose the sender. It's
frustrating. Thanks for any help.

 

[F.H. Muffman]

How is it possible for someone to send me an e-mail with a blank in
the received from block? I received a meaningful e-mail from someone
that obviously knows me but there is no name showing who sent the
e-mail. I've tried everything Microsoft offers and am unable to
expose the sender. It's frustrating. Thanks for any help.

It's quite easy, actually.

Basically, email delivery is very different from email messages.

When one server talks to another server, it says hey, here's a mail from
(e-mail address removed) that is to (e-mail address removed) and then the second server say's that that is ok, the
first server sends the message.

That message is basically two parts: An email header and an email body.
That email header contains the data that gets put into the header in
Outlook.

The From: field, which is what Outlook would use to show who the mail was
from, is required, but all servers won't turn the message down if it's
missing.

Tracking down who sent it would need going through the header of the message
(the steps to get said header varies by version of Outlook) and then doing
some detective work, and possibly getting a court order to turn over
information. Yes, really.