Hotmail IP address

[PRC1964]

I suspect I know the answer to this, but how accurate a guide to the country from which an email has been sent is the IP address in a Hotmail email?

Having extracted an ip address which tracks back to a specific country, is it reasonable to assume that that is the country from which the email was sent?

[Pondlife]

A lot of the poorly worded ones telling me about potential business ventures do come from Nigeria.

[Paddy]

I suspect I know the answer to this, but how accurate a guide to the country from which an email has been sent is the IP address in a Hotmail email?

Having extracted an ip address which tracks back to a specific country, is it reasonable to assume that that is the country from which the email was sent?

It's the IP of the email server not the client. You could send hotmail from the UK on a US server.

[DaveB]

It's the IP of the email server not the client. You could send hotmail from the UK on a US server.

Hotmail records the source IP of the sender and includes it in the email header info if you know where to look. Doesnt matter what server you connect to it picks up the IP of the PC used to send it.

Generally speaking it should give you a reasonable geographic fix on the sender assuming they are not being clever and routing themselves through a proxy or other anonamizing service.

In that case Hotmail will see the proxy as the source ip and use that instead.

[PRC1964]

Hotmail records the source IP of the sender and includes it in the email header info if you know where to look. Doesnt matter what server you connect to it picks up the IP of the PC used to send it.

Generally speaking it should give you a reasonable geographic fix on the sender assuming they are not being clever and routing themselves through a proxy or other anonamizing service.

In that case Hotmail will see the proxy as the source ip and use that instead.

Thanks, that's what I thought.

[VectraMan]

Hotmail records the source IP of the sender and includes it in the email header info if you know where to look. Doesnt matter what server you connect to it picks up the IP of the PC used to send it.

How does it do that if you send through an SMTP server, and the IP address of the client isn't included in the headers by the SMTP server? Magic?

[DaveB]

How does it do that if you send through an SMTP server, and the IP address of the client isn't included in the headers by the SMTP server? Magic?

Hotmail operates through the browser, not a conventional mail client. You write the mail and it is sent to the Hotmail server via an HTTP request from your browser. The data sent includes the ip address of the PC used to write the email. Once Hotmail recives it it is converted into a conventional SMTP messae and sent on to it's destination the source IP address included in the header.

When you use a conventional mail client it is the client that includes the source IP in the header, not the server. The chain of SMTP servers the mail passes though simply add their own info to the list as they pass it on.

[VectraMan]

Hotmail operates through the browser, not a conventional mail client.

It does if you send from Hotmail, which now I read it again it isn't clear what the OP means. If you've received an email sent to your Hotmail account from a conventional SMTP server, you can't be so sure.

When you use a conventional mail client it is the client that includes the source IP in the header, not the server. The chain of SMTP servers the mail passes though simply add their own info to the list as they pass it on.

What about the "received from" bit? That's added by the server.