# How come I can get spam that's not addressed to me?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-i-can-get-spam-thats-not-addressed-to-me/40757>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 11, 2000, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-i-can-get-spam-thats-not-addressed-to-me/40757 "2000-11-11T02:59:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![richman2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9e5f3/32.png) [@richman2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/richman2)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2000, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-i-can-get-spam-thats-not-addressed-to-me/40757/1 "2000-11-11T02:59:10Z")

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I keep getting spam mail on quack cures for baldness and get-rich-quick schemes.

When I look at the “full header”, my ISP is nowhere listed.

Usually these are “TO:” the sender himself, but the sender is a fake address that I cannot reply to- I get failures back saying not recognized.

The latest one doesn’t even have any “TO:” line !

So how does anyone in the string who handled it know where it’s supposed to go at all?

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**Author:** ![Geek\_Mecha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecae2f/32.png) [@Geek\_Mecha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geek_Mecha)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2000, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-i-can-get-spam-thats-not-addressed-to-me/40757/2 "2000-11-11T03:04:10Z")

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Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean nothing’s there. There are ways to hide e-mail recipient information.

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**Author:** ![3waygeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/e95f7d/32.png) [@3waygeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3waygeek)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2000, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-i-can-get-spam-thats-not-addressed-to-me/40757/3 "2000-11-11T03:43:41Z")

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Note that the information in the message header (the part you see) doesn’t really have to be valid. SMTP, the protocol used to send email, has a command to specify the recipients of the message, whose body includes the headers you see. Normally the content of the SMTP recipient command doesn’t really show up in the message header, at least in a way most email clients can see.

For example, I can create a message with a To: header of [cecil@straightdope.com](mailto:cecil@straightdope.com), and tell my SMTP server to send the message to [edzotti@straightdope.com](mailto:edzotti@straightdope.com). With most email clients (e.g. Eudora, Outlook), you can do this by specifying recipients in the Bcc field (bcc stands for blind carbon copy, i.e., someone who receives the message without the other recipients knowing). The BCC recipient field won’t show up in any of the recipients’ copies of the message.

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**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2000, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-i-can-get-spam-thats-not-addressed-to-me/40757/4 "2000-11-11T04:13:45Z")

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I use Outlook Express and filter everything. If my name is not in the header it is not even downloaded. That gets rid of 90% of spam

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**Author:** ![MannyL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@MannyL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MannyL)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2000, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-i-can-get-spam-thats-not-addressed-to-me/40757/5 "2000-11-13T03:22:05Z")

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If you want to help stop the spammers check out [http://spamcop.net](http://spamcop.net)