# Post-dated spam emails? How? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 16, 2006, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-dated-spam-emails-how/384423 "2006-12-16T19:42:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![cruel\_butterfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5daacb/32.png) [@cruel\_butterfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cruel_butterfly)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2006, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-dated-spam-emails-how/384423/1 "2006-12-16T19:42:04Z")
First of all, I have very little computer knowledge and even less internet knowledge, so bear with me if the answer to this question is so simple a caveman could figure it out. Periodically, I get spam emails that are dated from a few days to a few decades in the future. It causes that email to stay at the top of my inbox no matter what else comes in unless I delete it. I always sort of assumed that the Yahoo gods were responsible for dating the emails as they came in. How do spammers post-date emails? The last one I got was dated December 16, 20_38_. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2006, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-dated-spam-emails-how/384423/2 "2006-12-16T19:45:57Z")
One simple way would be for the user of the computer to simply change the computer’s internal clock to that future date. There may be sexier ways for mass mailing and such. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2006, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-dated-spam-emails-how/384423/3 "2006-12-16T19:46:53Z")
[QUOTE=cruel butterfly] First of all, I have very little computer knowledge and even less internet knowledge, so bear with me if the answer to this question is so simple a caveman could figure it out. Periodically, I get spam emails that are dated from a few days to a few decades in the future. It causes that email to stay at the top of my inbox no matter what else comes in unless I delete it. I always sort of assumed that the Yahoo gods were responsible for dating the emails as they came in. How do spammers post-date emails? The last one I got was dated December 16, 20_38_. [/QUOTE] Yahoo will give the date and time that they received it if you ask for full message headers, but when they sort messages by date, they do it be the date header that was supplied by a message sender, where dates are spelled out in plain text I believe. Therefore, spammers, (who generally use custom software instead of usual mail clients to generate their bulk pitches,) are free to choose a date that has nothing to do with the real date and time that they send a message out, in the hopes of making their email stand out a little. 🙂 Hope that this explains a little. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2006, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-dated-spam-emails-how/384423/4 "2006-12-16T19:48:45Z")
I guess that was a bit cryptic. On a PC, double-click the time displayed on the lower right corner of your window. A pop-up window will be displayed with the current time and calendar. You can use that windowto change the time and the date (day, month, and year) that your computer will use to stamp on the creation or modification of files and on the receipt and transmission of mail. ---
**Author:** ![cruel\_butterfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5daacb/32.png) [@cruel\_butterfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cruel_butterfly)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2006, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-dated-spam-emails-how/384423/5 "2006-12-16T19:51:09Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] One simple way would be for the user of the computer to simply change the computer’s internal clock to that future date. There may be sexier ways for mass mailing and such. [/QUOTE] That’s what I was thinking…but I sent myself a test email after changing the date to 12/16/2015, and the email came up as received 12/16/2006. ---
**Author:** ![cruel\_butterfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5daacb/32.png) [@cruel\_butterfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cruel_butterfly)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2006, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-dated-spam-emails-how/384423/6 "2006-12-16T19:56:22Z")
[QUOTE=chrisk] Yahoo will give the date and time that they received it if you ask for full message headers, but when they sort messages by date, they do it be the date header that was supplied by a message sender, where dates are spelled out in plain text I believe. Therefore, spammers, (who generally use custom software instead of usual mail clients to generate their bulk pitches,) are free to choose a date that has nothing to do with the real date and time that they send a message out, in the hopes of making their email stand out a little. 🙂 Hope that this explains a little. [/QUOTE] So, does that special software that spammers use to generate mass mailings allow them to specify a receive date? It does make the message “stand out,” but it makes me that much more likely to delete it on the spot. I wonder how effective that method really is… ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2006, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-dated-spam-emails-how/384423/7 "2006-12-16T20:58:48Z")
[QUOTE=cruel butterfly] That’s what I was thinking…but I sent myself a test email after changing the date to 12/16/2015, and the email came up as received 12/16/2006. [/QUOTE] What kind of email program do you use? Both for sending and receiving. I just changed the date two years into the future in Windows XP, sent an email from my own domain, through my ISP’s SMTP-server, to my hotmail account, and hotmail listed it as sent Dec. 16th 2008. ---
**Author:** ![cruel\_butterfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5daacb/32.png) [@cruel\_butterfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cruel_butterfly)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2006, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-dated-spam-emails-how/384423/8 "2006-12-16T21:36:07Z")
[QUOTE=naita] What kind of email program do you use? Both for sending and receiving. I just changed the date two years into the future in Windows XP, sent an email from my own domain, through my ISP’s SMTP-server, to my hotmail account, and hotmail listed it as sent Dec. 16th 2008. [/QUOTE] I just use Yahoo for both sending and receiving. I’m running Windows 98 on my home computer and XP on my laptop. I sent the test email to myself from my own Yahoo email account. [sup]What is an “SMTP-server”?[/sup] ---
**Author:** ![if6was9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47c2d/32.png) [@if6was9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/if6was9)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2006, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-dated-spam-emails-how/384423/9 "2006-12-16T21:43:39Z")
The ones I often get are pre-dated. The one I like best is Dec. 31, 1969 (the date of Jimi’s Band of Gypsies concert 😃 ) I just played with my computer clock… it goes back to 1980, then switches to 2099. How do they date it 1969? ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2006, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-dated-spam-emails-how/384423/10 "2006-12-17T02:54:36Z")
[QUOTE=cruel butterfly] [sup]What is an “SMTP-server”?[/sup] [/QUOTE] [SMTP](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smtp) stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. An smtp server is a server that receives mail from users and sends it out. Somewhere behind the scenes of a webmail account, there are probably smtp servers sending out your mail. If you use a mail account provided by an isp, you usually have to configure your mail client to talk to [smtp.isp.com](http://smtp.isp.com), or something. > [@if6was9](#): > > I just played with my computer clock… it goes back to 1980, then switches to 2099. How do they date it 1969? Probably an arbitrary limitation of your OS. But the date field in an email is just plaintext. You could put anything there you wanted, and it would be up to the receiver’s email client to filter out any non-date-like text. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2006, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-dated-spam-emails-how/384423/11 "2006-12-17T04:37:42Z")
The e-mail standard is inherently insecure. Anyone with just a smidge of know how or just a special program can spoof the time, sender, receiver and more. Your e-mail program takes care of that for you but the standard allows those fields to be filled in with whatever you want. Sending someone an e-mail from [gwbush2@whitehouse.org](mailto:gwbush2@whitehouse.org) for example is rather easy. They would have to know how to look through the headers to figure out where it might have really come from. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2006, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-dated-spam-emails-how/384423/12 "2006-12-17T09:32:16Z")
[QUOTE=cruel butterfly] I just use Yahoo for both sending and receiving. I’m running Windows 98 on my home computer and XP on my laptop. I sent the test email to myself from my own Yahoo email account. [sup]What is an “SMTP-server”?[/sup] [/QUOTE] If you’re sending from Yahoo, then it’s using Yahoo server’s date to timestamp the email. You need to get a standalone program like Outlook or Thunderbird if you want to use your clock. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2006, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-dated-spam-emails-how/384423/13 "2006-12-17T13:19:40Z")
[QUOTE=cruel butterfly] So, does that special software that spammers use to generate mass mailings allow them to specify a receive date? [/QUOTE] Probably it’s custom-written, allowing them to specify anything they want for any header. If you understand the internet standards docs, then writing a program to custom assemble emails is one of the easier things to do - much easier than parsing HTML and making a custom web browser, for instance. I’ve done it myself, with the help of some instructions, to create a palmpilot program that will automatically email memos to a particular address. (If you have a networked palmpilot of course.) Now, I didn’t futz with the date there, just used the palmpilot system clock, but since I was assembling the email in my own code it would probably have been very easy to adjust it if I wanted to. 🙂