You receive an e-mail from a prospective customer – requesting information on your products, price etc. or placing order. Normally, you would like to find out more information about this customer before parting with requested information, especially if the information is of sensitive nature like price list, discount rate etc. There may be other occasions when you want to find out more information about e-mail sender – for example, to locate the identity of a spammer or someone whose identity is suspicious. How do you go about it?

I belong to a closed network of CEOs who share information with each other regarding international finance and trade deals worldwide and every month we share notes in our own blacklists as well as high level messages carrying “red flags”. Since I achingly encounter fraudsters (and lately some cyberbullies) on a weekly basis, I decided to write about one simple technique we do that I tell our employees worldwide in how we do business within MJS companies.

E-mail is perhaps the easiest thing to acquire in the Internet. Though Internet is anonymous – there are few tools with which you may dig out some information about your customer before entering into a negotiation. For example – if you receive an e-mail from a ‘customer’ with US postal address but discover that the e-mail has been sent from an African country – you´ll  know what to do with the help of these steps.

Analysis of Given Details

Every e-mail has at least three distinct elements:

From: (e.g. abcd@whyme1234.com)

To: (e.g. seller@products.com)

Subject (e.g. Want to buy Your products)

The simplest test is to put the tail of sender’s e-mail address (e.g. www.whyme1234.com for abcd@whyme1234.com) in your browser’s window and check if there is a web-site at this URL. 

If you find a valid and business like web-site at this URL – your job becomes easier. One can dig out significant details from web-site as also other sources. Please see Faida article – ‘How to evaluate a business web-site’ for details. 

However, if you can not find e-mail sender’s web-site at URL – do not jump to conclusion that the sender is phony. Lot’s of people use business e-mail address without web-site. In such cases, you need to determine if this guy is one of them or is using an anonymous web-based free e-mail, disguised as business e-mail. Your next task is to find out ownership details of the domain name.

Tracing Owner of Domain Name

Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the nodal agency that supervises registration of domain names. Information on ownership of domain names can be located from ICANN approved registrars, who maintain public access database (called whois) on ownership of domain names. 

Please visit such a whois (e.g. http://www.internic.net/whois.html) and check ownership of domain name. 

If the sender is using a business e-mail – the domain name should be registered in sender’s or his/her company’s name. 

When e-mail Sender Uses free web-based E-mail service

What happens when the e-mail sender uses a web-based free e-mail service (e.g. hotmail.com, yahoo.com, rediffmail.com etc.) ? 

Well, you can still find information about the sender by analyzing the e-mail header.

Unraveling Hidden information from e-mail header

Every e-mail has a visible set of information on sender (From:), recipient (To:), subject (Subject:), Organization of the sender (Orgn:) etc. However, there’s a great deal more hidden within, that can reveal significant information about the sender. 

A little scrutiny of this hidden information may help you locate sender’s country, genuineness of the e-mail used in ‘From:’ column, whether the sender tried to conceal his/her identity etc. 

A fake sender attempting to confuse identity usually means a fraudster trying to steal your money or a virus attack, a potential hazard in either case, that can cost you a lot in terms of financial loss, computer crash etc. A little time spent on analyzing suspicious looking e-mails is an insurance against such disasters. 

Those using Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail or any such web-based e-mail service may think that their true identity and location are hidden. In reality – one may still find information about them by analyzing their e-mail headers.

What is E-mail Header

The part of an e-mail where such hidden information is stored is called ‘header’. Header of an e-mail stores various information on the path it has traversed while reaching your mailbox – right from sender’s computer. Normally, one doesn’t need this kind of information and mail clients (Eudora, Outlook, Netscape etc. ) do not display it. 

To see e-mail header in Netscape, open any e-mail and click 

View > Page Source 

For Outlook, right-click on the mail message that is still in your Inbox, select ‘Options…’ from the resulting popup menu Examine the ‘Internet Headers’ in the ‘Message Options’ dialog 

At first look – the header may look confusing and puzzling. This is more so for spam e-mails as spammers try their best to make the header misleading. Do not lose heart – I am going to explain how to pick up right information from it.

Examining a Typical Header

Let us examine following e-mail header:

1. Delivery-date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 23:59:47 -0600
2. Received: from bani by arjuna.banijya.com with local-bsmtp (Mann 4.43)
3.  id 1CPaev-00057o-Q4
 4.  for abcdxyz@banijya.com; Wed, 03 Nov 2004 23:59:47 -0600
5. Received: from [203.199.83.28] (helo=rediffmail.com)
6. by arjuna.banijya.com with smtp (Mann 4.43)
7. id 1CPaev-00057f-8T
 8.  for info@infobanc.com; Wed, 03 Nov 2004 23:59:45 -0600
9.  Received: (qmail 28471 invoked by uid 510); 4 Nov 2004 05:59:09 -0000
10. Date: 4 Nov 2004 05:59:09 -0000
11. Message-ID: <20041104055909.28468.qmail@webmail18.rediffmail.com>
12. Received: from unknown (61.3.251.11) by rediffmail.com 
13.  via HTTP; 04 nov 2004 05:59:08 -0000
14. MIME-Version: 1.0
15. From: “Raj International ” 
16. Reply-To: “Raj International “ 
17. To: “InfoBanc” 
18. Subject: Thanks for activation

Explanation of Header Elements

If you look carefully at e-mail header above, a pattern is clearly visible. The header is composed of several lines of text – each starting with header name (e.g. Delivery-date) , a colon (:), a space and finally header value. If a line starts with a tab or spaces (line nos. 2-4 and 5-8) – that line is a continuation of the previous header value line. So, the header name ‘Received:’ in line 2 has a header value that spans lines 2 to 4. 

Some of the header names are simple and self-explanatory, such as the ‘Delivery-date:’, ‘From:’, ‘Reply-To:, ‘Subject:’ etc. For example, sender’s e-mail address appears after header name ‘From:’ and the recipients e-mail address appears after the ‘To:’ header name. 

Please note – mail servers have no way to check if the sender is using his or her own e-mail address. This lack of verification is a weakness – that spammers and fraudsters use ruthlessly to confuse recipients. So, do not accept sender’s e-mail address at face value. A fraudster or spammer, in all likelihood, will never use his/her actual e-mail address. Instead, he/she may use a legitimate e-mail address (it could even be your own e-mail) as sender. 

We shall not discuss each and every header name – as many of these can be forged or a fake one inserted by spammer. What is most important for our purpose (and most difficult to forge) is the ‘Received:’ headers. Analysis of ‘Received:’ header names can reveal a great deal of information about the sender.

Locating Actual Sender from Header Analysis 

Every e-mail has a header that stores significant information about sender of the e-mail and the path it traversed before reaching your mailbox. In earlier issues – we have discussed how to read e-mail headers and various header elements. In this issue, we shall discuss how to locate actual sender of an e-mail and his/her geographical location. 

Considering anonymous nature of Internet – this a vital piece of information for every e-business. If you receive an e-mail from a ‘customer’ with US postal address but discover that the e-mail has been sent from an African country – you know what to do ! 

Users of web-based free e-mail services like Yahoo, Rediffmail, Hotmail etc. may think that their true identity and location are hidden. In reality – one may still find information about them by analyzing their e-mail headers.

‘Received:’ Headers

Of all header elements we have discussed, ‘Received:’ headers are most important for identifying sender’s country. One reason is that – ‘Received:’ headers are most difficult to tamper with. 

Any header element can be forged and faked ones inserted up to a point, as the headers are just textual data, and only the headers added by servers that you trust can be considered reliable. 

Every time an e-mail moves through a new mail server, a new Received header line (and possibly other header lines) is added to the beginning of the headers list. This means that as you read the Received headers from top to bottom, you are gradually moving closer to the computer/person that sent you the e-mail. 

But please note that as you read through the Received header fields and get closer to the computer/person that sent you the e-mail, you need to consider the possibility that the sender added one or more false Received header lines to the list (at the time, the senders beginning of the list) in an attempt to redirect you to another location and prevent you from finding the true sender. But, now that you know false header lines are possible, just stay alert.

Reading ‘Received:’ Header

Consider following e-mail header and its interpretation:

1. Received: from [216.136.225.35] (helo=web20024.mail.yahoo.com)
2. by arjuna.banijya.com with smtp (Mann 4.43)
3. id 1CPhNE-0002Qt-0T
4.  for info@infobanc.com; Thu, 04 Nov 2004 07:09:56 -0600
5. Received: from [69.132.4.255] by web20024.mail.yahoo.com via 
6.   HTTP; Thu, 04 Nov 2004 05:09:53 PST

Interpretation

Line 1 – 4 : Mail sever arjuna.banijya.com  receives a mail  for one of its clients (info@infobanc.com) 
 from mail server web20024.mail.yahoo.com
 which has an IP address 216.136.225.35



Line 5 – 6 : Mail server web20024.mail.yahoo.com receives
  a mail from IP 69.132.4.255

By the way – IP stands for Internet Protocol. The Internet uses a technology to interlink millions of computers in its fold – TCP/IP. The core of this technology is called IP addressing or Internet Protocol addressing. Every computer connected to Internet is given a unique number for identification – called IP number. IP number is used to verify location and activities of any computer. Your ISP provider assigns you an IP address each time you connect to the Internet. 

It is evident from header interpretation that actual sender is the one at the bottom of series of ‘Received:’ headers and the recipient is at the top. In other words, mail server web20024.mail.yahoo.com received an e-mail from IP address 69.132.4.255. 

So IP address 69.132.4.255 is the sender of this e-mail. 

Interestingly, this sender used a free web-based e-mail service (yahoo.com) to send this e-mail – still his/her identity can be traced using IP address 69.132.4.255 found in mail header.

Locating Sender’s Country from IP Address

Spammers and fraudsters may forge many header elements like ‘From:’, ‘Received-date:’ etc. – but it is very difficult to change IP addresses inserted by mail servers. At best, they may insert fake ‘Received’: headers to confuse recipient. 


Once you locate IP address of actual sender’s mail server or computer, it is possible to locate geographical location or country.

E-mails are anonymous by nature – but contains significant information in its header about the path it traversed before reaching your mailbox. The header is normally not visible. We have discussed how to view and analyze header of any e-mail and locate actual sender with his/her IP address. In this issue – we shall discuss how to locate sender’s country from IP address.

Internet Resources for IP Analysis

There are various free and paid-for Internet resources to help you find information about IP addresses, domain names etc.

1. VisualWare

Perhaps the leader in IP tracking software, Visualware has number of products to track e-mail, IP, domain name owner etc. 

VisualRoute and eMailTrackerPro are two software from Visualroute that can help you significant information on e-mails. 

VisualRoute has a free service to demonstrate how the software works. If your IP tracking requirement is modest – you may use this free service to track any IP address. However, if you wish to use this facility regularly – please consider buying the software. 

To use the free service – please visit Visualware web-site http://www.visualware.com/index.html

Click on ‘Online demos’ button on above page – you will reach http://www.visualware.com/demo/index.html 



Click on ‘VisualRoute’ link on above page and you will reach IP Tracking area – http://visualroute.visualware.com/ 



There is a simple one-step registration process that requires your e-mail address only. Enter your e-mail address in registration box – an identification number (called PIN) will be sent to your e-mail. Use this PIN for first time – you will not require it again. 

After registration – copy and paste any IP number and it will immediately show the country of origin of the IP number on world map.

2. DNS Stuff

My favorite – this is a very powerful yet completely free service that does dozens of extremely useful functions. Internet is truly a marvelous place – where else would you find such high quality service completely free of cost ? 

This does not even require registration – please visit http://www.dnsstuff.com/ and perform dozens of IP and DNS related functions. 

To trace geographic location of an IP address – please use Tracert (Traces the route packets)

3. American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN)

An excellent free source for finding information on IP number. To use this service, please visit http://www.arin.net/whois/index.html . Enter the IP into the search text box and hit “Submit”. If the IP address belongs to an organization in North America or sub-Saharan Africa it will display the details of owner of the IP address. 

For organizations located outside ARIN’s geographical area of responsibility – here are other resources 


RIPE (European Registry): http://www.ripe.net/ripencc/pub-services/db/whois/whois.html

APNIC (Asia Pacific Registry): http://www.apnic.net/apnic-bin/whois2.pl

LACNIC (Latin America and the Caribbean Registry): http://lacnic.net/cgi-bin/lacnic/whois?lg=EN

To determine in which geographical area a particular country is located, see the List of Countries in Regional Registry Geographical Areas: http://www.arin.net/library/internet_info/countries.html

 4. NetGeo – The Internet Geographic Database

NetGeo is a free service for locating geographical position of an IP address. Though this free service is almost as good as Visualware – much of its functionality is now lost as its database is not updated regularly. 



You may find more information about NetGeo at http://www.caida.org/tools/utilities/netgeo/ 



To use this facility – please visit http://www.dnsstuff.com/ and use NetGeo IP Lookup

Here are just some pointers to help your business and personal life. Our companies, MJS Commodities and MJS Capital  are very active within international trade, we are very diligent in making sure that we deal with real players in the business. Trust, Integrity and relationships are our greatest commodities in our business. I hope this will help you become productive and have a safe experience in this new technologically savvy  generation of fraud, scams and cyberbullying. I look forward to your comments, feedback and suggestion. -reprint from  MJ Santos,Global Chairman/CEO MJS Global Group

A ruinous scheme in which con artists lure unsuspecting investors into believing that their funds can be used to purchase securities (PRIME BANK GUARANTEES, DEBENTURES, TREASURIES, PROMISSORY NOTES, LETTERS OF CREDIT) at enormous DISCOUNT and sell them for equally enormous profits, typically during a forty-week turnaround.  

ARBITRAGE, the purchase of FRESH-CUT SECURITIES from a CUTTING HOUSE  which are then sold to the SECONDARY MARKET, FORFAITING, DISCOUNT HOUSES or DISCOUNT BANKS, SELF-LIQUIDATING LOANS, or a combination of all of these terms incorrectly used with wild abandon.

The financial instruments are always issued from a TOP WORLD BANK or PRIME BANK, and a great deal of secrecy is always paramount.     

New twists are sometimes heard, but the basic system is always the same - 

1. LETTERS OF CREDIT, PRIME BANK NOTES or PRIME BANK GUARANTEES, DEBENTURES, SAFEKEEPING RECEIPT, or other financial instruments are created against the CONDITIONAL SWIFT transfer of investor funds

2. The financial instruments are then “sold on the SECONDARY MARKET” which the swindlers call a trade.

3. A portion of the profits from the secondary market sale goes to the investor, and the balance is set aside to purchase more financial instruments.

4. The whole thing starts over again because there are ”X” number of trades per week, month, day… and profits are “enormous”- ranging from 500% to 1700% per year, per month, per whatever.
   

There are other scenarios touting involvement in INFRASTRUCTURE LOANS supposedly guaranteed by the WORLD BANK, the INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND, Swiss Banks, PARALLEL ACCOUNTS, FOREIGN CURRENCY EXCHANGE (FOREX), STANDBY LETTERS OF CREDIT (SBLC), and accounts over which the investor supposedly has sole control.

In every case funds disappear, which usually involves MONEY LAUNDERING.  So what happens to your money?  

It goes toward paying new investors PONZI-fashion; it goes into travel, scam expenses, yachts, entertaining, jewelry, more scam expenses, houses, bribes, Mercedes-Benzes, gambling, and accounts stashed away in various countries in SHELL ACCOUNTS.  

The way in which securities are used in no way allows for the kinds of profits described by these fraudsters; however, because fraudsters use half-truths and because it is difficult for you to understand the actual uses of some securities and international finance procedures, fraudsters are able to excite your imagination beyond and away from the boundaries of your normal investment precautions.

If you want real programs, ask our partner, MJS Capital to assist you with your financial instrument and project financing needs.

• If you receive a letter from Nigeria asking you to send personal or banking information, do not reply in any manner. Send the letter to the U.S. Secret Service, your local FBI office, or the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. You can also register a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Sentinel, EU Commission or ICC.
• If you know someone who is corresponding in one of these schemes, encourage that person to contact the FBI or the U.S. Secret Service as soon as possible.
• Be skeptical of individuals representing themselves as Nigerian or foreign government officials asking for your help in placing large sums of money in overseas bank accounts.
• Do not believe the promise of large sums of money for your cooperation.
• Guard your account information carefully.

Legitimate letters of credit are never sold or offered as investments.

Legitimate letters of credit are issued by banks to ensure payment for goods shipped in connection with international trade. Payment on a letter of credit generally requires that the paying bank receive documentation certifying that the goods ordered have been shipped and are en route to their intended destination. 

Letters of credit frauds are often attempted against banks by providing false documentation to show that goods were shipped when, in fact, no goods or inferior goods were shipped. 

Other letter of credit frauds occur when con artists offer a “letter of credit” or “bank guarantee” as an investment wherein the investor is promised huge interest rates on the order of 100 to 300 percent annually. Such investment “opportunities” simply do not exist. (See Prime Bank Notes for additional information.)

• If an “opportunity” appears too good to be true, it probably is.
• Do not invest in anything unless you understand the deal. Con artists rely on complex transactions and faulty logic to “explain” fraudulent investment schemes.
• Do not invest or attempt to “purchase” a “Letter of Credit.” Such investments simply do not exist.
• Be wary of any investment that offers the promise of extremely high yields.
• Independently verify the terms of any investment that you intend to make, including the parties involved and the nature of the investment.

Many of these offers have been orbiting the planet for years. Some may have originally been real and reliable trade opportunities which then got altered, sanitized, un-sanitized, by every other trader whose hand it fell in, passed by email, fax, post, and fax again through hundreds of hands, uploaded to a BBS in 1993, posted on Newsgroups in 1995, saved to a hard disk untill one broker, down on his luck dug it up and not understanding the time-limited nature of any offer and quote, re-used it in the desperate attempt to find a buyer, then it was posted and downloaded again, and again, and again, etc…

The reality is that apart from these continuous “traveling offers” wandering the internet like ghost ships, there is another, darker, more sinister traveler involved.. This type of offer is a scam offer, posted years ago by a “seller”, who was in reality a scammer.

And a patient one at that…

That scam offer is passed on by sincere brokers and intermediaries untill it finds the one in a thousand person or company willing to accept it and post money for the shipment… and quickly like fire excitement buzzes through the broker network, calls are made, NCND’s are signed, faxed, signed again, details are passed from hand to hand and if the deal doesn’t collapse due to lack of knowledge and skill on part of a particular trader, or due to greed on the part of another broker, the “deal” makes it’s way home to it’s master, who ensures that everyone is circumvented on his non existent product and he dines well that night on ill gotten gains, leaving scores of disillusioned intermediaries and the buyer behind.

And all of this, simply further destroying the business of the private trade intermediary.

Every broker in above mentioned scenario was a victim, and every broker in the chain was also to blame on some small level for the total failure of all. And the buyer who was defrauded, if only he had done his due diligence and actually do some research on the sugar industry or at least ask questions of people who should know, this could all have been avoided.

We encounter Sugar buyers who are seduced by absurdly low prices offered in various FCOs, floating around on the internet, some reflecting real market prices from long ago, as the same offer is copied over and over again by broker after broker for years even! Give such one a bargain price and greed will set in quickly.

Always investigate a matter before you invest in it, no matter who the seller or broker is. If the price is too good to be true, then it most certainly is.  There is an old saying: – “In God we trust, everyone else we verify, verify, verify!“