> What is going on when you get email messages like this? I smell a rat and wouldn't answer for all the tea in China. But some people might.
>
> To: ausweichjochen@yahoo.de
> From: ausweichjochen@yahoo.de
> Subject: Hallo
> Date: Tue, 09 Nov 1999 19:45:03 +0100
>
> Hallo,
> how are you?
>
> From: DearWW@aol.com
> Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 09:27:18 EST
> Subject: Re: Phone Number
> To: hmurrill@ix.netcom.com
>
> We will check it out and get back to you if we are able to obtain another
> number.
>
> I don't recognize either address and have no idea what they are talking about. Is it some kind of bait, or just one of my looney friends playing a joke? I've never seen an email address that ends in "de." Should that tell me something?
> Howard

I imagine it's a spambot trawling to see if you're someone who actually replies (even to complain!) to junky mail like that. If you reply, it tells them your email address is *working*, and so it gets put onto or sold to a distribution list for all sorts of vile filth. So never reply to letters like that. If you can think of another reason why anyone would send out email with spoofed IP returns like that, I'd like to know.

Also, the .de extension is a perfectly valid country-code extension for the folks in Deutschland, otherwise known as Germany.

Hope that helps.