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How email works!
Hello! How are you? Your castle is constantly being attacked by your elder sister. She keeps pushing you off the computer, so she can send off emails to her friends and you don’t know what to do about it. Fear not, dear friends, the cavalry is coming to the rescue. You will have your revenge yet. We have received your pleas and are sending our ‘technical squad’ to tell you how to scare your ‘enemy’ into submission. (Note: It won’t work if she reads this article too).
Last time we taught you about SMTP and POP3, the two protocols (how computers communicate together) which are used to send and receive email respectively. Today, let’s get down to the techy details of how email really works (the arsenal with which you’ll conquer over your enemy) and then we’ll show you how to use that arsenal.
A lot of us believe that the word ‘Server’ means a big computer in some ISP somewhere because of which we can access the Net. However, did you know that even a mobile phone can be a server? Server does not mean hardware at all. It’s actually the software that runs on a computer which allows multiple users to connect to it and do things like access the Net, send files, email, etc. The two most popular ‘Servers’ in the world are ‘Apache’ and ‘Windows 2000 Server’.
‘Servers’ can be designed to do anything, for example there are some servers that let you run your own radio station on the Net. Other servers are simpler. Their only task is to ask your login name and password to your ISP account. In the same way, there’s a program called ‘Email Server’, which is used to send and receive email. This is the program that handles everything to do with email.
So how does it work? Well let’s pretend my address is umair.mohsin@hotmail.com. I want to mail young world and have typed a message. I click on ‘Send’. Here’s what happens next:
Hello Umair
250 mail.hotmail.com Hello umair
[223.37.65.37], pleased to meet you mail from: umair.mohsin@hotmail.com
250 2.1.0 umair.mohsin@hotmail.com... Sender ok rcpt to: youngworld@dawn.com
250 2.1.5 youngworld... Recipient ok data 354 Enter mail, end with “.” on a line by itself from: Umair.mohsin@hotmail.com to: Youngworld@Dawn.comsubject: testing
This is a test...250 2.0.0 e1NMajH24604 Message accepted for delivery quit
221 2.0.0 mail.hotmail.com closing connection
Connection closed by foreign host.
In human language, this is how the conversation went.
Browser: Hello Hotmail SMTP Server, I’m Umair.
SMTP Server: Hello Umair, pleased to meet you. Do you have anything for me to deliver.
Browser: Yes, please. I’d like to send a mail from umair.mohsin@hotmail.com.
SMTP: umair.mohsin@hotmail.com gotcha!
Browser: To youngworld@dawn.com
SMTP: youngworld@dawn.com gotcha! Again.
SMTP: Is there any message you would like to send. Press on a separate line after you’re finished. Than I’ll know you’re done.
Browser: The message is “this is a test” and display my email address, recipient and the subject as “Test” in the client of my recipient.
SMTP Server: Okay. Got all that. I’m sending the message. Bye.
Now the server will check the domain (dawn.com) and will connect to the email server at dawn.com and then deliver the message to Young World. The same type of conversations will occur with emails that you send.
What about POP3? Well, did you know that your email is being stored in a large text file on the server? The email server maintains a collection of text files — one for each email account. When a message arrives, the POP3 server appends it to the bottom of the recipient’s file. Then when you check your mail, the client (Outlook Express, etc.) or browser, reads the text file and displays it like we see it. So simple.
Now that we have our arsenal, let’s use it to send a message from a Ghost to your enemy. For this be sure to find out the address of your ISP’s Email Server (usually mail.isp.com). Open Run on your systems, and type ‘Telnet’. Under WinXP, you’ll see a Dos Window. In that type o mail.isp.com 25. The 25 is the port on which the server listens for incoming connections. To understand this, think of an Email server as a Space Station like in the movies. There is only one entrance which is open and everybody has to go through that. The name of that gate is 25. Now type hello ghost. When the SMTP server replies type Mail From: ghost@muhaha.com. Then RCPT TO: your_Enemy_address. In Data, from: A Ghost, To: enemy_email, subject: BOO! And then the message ‘Your account is now haunted…muhahaha’ and on a new line, type the . and enter. The message will be sent from ‘A Ghost’ to your enemy and no one will ever know. You can even eliminate the from: and to: in data and it will seem like no one has sent the message. In Win98, enter the same information in the box that opens without the o.
Now if you hear screams coming from the enemy soon, rest assured that you have had your revenge. Until next time…Muhahahaha.
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