The Difficulties of Tracing Spam Email

Dan Boneh · 2004

At the FTC staff’s request, I prepared this report to discuss the specific difficulties of identifying a spammer by following the electronic trail embedded in spam email. This report will not discuss any investigative technique other than electronic tracing — it will not, for example, discuss tracking spammers based on insider information, spam body analysis, or other investigative techniques that do not involve electronic tracing.

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