My two cents....

Although one could alter the email address, and the reply address,
this provides only some degree of "anonymous". Yes, this will slow
down the email harvesting, but there are degrees of opaqueness. This
would be a mostly opaque mechanism. The rub is that it's still
leaking some info out that might be more dangerous than your
email address.

Example:

If you look at the headers (click on file properties, details, message
source)
and expand this, you will see something like:
-----------
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 19:47:59 -0500
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1158
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165
NNTP-Posting-Host: 216.182.12.3
--------------

While the email address is hidden, the IP address of the machine
is not. One can then use this knowledge and do a nslookup, and
a whois, to find the ISP that has this address, physical location and
so on. Should a legal issue come up, it might be possible for law
enforcement to get the IP to user name mapping. (DHCP, and
PPP type connections make this a bit trickier, but not impossible,
as the time will identify the user's account in the log files.) For the
example above, this IP address is provided by:

Tellurian Networks, Inc.
172 Spring Street
Newton, NJ 07860
US

Domain Name: PLANET.NET

Administrative Contact-
The Tellurian Hostmaster: hostmaster@tellurian.net
Tellurian Networks, Inc.
172 Spring Street
Newton, NJ 07860
US
Phone- 973-300-9211
Fax- 973-579-3643
Technical Contact-
The Tellurian Hostmaster: hostmaster@tellurian.net
Tellurian Networks, Inc.
172 Spring Street
Newton, NJ 07860
US
Phone- 973-300-9211
Fax- 973-579-3643

This ISP is in the New Jersey area. And should things need
work, you have their contact information.
Also, since the IP address is known, one could then begin
probing TCP port 25, to see if you have a mail server. If that
works, then one can begin sending mail to root@IP_addr, and
again, become annoying. Various other port scans on the IP addr
might also be revealing, and provide further information about the
"anonymous" user. (see nmap, finger, and so on)
Should this poor user not be the sharpest tool in the shed, he/she might
have
TCP ports 135,137,139, and 445 open. Ok that would be bad, so perhaps
one can just map their shares. After that, your email address is the least
of your
worries.

Also, in the above example, the news posting software identified itself.
Vendor, software package name, and version number. This is also information.
Knowing the specifics about your software can expose one to crackers that
know which version have what holes.

Another level of anonymous would be to have custom posting
software that morphs some of these fields.
Another level, would be to post to a news server that posts on your
behalf and provides its IP address and info, instead of yours.

What level of "anonymous" you choose is up to you.

I have chosen to post with real email addresses, because that
is the way it was intended to be. Yes, I have to invest my time
in anti-spam mechanisms, anti-virus, and firewall technologies,
but I just don't want to give up and hide in the darkness, cowering
from the abusers that are trying to make the net unfriendly, and
eventually, un-usable.

Enjoy,
Don Capps

P.S. If you're going to use a fake email address, you might
want to either use a real email address, of someone else,
or try something like:
Email: Introspective@127.0.0.1
Email Reply address: Introspective@127.0.0.1
This should help the spammer get in touch with him/her self :-)


"mto" <nobody@dontsendmeanyspam.com> wrote in message
news:tRudnfd4DIrdpKWiXTWJhQ@seg.net...
>
> "darren sanborn" <sandmansdream4u@insightbb.com> wrote in message
> news:j9bgjv4nu4m4fib022cnabmctvhvngvu3h@4ax.com...
> > OK I am a newbie, so clue me in. How do you get one of those e-mail
> > address all you guys use?
>
> Open up your news account properties box. Type in anything you please
under
> email address. Try to be nice and make sure you aren't sending your mail
> somewhere real Save it or click apply.
>
>