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              Outbreak Magazine Issue #11 - Article 14 of 18
           '~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~'


E-Mail Forgery
 
By:  Bi0s - (bi0s@StankDawg.com)

Want to know how to forge an e-mail?  Want to send an e-mail to a friend with a fake 
address such as: "bush@whitehouse.gov"?  It sounds tough doesnt it?  Its really a lot 
easier than youd think.  This is actually a pretty old trick, but I thought some "new to the 
scene" hackers would like it.  It is important to understanding email fundamentals if 
nothing else.  First of all, will you need any special software for this? Are any special 
skills needed?  Well, not really.  If you can use telnet, you can do this.  Telnet is a client 
you can use to make a connection to a remote computer as though you were signed on 
locally.  This is a default tool included with Windows and most Linux distros.

Things to keep in mind:

Nowadays, everyone is worried about security.  So, a lot of the mail servers you will run 
into will force you to login.  However some are still wide open!  Not all these servers are 
locked up.  Some system admins just dont know, or just dont care about this.  This is 
usually most prevalent in schools and universities who tend not to update as often as 
others.  Sometimes, it is not locked up and it wont even ask you for a login.  Also keep 
in mind that the server most likely is recording everything you do.  Most of the time, the 
mail server prints to a log file.  So, you may not want to do this from home.  Also, even 
though the e-mail has a forged name.  If the target is smart enough, they can just look at 
the header from the e-mail and determine what server the mail came from.  As the IP 
address will be in the header.  This can be circumvented by learning more of the SMTP 
commands and routing your email through a proxy server.

On to the Hacking:

A lot of webservers use Sendmail as their mail server.  SMTP (simple mail transfer 
protocol) is the protocol it uses.  All this does is take care of the commands needed to 
send mail.  Usually a mail server can be found on port 25.  So for example, if we wanted 
to use the mail server at stankdawg.com, we would open up telnet, set the hostname to 
stankdawg.com (usually by issuing the "open" command), and then set the port to 25. 
Now connect.

When you first get there, you should see something like this:

---
220 stankdawg.com ESMTP Sendmail 8.12.5/8.12.5; Thu, 14 Nov 2002 18:39
:56 -0500
---

It wont do much else.  Its sitting there waiting for your commands.  Go ahead, talk to it.
The next step is to well, say "HI" to the server.  And it will respond to you. Type:   
"HELO  stankdawg.com" and watch what happens.

---
HELO stankdawg.com
250 stankdawg.com Hello yourhostname.net [your IP here], pleased to meet you
---

Now wasnt that nice?  This mail server is pleased to meet you.  Ok, now lets get down 
to it.  You need to tell the server who this mail is coming from.  Essentially, who YOU 
are, or who youd like to be.  Type this at the prompt: "MAIL FROM: 
yourdesiredname@anysite.com"

---
MAIL FROM: bios@microsoft.com
250 2.1.0 bios@microsoft.com... Sender ok
---

Now as far as it knows, that sender is ok.  Its cool with that e-mail address.  Now we 
want to tell it who will be receiving this mail.  Type: "RCPT TO: 
billgates@microsoft.com"

---
RCPT TO: billgates@microsoft.com
250 Recipient ok
---

All right, now we have the "to" and "from" info all entered and ready to go.  Now lets 
write this E-mail.  Its done by typing DATA, then type in your message.  When you are 
finished typing the e-mail, hit enter.

---
DATA
Dear Bill,
You suck. And your software sucks. And thats sad.

250 Message accepted for delivery...
---

Now to disconnect from the server, just enter the command QUIT.  Thats about it!  Your 
mail is on its way!  Most typical users will not be able to tell the difference unless they 
understand how to read the headers of their emails.  Make them somewhat believable, 
and you can have lots of fun!  Like I said earlier, this is an older trick.  Some of you may 
not know about it.  Some of you may.  Either way, have fun with it.  Enjoy yourself.  And 
never stop exploring.
