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Expert advice required......

I am a virgin.net customer (have been for 14 years) and have recently been accused of sending an e-mail from a "btinternet.com" e-mail address. The email that was sent was "similar" to my gmail address (ie: the part before @btinternet.com) and whoever sent it also included my name in the "from" section of the e-mail.

If that had been a Hotmail , Yahoo or Gmail e-mail address then "anybody" can sign up for a free e-mail address but, as far as I am aware, you have to sign up with BT (ie: have them as your ISP) before you can obtain a btinternet.com e-mail address?

I haven't seen the headers of the alleged e-mail and I don't think I need to, if what I am assuming is correct. Would I be correct in saying that you have to be signed up with BT, as your ISP, to be able to obtain a btinternet.com e-mail address? That's all the info I need to prove that the e-mail did not originate from me.

All comments appreciated.
 
Depending upon the context for all this, which is a little vague from the original post, it is perhaps possible for another BT customer to setup an email address using a prefix similar to your gmail account. Equally it can also be possible to spoof email addresses, which is a method that hackers/spammers use in order to make an email to appear to have come from an address that it didn't (you can usually tell by seeing the email headers as the server details won't be correct vs the real addresses server).
 
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Depending upon the context for all this, which is a little vague from the original post, it is perhaps possible for another BT customer to setup an email address using a prefix similar to your gmail account. Equally it can also be possible to spoof email addresses, which is a method that hackers/spammers use in order to make an email to appear to have come from an address that it didn't (you can usually tell by seeing the email headers as the server details won't be correct vs the real addresses server).

Hi Mark,

Thank you for your reply and apologies for being so vague in my original post I will try to explain better the second time around.

I have a forum and, as an example, let's call it " Pinkfloyd Forum". The e-mail address, again as an example, would be pinkfloydforum@gmail.com

Now, somebody sent somebody an e-mail from the address, again as an example, pinkfloydforum@btinternet.com and included my name in the from field of the e-mail.

The person who received the e-mail assumes the e-mail was sent by "me" as the e-mail address had the name of my forum in it and the from part of the message had my name on it.

They have reported me to the police and are effectively saying that the message "must" have come from me as it has the name of my forum and my "name" in the message from field.

My basic question was this: Is it possible to obtain a btinternet.com e-mail address if you are not a BT customer? I am a virgin.net customer and know that you cannot obtain a Virgin e-mail address unless you are one of their customers.

Unfortunately, it would appear, the onus is on "me" to prove that I didn't send this email (from the btinternet.com address). I have already explained to the police that I do not have a btinternet account but they kept saying.... "maybe not but your name was on the e-mail"........

Somebody else has obviously set up a btinternet.com e-mail address, e-mailed a message and the recipient believes that "I" sent it because my name is on it and the part before @ (in the address) is the name of my online forum.

It's pretty damned obvious to me what's going down, somebody with a btinternet account has set up an e-mail address and is trying to make it look like I was the one who sent it because it had my name in the "from" part of the email and the name of my forum before the @btinternet.com part of the address.

You just couldn't make this up but the Police seem convinced that I sent it, based on this "evidence"!!!

Evidence my ass, I am a Virgin media customer and the only way I could obtain a btinternet.com email address would be if I ended my contract with Virgin, requested a MAC code and then signed up with btinternet as my internet service provider.... that is fact, isn't it?

I want to keep my cards up my sleeve here and gather as much ammo as possible because the person who "did" send the e-mail (the recipient) needs to be taught a lesson and stop wasting police time.
 
The Police are retards; but at least they havent gutted your house looking for evidence yet; they even took blank post cards from mine!!!
 
Tell them to check the email headers that would give more detail where it came from, you can spoof a email address very easy like spammers do. I would ask for the police to get one of their IT guys involved.
 
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Anybody can send an email from any address (but they will not receive a reply, unless a different reply-to address is specified).
I agree that checking the header will give more information, such as the IP the email was sent from. This will help determine if whoever sent it actually logged into the BT online account for example (i.e. this email address exists and must be registered to somebody), or if not, which location the email came from (China? Devon?)
 
The good news is that the person who did send the mail isn't very computer literate, there a many many more sophisticated ways to fake an email rather than signing up to BT using your name. Actually thats a pretty dumb approach as it will have left a trail.
The bad news is that the police you are talking to are completely computer illiterate to even bother coming to talk to you about it.
Let us know what happened (assuming you have inernet in jail!) :)
 
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