How can someone trace an email or messenger message that i sent. can it be traced to my computer?

if you select 'view header' in your email it reveals more details as far as origination of the message, route, etc, also, they can reverse look up and find your isp

How can someone trace an email or messenger message that i sent. can it be traced to my computer?
If you forge the return address on an email, then generally speaking it can be traced to your computer by looking at when you were online and what IP address your ISP allocated you at that time. However it's probably only law enforcement that will be given this information by your ISP. (This is why spam is so hard to combat, of course).





Messenger services, such as AIM or ICQ are traceable the same way, even if you're using someone else's account. If you're using your own account, of course, it is immediately traceable to you.
Reply:Yes it can be traced back to the computer and even the user of the computer.


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Reply:Yes, your ISP and IP number is embedded.
Reply:In the header section of an e-mail, accessible by right clicking on it and selecting "view source", it tells everything about the sender and the computer used:





"Message-Id: %26lt;v03020902b17f551e91dd@[130.237.155.60]%26gt;


This line contains a tracking-number, which the originating host has assigned to the message. The Message-Id is unique for each message and in this case contains the IP-number of the originating host. If you for some reason doubt that the message really came from someone at "seltsam.com", you can now take this number and have it translated into something more meaningful. For this task you can for example use TJPing, a small programme that tracks IP-packages online and resolves IP-numbers.





Using TJPing we found that the real name of the originating computer is:





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Starting lookup on 130.237.155.60 - May 14, 1998 22:01:25


Official Name: L-Red-10.jmk.su.se


IP address: 130.237.155.60





This is actually the originating computer from which the message was sent. Not the mailserver. If the address was at a university, as in this case, this is not a great help, since there are many students using the same computers all day. The situation is very different within companies, though, since employees tend to have their own computers, which no one else uses. If the header doesn't show any further information, you might use this information by calling the companies system-administration and ask "Say, who's sitting at Node 60?". Amazingly often you will get a reply. It is comparatively easy to find out which company you are dealing with. Just cut off the first set of digits from the Official Name (L-Red_10.), add www and type it into your browser. You will see, that www.jmk.su.se is the journalism department of the University of Stockholm.





X-Sender: o-pabjen@130.237.155.254





This line is solid gold! This tells you, who was logged on to the mail-server when the message was sent. Not all email-programmes add this line, though. Eudora does, whereas Pegasus Mail doesn't."





Alternatively, if you enter the IP code from an e-mail in a box on this site, http://www.ip2location.com/free.asp , it will tell you the sevice provider's name. These people can be contacted with complaints and investigations.