Anonymous SMTP In A Nutshell

See Also

• Bulk Email Service - LuxSci High Volume
• SMTP Servers at LuxSci

Why Hide Your IP when Sending Email?

When you send email via any email program (except WebMail), your computer's Internet address is included in the message headers for all recipients to see. Depending on who your Internet Service Provider is and what kind of connection and service you have, this information may be used to determine what region of the country you are in, what city you are in, or even what your home address is! Additionally, other information such as what email program you are using is also available to the recipient. This could be a serious issue for people very concerned about their privacy.

How Anonymous SMTP Works

LuxSci's Anonymous SMTP service provides an excellent way of keeping all of the functionality of SMTP (sending email) that you require, while giving you back your privacy. This service receives your message from your email client via Authenticated SMTP (or Authenticated Secure SMTP) and then "scrubs" the message, removing all information about your computer's IP address, the email program you are using, and all other non-standard information that happens to be in there. Your message is then re-emailed to the intended recipients.

The end result is that the recipients get messages that look just like they would have without the anonymous service, except that now they can only track the message back to your LuxSci SMTP servers. They know who you are, based on your email address and your message content, but they have no way of knowing where you are or what email programs you are using! You have masked your IP, hiding it from view.

What this service DOESN'T do is provide a method for potential spammers to conceal their identity. LuxSci's anonymous SMTP service logs all information that it scrubs from the messages and tracks all activity for internal auditing purposes. So, while your recipients do not know your computer address, LuxSci does - as does your account administrator. This prevents this service from providing any benefit to people wishing to send unsolicited or forged email; LuxSci can quickly respond to complaints or abuse, identify the sender, and terminate the account and/or bring legal measures to bear.

What this service DOES do is provide a level of privacy in the sending of email from your email programs that is functionally equivalent to the level of privacy that you get from sending through our WebMail interface. It also helps you solve email sending problems that may arise if your ISP is blacklisted.