[plug] off topic - locating email address

[John Summerfield]

On Tue, 15 Sep 1998, David Campbell wrote:

> From:           	"Shackleton, Kevin" <kshackleton at agric.wa.gov.au>
> To:             	plug at linux.org.au
> Subject:        	[plug] off topic - locating email address
> Date sent:      	Tue, 15 Sep 1998 09:39:43 +0800
> Send reply to:  	plug at linux.org.au
> 
> > What's the best way to track down an email address of a company,
> > assuming it uses the company name in the address left or right of the
> > "@"?
> 
> Tried using "nslookup"?
> 
> eg:
> # nslookup
> > set type="MX"
> > curtin.edu.au
> 
> This will return the hosts which will accept email for "someone at curtin.edu.au"
> even though there is no machine called "curtin.edu.au"


Not so.
If you use the command
nslookup -type=mx ami.com.au

you will find that a machine at omen.com.au is listed as a mail exchanger.
However, you can't address email intended for me to their machine.

In addition, if you address mail to root at os2.ami.com.au, I will get it
whereas mail to root at ami.com.au will go to someone else (or be bounced) if mail
to ami.com.au ends up on an OS/2 machine).

It might well be that the nslookup command won't stop at the final host
listed: it might be on a firewall and have a different DNS with different
set of mx records.

It could be that mail addressed to bill at gates.microsoft.com could end up on a
machine with an entirely different name: gates.private.home perhaps.

Only at the end of its journey can the recipient's address be checked.

Fortunately there's no general way of determining valid email addresses:
imagine the fun spammers would have otherwise.


Cheers
John Summerfield
http://os2.ami.com.au/os2/ for OS/2 support.
Configuration, networking, combined IBM ftpsites index.