I decided to create another category dedicated for warnings. This ought to make things a bit easier for me to categorize.

Just today a user from a domain forum I regularly visit received an email supposedly from domain registrar Moniker. Though the user didn’t post the email message, it appeared to be some kind of solicitation.

(Thanks to GeorgeK for that email. You can check him out here.)

Since I haven’t received a copy of the said email, I asked and eventually secured permission to post a copy of the email in question:

From info@moniker.com Wed Aug 29 04:49:23 2007
X-Apparently-To: [REDACTED] via 206.190.38.16; Wed, 29 Aug 2007 04:49:27 -0700
X-Originating-IP: [209.191.85.97]
Return-Path:
Authentication-Results: mta245.mail.re4.yahoo.com from=yahoo.com; domainkeys=pass (ok)
Received: from 209.191.85.97 (HELO web37012.mail.mud.yahoo.com) (209.191.85.97) by mta245.mail.re4.yahoo.com with SMTP; Wed, 29 Aug 2007 04:49:27 -0700
Received: (qmail 53702 invoked by uid 60001); 29 Aug 2007 11:49:23 -0000
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=X-YMail-OSG:Receivedate:From:Subject:To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding:Message-ID; b=TpPhDeag/8kqRX5lkOeaIcRVHvL/vkUJ+uE6A0s0Dbf0Cnaf6qWmYC
TNUBqjDnl+eAGfU6V72hoOQ3oLabunoAD21QZg/+PrcG4/2DOuXK1BOpbm
pWln34l9wF9WoTFpZuFR8f/XxjwK4X2ZFtbLivaSeuXAVQJGjXe2aTX+Gz0
=;X-YMail-OSG: LMawMwwVM1niEwCMrXOtPXFXiouttWUG9U.Pe0mt53M
fHz9_BU8bE4aCgBurXOxwP6nje16Idt_ZBaWX5gNd4.sAqek8CMketIZ8Uan
O_49blWgxZg_P20VqhCSllw–
Received: from [64.251.19.130] by web37012.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Wed, 29 Aug 2007 04:49:23 PDT
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 04:49:23 -0700 (PDT)
From: “info@moniker.com” Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Yahoo! DomainKeys has confirmed that this message was sent by yahoo.com. Learn more
Subject: Affiliate Summit 2007
To: list@domainers-summit.com
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=”0-1328096676-1188388163=:53679″
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Message-ID: <526363.53679.qm@web37012.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Length: 857
Why you should work with us :

[REDACTED LINK TO A YOUTUBE VIDEO]

For the newbie, the portion I enclosed above is called the “headers” of an email. It gives a few technical details about the email’s origin.

You might see the From line as info@moniker.com. But if you look closely, there’s a Yahoo! email address attached in that header.

Another clue from that header is the phrase “Yahoo! DomainKeys has confirmed that this message was sent by yahoo.com”. DomainKeys is Yahoo!’s proprietary email authentication system.

Be aware that such emails do spread around, though this one’s rather on a limited scale. Try not to click on the link on the email (if you receive one) as there’s no telling what it might do to your computer.

Anyway, just posting it here in case any of you receive this or you know someone else got this sort of thing. I’ve since notified Moniker’s CEO about this thing.

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