[thelist] Re: Checking to see that an email account exists

Tim Luoma luomat at peak.org
Wed Jul 17 09:21:01 CDT 2002


Joshua Olson wrote:
> Does anybody know the preferred/easiest method for asking a mail server if a
> particular email address is valid?  Is there some sort of anonymous POP3
> command that does it?  any SMTP commands?  Telnet?

You can telnet to port 25 and run a vrfy but 99% of the time the smart
admin has turned it off.

AOL and other large ISPs will accept anything you throw at them and then
decide later whether or not its valid because if spammers send messages to
	jim at aol.com
	john at aol.com
	betsy at aol.com

and they get a bounce for 'betsy at aol.com' then they know that the other
two are valid addresses.

TjL







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