Re: Verifying E-Mail Addresses
- From: nick <nick@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2006 10:30:05 +0200
Mister Dookie wrote:
Hello list,
Is there a way to verify that an e-mail address
(e.g."johnsmith@xxxxxxxxxxx") is valid and exists or does not exist
(is a fake e-mail address) without actually sending a message to that
address and awaiting the response?
Here's why this is a security issue. Our company administers a small
"municipal-type" 802.11 network where for limited open-access the only
form of ID we require is an e-mail address and a password. We simple
don't have the resources to send out e-mails and then have
verification and so forth. We are trying to prevent users from
entering fake addresses into our system. We want at least a small
amount of accountability.
We would like to be able to do a quick check, say query an IMAP, POP3,
or SMTP and check to see if there is actually an account at that
address without sending a verification e-mail and waiting for users to
click on a link or get something that bounces back. Does something
like that exist?
I do recognize that somebody can enter a valid e-mail address that
does not belong to them, but we are trying to address one issue at a
time. At this point we are just trying to prevent people who give us
"dude@xxxxxxxx" from getting on to our network.
Thanks,
John
Verifying the @domain.tld part wouldn't be too difficult, you could just do a simple dns lookup and see if there is an MX record for that domain, so no email necessary for that. To see if what comes before the @ exists though, you need to make an smtp connection to the mailserver, and see if it will accept a to: for that particular address (which isn't always a guarantee, if the mail server has a catchall), you could even drop the connection after getting a confermation from the server (though you might annoy a few sysadmins).
The easiest solution would be to send an email though, IMHO.
Nick
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