Introduction

Led an experimental study under Prof. Paul Pearce , focusing on the practical aspects of emailing from a home internet connection, emphasizing on real-world application and user experience

Motivation

Ever open your inbox and all you see is SPAM, SPAM, and more SPAM? Makes you wonder if there’s an escape from those annoying ads, right? What if I told you setting up your own mail server could be the geeky shield against those pesky phishing attempts? Sounds a bit far-fetched, but hey, why not see if it’s actually doable? We wanted to check out whether sending emails from your own corner of the internet—your home ISP—could really help dodge some digital bullets (Remember MIRAI botnet outbreak?)

Concept

In this paper we conducted an experimental study in which we demonstrated that it is possible to successfully send email from a residential internet connection into the inboxes of users of some popular free email providers. However, this success was pyrrhic, as the frequency of ISPs blocking port 25 means leveraging compromised home devices en mass to send spam directly is still difficult. We also observed that email domain authentication tools seem to not be a strong determinant for whether an email is delivered or not.