A question was recently posed to the IT'S GEEK TO ME column about how mass emailers can send emails with the recipient's exact email address in the FROM field. The answer provided is that it's not a highly technical process. The spammer must already have possession of the recipient's email address in order to send them mail.

How the spammer obtained the address in the first place is a separate issue that was not addressed. Further details on this topic are available from the source, including information about the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, or SMTP, which is the standard protocol used by email systems.