I recently came across SharpMail, a UK based company that offers a fake email service similar to the service I host here. They offer a lot of cool features like reply back, file attachments, SMS for text messages (doesn’t work in US), rich text messages, and premade prank emails. However they have several features that I don’t like and that make my service better. First you have to register an account with them to do anything. Second they put a very noticeable link in the email. So the recipient knows very quickly that the email is fake. They also have a huge x-header that alerts to the fact that it is a prank. For $35 a year, you can remove these. So if you want to send a more truely anonymous (and free) email try out this. It is my goal to add a few more features to the script, like an optional reply feature, and maybe a new form with a rich text editor. I am also working on a C# program that will do the same stuff.
Have you even looked up the definition of “open relay” of course you created an open relay, you were allowing people to send mail to anyone else and specify their own from address.
not all of your users will be technically minded so an email from “branchmanager@yourbank.com” could fool some old lady into giving up account info. This would be exactly the kind of thing that your “service” could be used for, I know that you posted this in 2006 when “phishing” wasn’t as common as it is today, but thats no excuse, I cant help but think that services like yours are what caused the whole problem in the first place.
You are lucky that you got a take down notice and were not held responsible for anything bigger…