Hiding HELO data?

I just sent myself an email from outlook using an email address from my web host.

When I received the email in gmail I clicked "show original" and found that there is a section for the HELO data which displays my home computer's name and external IP address.

It also shows the Helo information for my smtp server but that's fine and reasonable.

My concern is that everyone I email through outlook is going to get the ip address of my home computer. That seems a little dangerous. It seems even more dangerous when I think about my parents who use outlook and have been sending their IP address around without knowing it (and who also do not keep their computers up to date at all).

I notice whenever I send an email through a webmail server like gmail or hotmail, it filters out this data so that it only sends the SMTP server's information.

Does anyone know how I can filter this data out of my outgoing emails? I don't know much about this but I figure it should be possible to fake some of the HELO data but the ip address is pretty hard to fake since your smtp server would need the correct address for the connection.

However, if you can change the settings on your mail server maybe there is a way to tell it to filter out this data.

Does anyone know how this is possible?

You should send a test email to an unrelated account rather than to yourself, like to gmail or yahoo mail or somewhere else. You may be seeing header information because you're on the same computer that sent the mail.

I have a yahoo mail account I often use to test what's visible in emails sent from my mail server after I've made some change or something.

It is a separate account. The information is contained in the email message and therefore exists for anyone viewing it.

On any computer I look at this email from any other ip address it is the same. It literally sends the ip address as part of the message. You just don't normally see it because most mail clients filter out the meta data unless you ask it to show you the complete email message like in gmail's "show original" option.

Is outlook adding the header or is your web host adding it? My guess is that your web host is adding it, so you would need to contact them to ask about changing it. If you're on shared hosting they probably won't.

IP addresses are not really secret though. The ipv4 address space is too small to provide security through obscurity. Your address probably gets randomly scanned very frequently from people just guessing it.

If you're talking about the 'received from' header that shows your sending IP I don't think you can hide it, and it will usually show an entry for your smtp server receiving the mail from your IP. If your workstation is using a private IP who cares?

there are ways you can change it, but not really hide it...although if it is your mail server you can code in some changes.

Not sure how that would play out with a lot of strict mail enforcement ala 'reject' improper info.

your home ip is probably like most, a changing ip, behind a router that allows nothing through unless a response to what you are doing.

your router is continually probed just like your server anyway.

I routinely go through all my spam mails and go from original to final stop to try to track what is real and not in the headers.

I suggest you leave as is since that is how all mail is.