Honeypot

This term is adapted from the name of the sticky and sweet substance that can be used to lure unsuspecting prey. In computer terms this is an email trap that is designed to detect and counteract attempts at unauthorized or illegitimate use of information and their gateways. In regard to email, this is an email address that identifies spammers who have harvested emails.

In many cases spammers are able to exploit vulnerable resources like open proxies and mail relays. To identify the culprits, system administrators create honey pot programs that appear to be vulnerable, allow them to believe they are harvesting large email lists undetected. Once these lists are used, and the identifying information tags verifies that the senders of these lists are using illegally harvested lists the mechanisms can be set into place that will shut the users of these lists down.