System and Method for Registered and Authenticated Electronic Messages
AssigneesMarvin Shannon, Wesley Boudville
InventorsMarvin Shannon, Wesley Boudville
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Abstract
We show how to use a browser plug-in and a central Registrar server, to let users send registered or validated electronic messages in a lightweight manner, without using computationally expensive Public Key Infrastructure methods. To users, it is analogous to post office certified or registered mail. Our method can be done if the users, as senders and recipients, are at major ISPs, who have web pages for writing and reading messages, whose structure is known or can be found by the plug-in. Our method does not need the involvement of the ISPs, though that would facilitate some operations.
Claims10
A method of a browser plug-in making a hash of an email written within the browser, and sending this hash, along with the sender's address or some unique identifier of the sender, to another computer (“Registrar”), which can optionally attach a timestamp to this data.
A method of a user making a hash of an arbitrary file, and sending this and an id of the user to the Registrar;
- where the latter can answer queries from others, who present it with a hash and ask if it has a record of this and who registered it, for file authentication.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.