Enforcing rights management through edge email servers

In an electronic messaging system, a method of ensuring that confidential, proprietary, privileged or other sensitive subject matter is not inappropriately transferred between domains with differing security rights by utilizing policy documents that include semantics pattern recognition data for identifying sensitive messages, the method comprising:

• an act of receiving a message at a message transfer agent located at a boundary between at least two domains with different security rights, the message including sensitive subject matter that is not supposed to be inappropriately transferred between the at least two domains based on the security rights of each domain;
• a step for identifying the message as sensitive by using a policy document that includes one or more pieces of evidence, which are configurable characteristics corresponding to the sensitive subject matter;
• an act of determining one or more actions to be taken on the message in accordance with policy remedies for ensuring that the sensitive subject matter is not inappropriately transferred between the at least two domains;
• wherein the one or more actions applied are one or more of a deleting the message, deleting the sensitive subject matter, sending a non-delivery receipt back to a client that sent the message, forwarding the message to a system administrator, or forwarding the message to a supervisor of a sender;
• and
• wherein the one or more of the one or more actions applied further include identifying that the message can be sent using a secure protocol, wherein the method further includes the acts of:
• sending a message to the sender's address indicating that the message includes the sensitive subject matter;
• querying the sender whether they still want to transfer the message between the at least two domains;
• and
• establishing one or more secure links between the at least two domains for transferring the message.

In an electronic messaging system, a method of ensuring that confidential, proprietary, privileged or other sensitive subject matter is not inappropriately transferred between domains with differing security rights by utilizing policy documents that include semantics pattern recognition data for identifying sensitive messages and policy remedies that define how to process the sensitive messages, the method comprising acts of:

• receiving a message at a message transfer agent located at a boundary between at least two domains with different security rights, the message including sensitive subject matter that is not supposed to be inappropriately transferred between the at least two domains based on the security rights of each domain;
• accessing a policy document that includes one or more pieces of evidence, which are configurable characteristics corresponding to the sensitive subject matter;
• scanning the message for identifying the one or more pieces of evidence corresponding to the sensitive subject matter within the message;
• and
• based on the identified one or more pieces of evidence, triggering one or more adaptable actions for ensuring the sensitive subject matter is not inappropriately transferred between the at least two domains;
• wherein the one or more adaptable actions applied are one or more of a deleting the message, deleting the sensitive subject matter, sending a non-delivery receipt back to a client that sent the message, forwarding the message to a system administrator, or forwarding the message to a supervisor of a sender;
• and
• wherein the one or more of the one or more adaptable actions applied further include identifying that the message can be sent using a secure protocol, wherein the method further includes the acts of:
• sending a message to the sender's address indicating that the message includes the sensitive subject matter;
• querying the sender whether they still want to transfer the message between the at least two domains;
• and
• establishing one or more secure links between the at least two domains for transferring the message.

A computer program product for use in an electronic messaging system, the computer program product used to implement a method of ensuring that confidential, proprietary, privileged or other sensitive subject matter is not inappropriately transferred between domains with differing security rights by utilizing policy documents that include semantics pattern recognition data for identifying sensitive messages and policy remedies that define how to process the sensitive messages, the computer program product comprising one or more computer readable storage media having stored thereon computer executable instructions that, when executed by a processor, can cause the distributed computing system to perform the following:

• receive a message at a message transfer agent located at a boundary between at least two domains with different security rights, the message including sensitive subject matter that is not supposed to be inappropriately transferred between the at least two domains based on the security rights of each domain;
• access a policy document that includes one or more pieces of evidence, which are configurable characteristics corresponding to the sensitive subject matter;
• scan the message for identifying the one or more pieces of evidence corresponding to the sensitive subject matter within the message;
• and
• based on the identified one or more pieces of evidence, trigger one or more adaptable actions for ensuring the sensitive subject matter is not inappropriately transferred between the at least two domains;
• wherein the one or more adaptable actions applied are one or more of a deleting the message, deleting the sensitive subject matter, sending a non-delivery receipt back to a client that sent the message, forwarding the message to a system administrator, or forwarding the message to a supervisor of a sender;
• and
• wherein the one or more of the one or more adaptable actions applied further include identifying that the message can be sent using a secure protocol, the computer program product further comprising computer executable instructions that:
• sending a message to the sender's address indicating that the message includes the sensitive subject matter;
• querying the sender whether they still want to transfer the message between the at least two domains;
• and
• establishing one or more secure links between the at least two domains for transferring the message.