E-mail Stamping with accredited entity name
AssigneeGoodmail Systems, Inc.
InventorsDaniel Dreymann, Gail Claspell, Richard Gingras, Justin Rietz
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Effective aspects of stamping outbound e-mail are combined with a registration and entity identification system for e-mail senders. A mail sender participates by registering From: line and entity information with a trusted third-party repository known as a stamp authority. When the sender sends an e-mail message, the From: line is compared against the From: line information for the sender stored in the repository. If the result is a match, entity information is added and the e-mail is allowed to be sent. If there is not a match, then the e-mail is prevented from being stamped.
Claims19
A method for validating a sender of an e-mail message, the method comprising:
- receiving an e-mail from the sender, the e-mail including a header, the header having a first field, the contents of the first field indicating the sender's identity;
- determining, by an authority, that the sender is authorized to use the identity indicated by the contents of the first field;
- inserting, by the authority, a second field in the header, the contents of the second field indicating that the sender is authorized to use the identity indicated by the contents of the first field;
- determining an entity name associated with the sender;
- inserting, by the authority, a third field in the header, the contents of the third field indicating the entity name associated with the sender;
- and
- inserting a token in the header, the token including a digital signature associated with the authority.
A computer-implemented method for validating a sender of an e-mail message, the method comprising:
- registering identification information about an e-mail sender with an authority;
- registering entity information about the e-mail sender with the authority;
- sending a header associated with an e-mail message from the e-mail sender to the authority, the header including origination information, the origination information indicating that the associated e-mail message is from the e-mail sender;
- receiving from the authority a modified header, the modified header associated with the e-mail message and additionally including a field indicating the registered entity information for the sender and a token indicating that the origination information is accurate;
- and
- sending the e-mail message and the associated modified header to a recipient.
A computer program product for validating a sender of an e-mail message, the computer program product stored on a computer-readable non-transitory medium and including instructions configured to cause a processor to carry out the steps of:
- registering identification information about an e-mail sender with an authority;
- registering entity information about the e-mail sender with the authority;
- sending a header associated with an e-mail message from the e-mail sender to the authority, the header including origination information, the origination information indicating that the associated e-mail message is from the e-mail sender;
- receiving from the authority a modified header, the modified header associated with the e-mail message and additionally including a field indicating the registered entity information for the sender and a token indicating that the origination information is accurate;
- and
- sending the e-mail message and the associated modified header to a recipient.
A system for validating a sender of an e-mail message, comprising:
- a stamp authority, including:
- a registration database for storing identification information and entity name information for an e-mail sender;
- a stamp generator for receiving from the e-mail sender a header associated with an e-mail message, the header including origination information, the origination information indicating that the associated the e-mail message is from the e-mail sender;
- and
- wherein the stamp generator is further adapted to determine that the identification information about the e-mail sender stored in the registration database matches the origination information in the header, and to create a modified header, the modified header associated with the e-mail message and additionally including the entity name information for the sender and a token indicating that the origination information is accurate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.