Method for creating a whitelist for processing e-mails
View Patent ↗A method of creating a whitelist for processing received e-mail messages. A whitelist is created by software running at an e-mail recipient's computer. The whitelist is constructed using e-mail addresses stored by the recipient (for instance, in an “address book”) as well as using the To:, Cc:, and Bcc: information of e-mails sent by the recipient. The subject line of a received message is also checked to see if it matches the subject line of a message recently sent by the user. If so, the sender is added to the whitelist.
1. A computerized method for creating a whitelist of approved senders of e-mail messages comprising:
a) adding to the whitelist any e-mail addresses stored by a user of an e-mail program;
b) scanning messages the user has sent and adding to the whitelist any e-mail address in an outgoing message; and
c) adding to the whitelist any e-mail address of a sender of a message having the same subject line as another message previously sent by the user;
wherein the adding and scanning steps are performed by software executing program instructions.
2. The method of claim 1 further comprising updating the whitelist when one of the following occurs:
a) a first new e-mail address is stored;
b) the user sends a first new e-mail message containing a second new e-mail address; or
c) the user receives a second new e-mail message containing a third new e-mail address.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein scanning messages the user has sent includes checking e-mail addresses in one of the following fields of each message's header:
a) the To: field;
b) the Cc: field; and
c) the Bcc: field.
4. The method of claim 1 further comprising:
a) scanning messages received by the user; and
b) determining if a sender of a received message is on the whitelist, wherein if the sender is on the whitelist:
i) identifying information about the sender of the message based on data in the message, the identified information about the sender including at least one of the following:
A) an actual sender of the message;
B) a final IP address used by the sender;
C) a final domain name used by the sender; or
D) an IP path used by the sender; and
ii) sending the identified information to at least one of the following:
A) a central database;
B) at least two centrally-maintained databases; or
C) a local database.