E-mail Stamping with accredited entity name
View Patent ↗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.
1. 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.
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
returning the e-mail to the sender.
3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
sending the e-mail to a recipient indicated in the header.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein the contents of the second field are cryptographically encoded.
5. The method of claim 1 wherein the first field is a “From:” field.
6. The method of claim 5 wherein the contents of the field include an e-mail address.
7. The method of claim 5 wherein the contents of the field include a display name.
8. 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.
9. The method of claim 8 wherein the registered identification information about the e-mail sender includes an e-mail address associated with the sender.
10. The method of claim 9 wherein the e-mail address includes a domain name and the entity information includes an entity name differing from the domain name.
11. The method of claim 8 wherein the identification information about the e-mail sender includes a display name associated with the sender.
12. The method of claim 8 wherein the origination information includes a From: address field.
13. The method of claim 12 wherein the From: address field includes an e-mail address.
14. The method of claim 12 wherein the From: address field includes a display name.
15. 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.
16. 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.
17. The system of claim 16 wherein the stamp generator is further adapted to return the modified header to the e-mail sender.
18. The system of claim 16 wherein the identification information about the e-mail sender stored in the registration database includes an e-mail address.
19. The system of claim 16 wherein the identification information about the e-mail sender stored in the registration database includes a display name.