Transmission of secure electronic mail formats
View Patent ↗A method and system for providing e-mail messages to a receiving e-mail application. The e-mail messages as sent from a sending e-mail application being secure and in opaque signed format. The opaque signed e-mail messages being converted to clear signed e-mail messages by decoding extracting message content and digital signatures. The clear signed e-mails being sent to a receiving e-mail application.
1. A method, comprising:
receiving a plurality of digitally-signed messages;
filtering the plurality of digitally-signed messages according to one or more criteria to obtain at least one filtered digitally-signed message;
when the at least one filtered digitally-signed message is determined to be an opaque-signed message comprising an opaque signature, for each of the at least one filtered digitally-signed message:
obtaining the opaque signature from the filtered digitally-signed message, the opaque signature comprising a message content and a digital signature for the message content;
extracting the message content from the opaque signature;
generating a message comprising a copy of the message content thus extracted; and
sending the generated message.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the generated message comprises the copy of the message content thus extracted and the digital signature.
3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the digital signature is comprised in a remainder of the opaque signature after the message content is extracted.
4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the generated message is a multipart message.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the method is performed by a server.
6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the server is an outbound message server.
7. The method of claim 5 , wherein the server is an inbound message server.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the message comprises:
including the message content thus extracted in the generated message;
deleting the message content in the opaque signature; and
including the opaque signature with the message content thus deleted in the generated message.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the opaque signature comprises a Cryptographic Message Syntax encoding of the at least one filtered digitally-signed message, and extracting the message content from the opaque signature comprises:
copying an eContent part from an object encapContentInfo comprised in the Cryptographic Message Syntax encoding; and
deleting the eContent part thus copied from object encapContentInfo,
the copied eContent part comprising the message content.
10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the filtered digitally-signed message is encrypted, and the method further comprises, prior to obtaining the opaque signature from the filtered digitally-signed message, decrypting the filtered digitally-signed message.
11. A system, comprising:
a receiving module configured to receive a plurality of digitally-signed messages;
a filtering module configured to filter the plurality of digitally-signed messages according to one or more criteria to obtain at least one filtered digitally-signed message;
a decoding module configured to, when the at least one filtered digitally-signed message is determined to be an opaque-signed message comprising an opaque signature:
obtain the opaque signature from the filtered digitally-signed message, the opaque signature comprising a message content and a digital signature for the message content and
extract the message content from the opaque signature;
a generating module configured to generate a message comprising a copy of the message content thus extracted; and
a sending module configured to initiate transmission of the generated message.
12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the generated message comprises the copy of the message content thus extracted and the digital signature.
13. The system of claim 12 , wherein the digital signature is comprised in a remainder of the opaque signature after the message content is extracted.
14. The system of claim 13 , wherein the generated message is a multipart message.
15. The system of claim 11 , wherein the receiving module, decoding module and sending module are comprised in a server.
16. The system of claim 15 , wherein the server is an outbound message server.
17. The system of claim 15 , wherein the server is an inbound message server.
18. The system of claim 11 , wherein the generating module is configured to generate the message comprising the copy of the message content thus extracted by:
including the message content thus extracted in the generated message;
deleting the message content in the opaque signature; and
including the opaque signature with the message content thus deleted in the generated message.
19. The system of claim 11 , wherein the opaque signature comprises a Cryptographic Message Syntax encoding of the at least one filtered digitally-signed message, and the decoding module is configured to extract the message content from the opaque signature by:
copying an eContent part from an object encapContentInfo comprised in the Cryptographic Message Syntax encoding; and
deleting the eContent part thus copied from object encapContentInfo,
the copied eContent part comprising the message content.
20. The system of claim 11 , wherein the filtered digitally-signed message is encrypted, and the decoding module is further configured to, prior to obtaining the opaque signature from the filtered-digitally signed message, decrypt the filtered digitally-signed message.