Dynamic spam trap accounts

• US 20060168017A1
• Filed: 11/30/2004
• Published: 07/27/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: de Leon, Arnold D., Brutlag, Jacob D., Gillum, Eliot C., Stern, Pablo M.
• Application Number:
  US11/000,623
• Publication Number:
  US 20060168017A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking

Abstract

A system and method for gathering data on unsolicited email messages delivered to non-existent accounts. The method may include the steps of receiving email for a subset of non-existent email recipient accounts on an email system; and gathering message data for at least a subset of said invalid recipient accounts. The system may include a messaging transfer agent; a dynamic trap engine; and a dynamic trap message data store.

Claims

1. A method for gathering data on email messages sent to non-existent accounts, comprising:

receiving email for a set of non-existent email recipient accounts on an email system; and

gathering message data for at least a subset of said invalid recipient accounts.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the subset is an unbounded set.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of gathering comprises:

accepting a message for a non-existent email recipient; and

storing message data.

4. The method of claim 3 further including the step, prior to said step of accepting, of determining whether to accept a message for a non-existent email recipient.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the step of determining includes using hashes to generate a subset of non-existent accounts.

6. The method of claim 5 wherein the step of hashing includes a technology which makes the results of the hash unpredictable to an observer.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the step of hashing uses a keyed hash.

8. The method of claim 3 wherein the step of determining includes using a random list of recipients.

9. The method of claim 3 wherein the step of determining includes using all non-existent accounts.

10. The method of claim 3 wherein said step of determining includes establishing minimum threshold for a characteristic of the message.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the threshold is the number of messages received from a sender.

12. The method of claim 1 further including the step of:

associating the message data from said subset of said invalid recipient accounts with sender verification systems.

13. The method of claim 1 further including the step of:

providing said message data from said subset of said invalid recipient accounts to a spam filtering system.

14. The method of claim 13 further including the step of modifying an algorithm or input data in the spam filtering system.

15. The method of claim 1 further including the steps of:

providing a plurality of static trap accounts;

gathering message data from messages addressed to said static trap accounts; and

comparing message data from said subset of said invalid recipient accounts with said message data from messages addressed to said static trap accounts.

16. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of receiving includes the step of:

generating a non-delivery report addressed to a sender of an email.

17. The method of claim 1 further including the step, prior to said step of gathering, of determining whether to accept an email for a non-existent email account based on evaluating a characteristic of email data sent to at least one of said non-existent email accounts.

18. The method of claim 17 wherein said step of determining comprises accepting a message based on said characteristic.

19. The method of claim 17 wherein said characteristic is the sender address and the frequency of email from said sender address.

20. An email system including a number of recipient accounts, comprising:

a messaging transfer agent;

a dynamic trap engine; and

a dynamic trap message data store.

21. The email system of claim 20 wherein the dynamic trap message data store includes multiple dynamic trap message data stores.

22. The email system of claim 20 wherein the dynamic trap message data store includes message data for at least a subset of non-existent recipient accounts.

23. The system of claim 20 wherein the subset is all of said non-existent accounts.

24. The system of claim 22 wherein the subset is based on the frequency of receipt of message data from a sender email address.

25. The system of claim 22 wherein the subset is based on the frequency of receipt of message data from a sender IP address.

26. The email system of claim 20 wherein the dynamic trap engine includes code for determining whether to instruct the messaging transfer agent to accept a message for a non-existent account.

27. The email system of claim 20 further including a spam filter accessing the dynamic trap message data store and filtering spam based on data in said dynamic trap message data store.

28. The email system of claim 20 wherein the email system comprises an email server.

29. The email system of claim 20 wherein the email system comprises a plurality of email servers including a plurality of messaging transfer agents.

30. The email system of claim 29 wherein each of said plurality of messaging transfer agents includes a dynamic trap engine, and the output of each said engine are provided to the dynamic message trap data store.

31. The email system of claim 20 wherein said message transfer agent includes said dynamic trap engine.

32. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for performing steps comprising:

receiving email for a set of non-existent email recipient accounts on an email system;

determining whether to accept a message to ones of said non-existent email recipients comprising a subset of said non-existent email recipients;

based on said step of determining, accepting messages for said subset; and

storing accepted data messages.

33. The computer-readable medium of claim 32 having further computer-executable instructions for performing the step of generating a non-delivery receipt for said accepted messages.

34. The computer-readable medium of claim 32 having further computer-executable instructions for performing the step of using hashes to generate the subset of non-existent accounts.

35. The computer-readable medium of claim 32 having further computer-executable instructions for using a keyed hash.

36. The computer-readable medium of claim 32 having further computer-executable instructions for performing the step of modifying a spam filter based on said the message data from said subset.

37. The computer-readable medium of claim 32 having further computer-executable instructions for performing the steps of:

providing a plurality of static trap accounts;

gathering message data from messages addressed to said static trap accounts; and

comparing message data from said subset of with said message data from messages addressed to said static trap accounts.

38. The computer-readable medium of claim 32 having further computer-executable instructions for performing the step of determining a characteristic of message data sent to at least one of said non-existent email accounts and wherein said step of determining comprises accepting a message based on said characteristic.

39. A method for operating an email server, comprising:

receiving an email for a non-existent email recipient;

hashing the non-existent email recipient;

determining whether to accept the email based on a comparison of the results of said hashing step to a test bucket;

if said step of determining results in accepting the email, storing the email in a data store and issuing a non-delivery receipt to a sender; and

if said step of determining results in rejecting the email, discarding the email.

40. The method of claim 39 wherein if said step of determining results in rejecting the email, an indication such email was rejected is stored in a data store.