METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR FILTERING COMMUNICATION

• US 20080250503A1
• Filed: 06/16/2008
• Published: 10/09/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 05/22/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mailgate, LLC
• Original Assignee: Tumbleweed Communications Corporation (Axway Software SA)
• Inventors: Dolinsky, Dmitry, Odnert, Daryl, Bandini, Jean-Christophe
• Granted Patent: US 8,943,308 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 726/23
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/22 Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/955 using information identifiers, e.g. uniform resource locators [URL]
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/214 using selective forwarding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/224 providing notification on incoming messages, e.g. pushed notifications of received messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/14 for detecting or protecting against malicious traffic

Abstract

An e-mail relay provides message filtering services to an e-mail network. The e-mail relay monitors incoming communication and intercepts e-mail messages. The e-mail relay compares attributes of the messages to data derived from SPAM messages, which are stored in a SPAM database. The e-mail relay restricts the delivery of messages based on the comparison such as by restricting the delivery of messages having attributes close to those of SPAM messages from the SPAM database. The SPAM database is constructed by responding to user or administrator indications as to whether received messages are SPAM messages.

Claims

1. A method of reducing a flow of unwanted electronic messages, the method comprising:

receiving electronic messages at a relay and determining that at least some of the received electronic messages are unwanted based on contents of a database that codes attributes and derived information characteristic of messages that have been determined to be unwanted; and

updating contents of the database for use in the determining for subsequently received ones of the electronic messages, wherein the updating is based, at least in part, on attributes and derived information for electronic messages received by the relay itself.

2. The method of claim 1,

wherein the determining characterizes at least some of the electronic messages as neither clean, nor unwanted, but rather borderline;

and

further comprising directing those electronic messages characterized as borderline to a quarantine.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

supplying an intended recipient of a quarantined electronic message with an alternate message that includes a URL whereby the intended recipient may initiate a retrieval session and specify that the quarantined electronic message is unwanted.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

responsive to specification by the intended recipient that the quarantined electronic message is unwanted, performing a corresponding update of the database for use in the determining for subsequently received ones of the electronic messages.

5. An apparatus comprising:

a e-mail relay that provides both (i) filtering of unwanted e-mail based on contents of a database and (ii) collection of attributes and derived information for e-mails received by the e-mail relay for addition to the database and for use in filtering of subsequently received e-mails,

wherein the e-mail relay categorizes individual ones of the received e-mails into at least three categories, including clean, unwanted and borderline,

wherein for at least some of the e-mails categorized as unwanted, either or both of attributes and derived information for the unwanted e-mail are added to the database, and

wherein for at least some of the e-mails categorized as borderline, the e-mail relay quarantines the borderline e-mail and supplies an intended recipient thereof with an alternate message that includes a URL whereby the intended recipient may initiate a retrieval session and specify that the quarantined electronic message is unwanted.

6. The apparatus of claim 5,

wherein responsive to specification by the intended recipient that the quarantined electronic message is unwanted, the e-mail relay performs a corresponding update of the database for use in the filtering of subsequently received e-mails.

7. The apparatus of claim 5, further comprising:

the database.