EMAIL FILTERING USING RECIPIENT REPUTATION
First Claim
1. A method for determining whether an incoming email message entering an email system with a plurality of recipients addressed to one or more of the recipients is ham or spam, the method comprising:
- accumulating counts of unsolicited ham email messages and unsolicited spam email messages received by each recipient;
calculating recipient reputations for recipients of email messages using the accumulated counts; and
calculating a message score for an email message using the recipient reputations of the recipients of the email message.
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Accused Products
Abstract
The present invention is an adaptive method for filtering spam by using the reputations associated with recipients of email messages to determine the reputations of message and content attributes, then using the attribute reputations to determine whether or not the email message is spam and then using the determination of spam to update the reputations associated with the recipients of the email message. The present invention can also be used in conjunction with existing spam algorithms. Optionally, training of existing spam algorithms may be implemented by the use of recipient reputations or training types derived from recipient reputations.
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Citations
24 Claims
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1. A method for determining whether an incoming email message entering an email system with a plurality of recipients addressed to one or more of the recipients is ham or spam, the method comprising:
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accumulating counts of unsolicited ham email messages and unsolicited spam email messages received by each recipient; calculating recipient reputations for recipients of email messages using the accumulated counts; and calculating a message score for an email message using the recipient reputations of the recipients of the email message. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
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9. A method for determining whether an incoming email message entering an email system with a plurality of recipients addressed to one or more of the recipients is ham or spam comprising:
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accumulating counts of unsolicited ham email messages and unsolicited spam email messages received by each recipient; calculating recipient reputations for recipients of email messages using the accumulated counts; calculating a sender reputation for a sender of an email message by combining the recipient reputations of the recipients associated with the sender; calculating a message score for the email message using the calculations; and updating the accumulated counts using the message score. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A method for determining whether an incoming email message entering an email system with a plurality of recipients addressed to one or more of the recipients is ham or spam comprising:
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determining recipient reputations for recipients of email messages using ham and spam statistics for email messages received by each recipient; updating a sender reputation for a sender of an email message using the recipient reputations of the recipients associated with the sender; updating an IP reputation for an IP address from which senders send the email messages by using the updated sender reputation; determining a message score for the email message using the sender reputation and the IP reputation; and updating the ham and spam statistics using the message score.
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17. A method for determining whether an incoming email message entering an email system with a plurality of recipients addressed to one or more of the recipients is ham or spam comprising:
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accumulating ham and spam statistics for email messages received by each recipient; modifying a sender reputation using the accumulated ham and spam statistics of recipients associated with a sender; determining an IP reputation for an IP address from which senders send the email messages by using the sender reputation; determining a message score for an email message using the sender reputation and the IP reputation; and modifying the accumulated ham and spam statistics using the message score.
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18. An adaptive spam filtering method for an existing spam algorithm used to determine whether an incoming email message entering an email system with a plurality of recipients addressed to one or more of the recipients is spam, the spam filtering method comprising:
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accumulating counts of ham email messages and spam email messages received by each recipient, the accumulated counts of ham email messages and spam email messages determined by an existing spam algorithm; calculating recipient reputations for recipients of email messages using the accumulated counts; and using the calculated recipient reputations for the recipients of an email message for training the existing spam algorithm. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24)
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Specification