IDENTIFICATION OF A TRUSTED MESSAGE SENDER WITH TRACEABLE RECEIPTS

• US 20100211645A1
• Filed: 02/18/2009
• Published: 08/19/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/18/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Oath Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: Leytes, Leon, Wang, Tak Yin
• Application Number:
  US12/388,481
• Publication Number:
  US 20100211645A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/40 by quorum, i.e. whereby two or more security principals are required
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/1441 Countermeasures against malicious traffic countermeasures against attacks on cryptographic mechanisms H04L9/002

Abstract

Embodiments are directed towards identifying trusted senders and their trusted sender accounts within a household network for use in at least managing spam activities. Primary trusted sender accounts are determined based on a traceable relationship between a network account and a known trusted source, such as a communication of qualified electronic statements. Coverage of trusted senders may be expanded by including other network accounts that might not receive qualified electronic statements but are detected as being owned by a primary trusted sender and/or their household members. The other household members being definable as secondary trusted senders with secondary trusted sender accounts. Various anti-spam filters and/or other activities may be modified based on the determined trusted sender status of a network account, including, minimizing an amount of spam analysis performed for a message, training of spam filters, or the like.

Claims

1. A network device, comprising:

a transceiver to send and receive data over a network; and

a processor that is operative to perform actions, comprising;

identifying a primary trusted sender account based on a traceable association with a known trusted source;

monitoring activities of the primary trusted sender account over the network to detect a household network associated with the primary trusted sender account;

monitoring interactions within the household network with the primary trusted sender account to identify a secondary trusted sender account within the same household network; and

modifying a spam filter based on a trust level assigned to the primary trusted sender account and the secondary trusted sender account to reduce a level of filtering on messages sent from the primary trusted sender account or the secondary trusted sender account.

2. The network device of claim 1, wherein the known trusted source is an identifiable source that includes at least one qualified electronic statement such as that from a utility billing source, a financial billing source, an educational billing source, a government billing source, a purchase receipt source, an educational enrollment source, a payroll deposit notification source, a stock trading confirmation source, or a telecommunications billing source.

3. The network device of claim 1, wherein monitoring activities of the primary trusted sender account further comprises:

monitoring a log-in to the primary trusted sender account within a defined time period; and

determining a network address associated with the login of the primary trusted sender account, the network address being useable to define the household network.

4. The network device of claim 1, wherein monitoring interactions within the household network with the primary trusted sender account to identify a secondary trusted sender account within the same household network further comprises, monitoring for other primary trusted sender accounts within the same household network accessed by a same message sender.

5. The network device of claim 1, wherein the processor is operative to perform other actions, comprising:

detecting activity associated with the primary trusted sender account that is determined to be associated with spam activity;

revoking a trust level of the primary trusted sender account such that additional filtering of subsequent messages from the primary trusted sender account is performed.

6. The network device of claim 1, wherein identifying a primary trusted sender account further comprises detecting a qualified electronic statement being received at network account, and identifying the network account as the primary trusted sender account.

7. A processor readable storage medium that includes data and instructions, wherein the execution of the instructions on a computing device by enabling actions, comprising:

monitoring a plurality of network accounts to identify a primary trusted sender account based on receipt of a qualified electronic statement from a known trusted source;

monitoring activities over the network of the primary trusted sender account to identify a household network of the primary trusted sender account;

monitoring interactions within the household network to identify at least one other network account as a secondary trusted sender account within the same household network; and

modifying at least an anti-spam filter to reduce a level of spam analysis over another network account performed on an outgoing message from the primary trusted sender account or the secondary trusted sender account.

8. The processor readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein monitoring activities over the network of the at least one primary trusted sender account to identify a household network of the primary trusted sender account further comprises monitoring a log-in on the primary trusted sender account to detect a network address at which the log-in is detected.

9. The processor readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein monitoring interactions within the household network further comprises monitoring a message communications between the primary trusted sender account and at least one other network account within household network.

10. The processor readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein execution of the instructions on the computing device enable actions, further comprising:

if a total of primary trusted sender accounts and secondary trusted sender accounts within a same household network exceeds a threshold;

deleting the monitored network accounts being identified as secondary trusted sender accounts.

11. The processor readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein execution of the instructions on the computing device enable actions, further comprising:

identifying additional primary trusted sender accounts within the same household network by monitoring for login activities using a same browser application.

12. The processor readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein execution of the instructions on the computing device enable actions, further comprising:

revoking a trusted sender account status for a primary trusted sender account or a secondary trusted sender account if a spam activity is detected for that trusted sender account.

13. The processor readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the known trusted source is an identifiable source that includes at least one qualified electronic statement such as that from a utility billing source, a financial billing source, an educational billing source, a government billing source, a purchase receipt source, an educational enrollment source, a payroll deposit notification source, a stock trading confirmation source, or a telecommunications billing source.

14. A system for enabling a communications over a network, comprising:

a network device configured to perform actions, including;

monitoring a plurality of network accounts to identify a primary trusted sender account based on receipt of a qualified electronic statement from a known trusted source, wherein the primary trusted sender account is associated with a primary trusted sender;

monitoring activities over the network of the primary trusted sender account to identify a household network of the primary trusted sender account;

monitoring interactions within the household network to identify at least one other network account as a secondary trusted sender account within the same household network; and

a spam manager operating on a network device that is configured to perform actions, including modifying at least one anti-spam filter to reduce a level of spam analysis over another network account performed on an outgoing message from the primary trusted sender account or the secondary trusted sender account

15. The system of claim 14, wherein identifying a primary trusted sender account further comprises detecting a qualified electronic statement being received at network account, and identifying the network account as the primary trusted sender account.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein monitoring activities of the primary trusted sender account further comprises:

monitoring a log-in to the primary trusted sender account within a defined time period; and

determining a network address associated with the login of the primary trusted sender account, the network address being useable to define the household network.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein the known trusted source is an identifiable source that includes at least one qualified electronic statement such as that from a utility billing source, a financial billing source, an educational billing source, a government billing source, a purchase receipt source, an educational enrollment source, a payroll deposit notification source, a stock trading confirmation source, or a telecommunications billing source.

18. The system of claim 14, wherein modifying at least one anti-spam filter further comprises modifying the spam filter to not perform spam filtering on a message sent by the primary trusted sender account or the secondary trusted sender account.

19. The system of claim 14, wherein modifying the at least one anti-spam filter further comprises if a message is received from the primary trusted sender account or the secondary trusted sender account not performing an anti-spam analysis on the message.

20. The system of claim 14, wherein modifying the at least one anti-spam filter further comprises weighting feedback from at least one of the primary trusted sender account or the secondary trusted sender account higher than feedback from a non-trusted sender account, wherein the weighted feedback is employed to modify at least one anti-spam filter.