SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR VERIFYING DELIVERY AND INTEGRITY OF ELECTRONIC MESSAGES
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A server transmits a message from a sender to a destination address. During transmission, the server and the destination address have a dialog constituting an attachment, via a particular one of SMTP and ESMTP protocols, concerning the message, the server and the destination address. The message passes through servers between the server and the destination address. This passage is included in the attachment. Verifiers are provided for the message and for the attachments. The verifiers may constitute encrypted hashes of the message and of the attachment. The sender receives the message, the attachments and the verifications from the server before authentication and transmits the message, the attachments and the verifiers to the server to obtain authentication by the server. The server operates on the message and the message verifier to authenticate the message and operates on the attachments and the attachments'"'"' verifier to verify the attachments.
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Citations
61 Claims
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1-28. -28. (canceled)
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29. A method of transmitting a message from a sender to a recipient through a server acting as a Mail Transport Agent, including the steps at the server of:
- transmitting the message to the recipient'"'"'s Mail Transport Agent in a protocol dialog selected from a group consisting of the selected one of the SMTP and ESMTP protocols, and recording at the transmitter some portion of the selected one of the SMTP and ESMTP protocol dialog between the sender and the recipient through the server including those portions in which the receiving server accepts or declines delivery of the transmitted message.
- View Dependent Claims (30, 31, 32, 33, 34)
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35. A method of transmitting an e-mail message from a sender to a recipient through a server acting as a Mail Transport Agent, including the steps at the server of transmitting to the sender a copy of the e-mail message which has been digitally signed by the operator of the server.
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36. A method of transmitting an e-mail message from a sender to a recipient through a server acting as a Mail Transport Agent, including the steps at the server of:
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computing a digital digest of the message, and transmitting the message to the recipient, and saving the digital digest in some manner in which it may be associated with the message and the message sender and the recipient. - View Dependent Claims (37, 38)
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39. A method of transmitting an e-mail message from a sender through a server functioning as a Mail Transport Agent to a recipient, including the steps at the server of:
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connecting to the mail exchange (MX) server of the recipient'"'"'s domain, initiating an SMTP or ESMTP dialog with the receiving server, transmitting, as the MAIL-FROM address, an e-mail address controlled by the operator of the server and not the return address of the sender of the message, and receiving at this e-mail address any Delivery Status Notifications, Failure of Delivery of messages that may be transmitted by the receiving mail server as a consequence of attempting to deliver the message to the recipient address. - View Dependent Claims (40, 41, 42, 43, 44)
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45. A method of digitally signing file attachments of an e-mail message including the steps by the signer of:
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calculating the digital digest of the attachment, encrypting the digital digest with an encryption key known only to the signer, writing the encrypted digital digest to a file which is attached to the message and, transmitting the message to a recipient. - View Dependent Claims (46)
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47. A method of transmitting an e-mail message from a sender through a server functioning as a Mail Transport Agent to a recipient, including the steps at the server of:
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adding to the message, in formats recognized by various e-mail client programs, message headers eliciting delivery notifications from recipients email clients, where the e-mail address in the headers to which the notification is requested to be sent is an e-mail address controlled by the operator of the server and not the return address of the sender of the message. - View Dependent Claims (48, 49, 50, 51, 52)
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53. A method of directing the delivery of e-mail messages passing through servers acting as Mail Transport Agents wherein a software program examines the subject lines of queued outbound messages looking for specific strings of characters, and
upon finding the characters, re-directs the message to a specific e-mail address.
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54. A method of directing the routing of e-mail messages passing through servers acting as Mail Transport Agents wherein a software program examines the subject lines of queued outbound messages looking for specific strings of characters, and
upon finding the characters, routes the message to be delivered to a specific mail transport agent.
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55. A method of transmitting an e-mail message from a sender through a server functioning as a Mail Transport Agent to a recipient, including the steps at the server of:
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generating for each transmitted message a string of characters which are unique to the message that may serve as a message identifier, and for each addressee of the message, generating a string of characters which is unique to that addressee among all others addressed by the message and which may serve as a recipient identifier, and rendering the message, at least in part, in html format, and incorporating within the html message text a reference to an HTTP URL controlled by the operators of the server so that an HTML enabled mail reader will attempt to connect to the URL when the message is displayed, and incorporating within the reference to the external URL the message identifier and the recipient identifier in such a manner that these identifiers will be conveyed to the HTTP server at the referenced URL, and transmitting the message to the recipient address, and at the HTTP server detecting the IP address, message identifier and recipient identifier transmitted by an HTML enabled mail reader displaying the message, - View Dependent Claims (56, 57)
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58. A method of receiving messages on behalf of a recipient at a server including the steps at the server of:
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appending the date and time of receipt to the message, and forwarding the message to the recipient'"'"'s electronic mailbox. - View Dependent Claims (59, 60, 61)
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Specification