Electronic mail system with functionally for senders to control actions performed by message recipients

• US 7,783,711 B2
• Filed: 06/30/2006
• Issued: 08/24/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 07/01/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Appriver Canada, ULC (Open Text Corporation)
• Original Assignee: 0733660 Bc Ltd.
• Inventors: Astudillo, Esteban, McLean, Matt, Chen, Kung Ming, LeVasseur, Thierry, Rasmussen, Jeremy, Houg, Derek
• Primary Examiner(s): Follansbee; John
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tran; Nghi V
• Application Number:
  US11/427,935
• Publication Number:
  US 20070005717A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,516 Days
• Field of Search: 709/205, 709/206, 709/207
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/60 Protecting data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/602 Providing cryptographic facilities or services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/56 Financial cryptography, e.g. electronic payment or e-cash
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/60 Digital content management, e.g. content distribution
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/68 Special signature format, e.g. XML format
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/80 Wireless network architectures or network communication protocols for wireless network security H04W12/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/00 User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/02 using automatic reactions or user delegation, e.g. automatic replies or chatbot-generated messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/18 Commands or executable codes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/212 using filtering or selective blocking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/214 using selective forwarding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/234 for tracking messages
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/42 Mailbox-related aspects, e.g. synchronisation of mailboxes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/56 Unified messaging, e.g. interactions between e-mail, instant messaging or converged IP messaging [CPM]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/12 Applying verification of the received information cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for data integrity or data verification H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/123 received data contents, e.g. message integrity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/126 the source of the received data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/145 : the attack involving the propagation of malware through the network, e.g. viruses, trojans or worms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/168 : above the transport layer
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/306 : intercepting packet switched data communications, e.g. Web, Internet or IMS communications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 : based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3213 : using tickets or tokens, e.g. Kerberos network architectures or network communication protocols for entities authentication using tickets in a packet data network H04L63/0807
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3247 : involving digital signatures
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3263 : involving certificates, e.g. public key certificate [PKC] or attribute certificate [AC]; Public key infrastructure [PKI] arrangements network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting authentication of entities using certificates in a packet data network H04L63/0823

Abstract

An e-mail system is disclosed that overcomes many deficiencies of, but is backward compatible with, existing e-mail systems. Embodiments of the system may include various features, including but not limited to: (1) secure transfer of e-mail messages, without the need for users to replace existing e-mail clients or to change e-mail addresses; (2) tracking of all actions performed in connection with an e-mail transmission; (3) the ability for a recipient to view information about an e-mail message, optionally including information about how other addressees have responded to it, before deciding whether to retrieve the e-mail message; (4) the aggregation of entire e-mail conversations into a single threaded view; (5) the ability to include both private and public messages in a single e-mail communication; (6) sender control over downstream actions performed in connection with an e-mail message; (7) flexible control over cryptographic methods used to encrypt emails messages for storage.

Claims

1. A secure e-mail system, comprising:

a sender client component for composing and sending an e-mail message addressed to a first recipient with associated message control policies that control whether the first recipient of the e-mail message can forward the e-mail message to a second recipient;

a server system that hosts a secure e-mail service, said secure e-mail service configured to receive a first permission request from the sender client component to send the e-mail message using the secure e-mail service, authorize, at the time of e-mail message composing by a sender, sending of the e-mail message using the secure e-mail service based on subscription of the sender client component to the secure e-mail service, receive the e-mail message and message control policies from the sender client component over a secure HTTPS communications protocol, and store the e-mail message and message control policies from the sender client component in a secure message repository on the server system; and

a recipient computing device configured to send a download request to the secure e-mail service to securely retrieve the e-mail message from the secure message repository via the secure HTTPS communications protocol, send a second permission request to the secure e-mail service at the time of an attempt by the first recipient to forward the e-mail message to the second recipient with a child e-mail message, and send the child e-mail message to the server system for storage in response to receiving authorization to forward the e-mail message with the child e-mail message;

where the secure e-mail service is configured to, at the time of the attempt by the first recipient to forward the e-mail message, receive and check the second permission request against the message control policies, and based on a result of the check, reply to the recipient computing device granting or denying permission to forward the e-mail message by the first recipient to the second recipient.

2. The secure e-mail system of claim 1, wherein the sender client component and the secure e-mail service additionally provide functionality for the sender of the e-mail message to control whether a recipient can reply to the e-mail message.

3. The secure e-mail system of claim 1, wherein the sender client component and the secure e-mail service provide functionality for the sender of the e-mail message to terminate a conversation associated with the e-mail message after the e-mail message has been replied to and/or forwarded by one or more recipients, wherein termination of the conversation blocks recipients from forwarding and replying to e-mail messages that are part of the conversation.

4. The secure e-mail system of claim 1, wherein the sender client component and secure e-mail service additionally provide functionality for the sender of the e-mail message to block an addressee who has not yet retrieved an e-mail message from the secure e-mail service from doing so.

5. The secure e-mail system of claim 1, wherein the sender client component is a plug-in component that runs on a user computer in conjunction with an e-mail client program that does not itself support use of the secure e-mail service.

6. The secure e-mail system of claim 5, wherein the plug-in component is configured to intercept e-mail messages sent via the e-mail client program, and to send the intercepted e-mail messages to the secure e-mail service.

7. The secure e-mail system of claim 6, wherein the plug-in component is additionally configured to send a substitute message to an addressee of an intercepted message, said substitute message providing functionality for securely retrieving the intercepted message from the secure e-mail service.

8. The secure e-mail system of claim 1, wherein the sender client component is a web client component.

9. The secure e-mail system of claim 1, wherein the secure e-mail service is configured to transfer e-mail messages from senders to recipients without use of a store-and-forward model.

10. The secure e-mail system of claim 1, further comprising an interchangeable cryptography engine executable on the server system or the sender client component for encrypting e-mail messages, the interchangeable cryptography engine being configurable by an administrator.

11. A computer-implemented method of controlling an e-mail conversation using a secure e-mail service, comprising:

receiving a first permission request from a sender to send a parent e-mail message using the secure e-mail service;

authorizing the sender to send the parent e-mail message based on the sender being subscribed to the secure e-mail service;

receiving the parent e-mail message and associated message control policies from the sender over a secure HTTPS communications protocol, and storing the parent e-mail message in a secure message repository on a server system, said parent e-mail message addressed to at least a first recipient, and said message control policies including a message forwarding control for controlling whether a recipient of the parent e-mail message can forward the parent e-mail message to other users;

providing the first recipient access to the parent e-mail message from the server system over the secure HTTPS communications protocol;

receiving a second permission request from the first recipient to forward or reply to the parent e-mail message with a child e-mail message;

applying the message control policies to the second permission request to authorize the first recipient to forward or reply with the child e-mail message;

receiving the child e-mail message, generated by the first recipient by forwarding or replying to the parent e-mail message, over the secure HTTPS communications protocol, said child e-mail message addressed to at least a second recipient;

storing the child e-mail message on the server system in association with the parent e-mail message, and providing the second recipient access to the child e-mail message from the server system over the secure HTTPS communications protocol;

subsequently, receiving, at the server system, a request from the sender of the parent e-mail message to terminate an e-mail conversation associated with the parent e-mail message; and

in response to the request to terminate the e-mail conversation, doing at least the following;

(a) blocking the first recipient from forwarding and replying to the parent e-mail message, (b) blocking the second recipient from forwarding and replying to the child e-mail message.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the method comprises continuing to provide the first and second recipients access to the parent and child e-mail messages, respectively, from the server system after the said request to terminate has been received, such that each such recipient can view, but cannot forward or reply to, the respective e-mail message.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the method comprises further responding to the termination request by blocking the first and second recipients from re-accessing the parent and child e-mail messages, respectively, on said server system.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising, in response to an attempt by the first recipient to forward or reply to the parent e-mail message after the termination request has been received, outputting a message to the first recipient indicating that the sender has terminated the e-mail conversation associated with the parent e-mail message.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein providing the first recipient access to the parent e-mail message comprises sending, to an e-mail address of the first recipient, a substitute message that includes a message key for accessing the parent message on the server system.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the method comprises, in response to the termination request, blocking a plurality of child e-mail messages.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon a computer program that, when executed by a computer system, causes the computer system to perform the method of claim 11.

18. The method of claim 11, wherein storing the parent e-mail message includes encrypting the parent e-mail message, and wherein the encrypting is implemented by an interchangeable cryptography engine executable on the server system or on a client component from which the parent e-mail message is received.

19. A secure e-mail system, comprising:

a sender computing device including;

a sender client component having instructions executable by a processor of the sender computing device to output a first permission request to send a parent e-mail message to a first addressee using a secure e-mail service, receive an authorization to send the parent e-mail message using the secure e-mail service based on the sender client component being subscribed to the secure e-mail service, and send the parent e-mail message and sender-created message control policies associated with the parent e-mail message to the secure e-mail service, where the sender-created message control policies include a message forwarding control indicating whether the first addressee can forward the parent e-mail message;

a server system configured to receive the parent e-mail message and the sender-created message control policies from the sender client component via a secure HTTPS communications protocol, store the parent e-mail message in a secure repository on the server system, and provide the first addressee with access to the parent e-mail message via the secure HTTPS communication protocol; and

an addressee computing device including;

an addressee client component having instructions executable by a processor of the addressee computing device to request a retrieval, via the HTTPS communications protocol, of the parent e-mail message and metadata indicating the sender-created message control policies from the server system, the addressee client component having further instructions to send a query to the server system for authorization to perform a message action on the parent e-mail message at the time of an attempt by the first addressee to perform the message action;

wherein the server system is further configured to receive the query and in response, apply the sender-created message control policies, send an authorization message to the addressee client component indicating the message action is authorized; and

wherein the addressee client component has further instructions to perform the message action on the parent e-mail message upon receiving the authorization message from the server system indicating that the message action is authorized, where the instructions to perform the message action include instructions to send a child e-mail message addressed to a second addressee to the server system for storage thereon.