Generation of suffixes for pseudo e-mail addresses

• US 8,250,225 B1
• Filed: 10/15/2004
• Issued: 08/21/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/14/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Benhov GmbH, LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Original Assignee: Paradox Technical Solutions LLC (Intellectual Ventures LLC)
• Inventors: Peckover, Douglas L., Eubanks, Donald A., Barnett, Robert Matthew, Carspecken, Harold Hutson III
• Primary Examiner(s): Shaw, Peling
• Assistant Examiner(s): Toro, Carlos Perez
• Application Number:
  US10/966,361
• Time in Patent Office: 2,867 Days
• Field of Search: 709/206, 709/207, 709/229, 713/100, 726 26- 33
• US Class Current: 709/229
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/214 using selective forwarding

Abstract

An electronic system provides a plurality of address components arranged in a plurality of mutually exclusive groups, and maintains for each of a plurality of electronic network users a respective group assignment specifying one of the groups that is determined by assignment criteria. Each such group assignment can change over time as a function of the assignment criteria, and the assignment criteria is configured so that every user is initially assigned to a predetermined one of the groups. The electronic system allocates to each user over time a sequence of address components from the group specified by the current group assignment of that user.

Claims

1. An article of manufacture including a non-transitory computer-readable memory medium having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

analyzing a first set of electronic messages addressed to one or more email addresses of a first set of email addresses, wherein the first set of email addresses are assigned to a first user of a privacy service; and

in response to said analyzing the first set of electronic messages, assigning a trust level to the first user, wherein the assigned trust level affects subsequent assignment of a second set of email addresses to the first user.

2. The article of manufacture of claim 1, wherein the assigned trust level is indicative of a likelihood that the first user is maliciously using the privacy service, and wherein the assigned trust level is used in determining email suffixes used in the second set of email addresses.

3. The article of manufacture of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise:

assigning the first set of email addresses to the first user; and

assigning the second set of email addresses to the first user.

4. The article of manufacture of claim 1, wherein said analyzing the first set includes:

counting a number D of different domain names that are represented in source addresses of messages of the first set of electronic messages; and

counting a number R of email addresses of the first set of email addresses that are a destination address of a message of said first set of electronic messages;

wherein said assigning the trust level to the first user is based at least in part on D, R and N, wherein N is the number of email addresses of said first set of email addresses that have been assigned to the first user.

5. The article of manufacture of claim 4, wherein said assigning the trust level to the first user includes:

computing a value X based on the expression X=(R/N)*D; and

assigning the trust level based at least in part on the computed value X.

6. The article of manufacture of claim 1,

wherein the trust level is associated with a corresponding group of one or more suffix threads that comprise one or more suffixes;

wherein trust levels corresponding to higher levels of trust are associated with corresponding groups having;

higher numbers of suffix threads per group; and

lower numbers of suffixes per suffix thread; and

wherein at least one email address of the second set of email addresses comprises a suffix of the one or more suffixes.

7. An article of manufacture including a non-transitory computer-readable memory medium having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by a server system, cause the server system to:

receive requests for pseudo email addresses; and

respond to the received requests by;

generating a current set of pseudo email addresses usable by a first user as pseudo identity information for making purchases from one or more web sites, wherein said current set of email addresses are usable to send electronic messages to the first user, wherein said current set of pseudo email addresses include suffixes from a current group of suffix sets that is selected at least in part based on a trust level currently assigned to the first user, and wherein the trust level is assigned based at least in part on analysis of a set of electronic messages addressed to a set of pseudo email addresses previously assigned to the first user that are usable to send electronic messages to the first user; and

providing the currently assigned set of pseudo email addresses to the first user.

8. The article of manufacture of claim 7,

wherein the current group of suffix sets is one of a plurality of groups of suffix sets;

wherein the plurality of groups of suffix sets correspond respectively to a plurality of trust levels that includes the currently assigned trust level; and

wherein groups of suffix sets corresponding to higher trust levels have;

higher numbers of suffix sets per group; and

lower numbers of suffixes per suffix set.

9. The article of manufacture of claim 7, wherein the instructions are further executable to cause the server system to:

compute a first value for the first user based on an analysis of email traffic addressed to one or more of the current set of pseudo email addresses; and

update the currently assigned trust level that is assigned to the first user based at least in part on the first value.

10. The article of manufacture of claim 9, wherein said updating the currently assigned trust level includes determining whether a minimum wait time for email traffic directed to the one or more of the current set of pseudo email addresses has been exceeded;

and wherein the requests for the pseudo email addresses are received from the first user.

11. The article of manufacture of claim 9, wherein said updating the currently assigned trust level that is assigned to the first user includes promoting the first user to a higher trust level in response to the first value exceeding a lower limit for the higher trust level.

12. The article of manufacture of claim 9, wherein said updating the currently assigned trust level that is assigned to the first user includes demoting the first user to a lower trust level in response to the first value falling below an upper limit for the lower trust level.

13. The article of manufacture of claim 7, wherein said generating the current set of pseudo email addresses includes accessing said suffixes from a current one of the suffix sets of the current group of suffix sets;

and

wherein the instructions are further executable to cause the server system to update the current group of suffix sets in response to said accessing of said suffixes reaching an end of the current suffix set.

14. The article of manufacture of claim 7, wherein the currently assigned trust level is one of a plurality of trust levels, and wherein non-paying users of the server system are assigned to a lowest trust level of the plurality of trust levels.

15. An article of manufacture including a non-transitory computer-readable memory medium having instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by a server, cause the server to:

monitor emails that are addressed to one or more of a first set of email addresses allocated to a first user, wherein said first set of email addresses are usable to send emails to the first user, wherein said monitoring includes;

counting a number R of the email addresses of the first set to which at least one of said emails are addressed; and

counting a number D of different domain names represented by source addresses of said emails; and

calculate a confidence level for the first user based at least on the number R, the number D and a number N of said emails, wherein the confidence level affects subsequent allocation of a second set of email addresses to the first user that are usable to send emails to the first user.

16. The article of manufacture of claim 15,

wherein the instructions are further executable to cause the server to allocate the first set of email addresses to the first user;

and

wherein said allocating includes selecting domain names from a set of available domain names that are registered to the server.

17. The article of manufacture of claim 15, wherein at least a subset of said emails are sent by one or more entities from whom the first user has made one or more purchases.

18. The article of manufacture of claim 15, wherein the instructions are further executable to cause the server to:

provide the emails to the first user via a computer network.

19. The article of manufacture of claim 16, wherein the set of available domain names comprises a plurality of groups of domain names, and wherein said confidence level is used to determine one of the groups of the plurality of groups of domain names to be assigned to the first user.

20. The article of manufacture of claim 19, wherein the instructions are further executable to cause the server to:

remove, from the set of available domain names, one or more of the groups of the plurality of groups of domain names in response to detecting that the one or more groups have been compromised.

21. A method, comprising:

a computer system analyzing a first set of electronic messages addressed to at least one of a first set of email addresses assigned to a first user of a web-based service, wherein the email addresses are usable as pseudo identity information to be provided by the first user to one or more websites, wherein the email addresses are further usable to send electronic messages to the first user;

in response to said analyzing the first set of electronic messages, the computer system assigning one of a plurality of trust levels to the first user, wherein the assigned trust level is indicative of the degree to which the first user'"'"'s usage of the web service matches an expected usage pattern of a typical user of the service, and wherein the assigned trust level affects subsequent assignment of a second set of email addresses that are usable to send electronic messages to the first user.

22. The method of claim 21,

wherein the method further comprises assigning the first set of email addresses to the first user;

and

wherein said analyzing includes;

counting a number D of different domain names that are represented in source addresses of the first set of electronic messages; and

counting a number R of the first set of addresses that are a destination address of at least one of said first set of electronic messages;

wherein said trust level is assigned based at least in part on D, R and N, wherein N is the number of said first set of email addresses assigned to the first user.

23. A method, comprising:

a computer system receiving requests for pseudo email addresses; and

the computer system responding to the received requests by;

generating a current set of pseudo email addresses usable by a first user as pseudo identity information for making purchases from one or more web sites, wherein said current set of pseudo email addresses is usable to send electronic messages to the first user, wherein said current set of pseudo email addresses include suffixes from a current group of suffix sets that is selected at least in part based on a current trust level assigned to the first user, and wherein the current trust level is assigned based at least in part on analysis of a set of electronic messages addressed to a previous set of pseudo email addresses assigned to the first user usable to send electronic messages to the first user; and

providing the current set of pseudo email addresses to the first user.

24. The method of claim 23 further comprising:

computing a first value for the first user based on an analysis of email traffic addressed to one or more email addresses of the current set of pseudo email addresses; and

updating the current trust level that is assigned to the first user based at least in part on the first value.

25. The method of claim 23, wherein:

said generating the current set of pseudo email addresses includes accessing said suffixes from a current one of the suffix sets of the current group of suffix sets;

the current group of suffix sets is one of a plurality of groups that correspond respectively to a plurality of trust levels; and

groups of suffix sets corresponding to higher trust levels have lower numbers of suffixes per suffix set than groups of suffix sets corresponding to lower trust levels.

26. The method of claim 23, wherein the current trust level assigned to the first user is indicative of a likelihood that the first user is maliciously using the privacy service, and wherein the requests for pseudo email addresses are received from the first user.