EMBEDDING A UNQUE SERIAL NUMBER INTO THE CONTENT OF AN EMAIL FOR TRACKING INFORMATION DISPERSION

• US 20090187629A1
• Filed: 01/17/2008
• Published: 07/23/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/17/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: O'DOHERTY, SIMON P., YAP, BENG KONG, RICE, JOHN, CHAKRA, AL
• Granted Patent: US 8,392,511 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]

Abstract

The present invention discloses a solution for tracking email dispersion through content substitution. In the solution, a set of entities to receive an email can be identified, where the email can contains textual content. A subset of words contained within the textual content can be programmatically selected. A set of replacement words for each of the determined words can be determined. For each email receiving entity, at least one replacement word can be programmatically substituted for it'"'"'s equivalent to generate an entity specific message. Each entity specific message can contain a unique combination of substitutions so that no two entity specific message are identical. A record of which email receiving entities are associated with which entity specific message can be maintained. The entity specific messages can be sent to the associated set of email receiving entities.

Claims

1. A method of tracking email dispersion through content substitution comprising:

identifying a set of email receiving entities for an email dispersion;

identifying textual content of an email for the email dispersion;

programmatically determining a plurality of words within textual content;

generating a set of replacement words for each of the determined words;

for each email receiving entity, programmatically substituting at least one replacement word for it'"'"'s equivalent to generate an entity specific message, wherein each entity specific message contains a unique combination of substitutions so that no two entity specific message are identical;

maintaining a record of which email receiving entities are associated with which entity specific message; and

conveying the entity specific messages to the set of email receiving entities.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

generating a unique serial number for each entity specific message, wherein said unique serial number is generated based on a mathematical calculation having variable for a position and a value of the replacement words included in the associated entity specific message, wherein the maintaining step records a plurality of records, one for each of the entity specific messages, wherein each record comprises a unique identifier for the entity specific message and comprises the unique number generated for the entity specific message.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said unique serial number comprises at least one of a cyclic redundancy code (CRC) value of a modulus checking value, which is able to be used to ensure post conveyance modifications of the entity specific message have not been made.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a number of unique combinations for entity specific messages based upon a total number of determined words and a total number of replacement words for the determined words;

comparing a number of identified email receiving entities against the determined number of unique combinations;

when the comparing step determines that there are more identified email receiving entities than unique combinations, automatically increasing at least one of a number of determined words within the textual content and a number of replacement words contained within at least one set of replacement words; and

repeating the comparing and increasing steps until there are more unique combinations than identified email receiving entities, at which point the method is able to proceed to the substituting, maintaining, and conveying steps.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein each email receiving entity is an email recipient having a unique email address.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one email receiving entity comprises a group of email receiving entities, said group comprising a plurality of different email recipients, each of the different email recipients having a unique email address.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein each replacement word is a synonym of the associated determined word.

8. A method of claim 1, further comprising:

inputting content from one of said conveyed entity specific messages into a recipient discovery program; and

a computing device executing the recipient discovery program to responsively produce an identifier for the entity associated with the entity specific message.

9. A method for generating a set of email messages, each containing approximately the same content that has been slightly varied so that each generated email message is unique, said method comprising:

identifying an email message containing textual content;

determining a set of recipients who are to receive a unique variation of the identified email message;

detecting a set of words contained within the textual content;

for each detected word, assigning at least one replacement word;

generating a set of unique email messages, one associated with each recipient in the determined set, wherein each unique email message has a unique combination of detected word substitutions;

for each generated email message, calculating a unique serial number based upon which replacement words are included in the associated email message, wherein given a unique serial number and a formula used in the calculating step and given the textual content, the unique email message associated with the unique number is able to be automatically generated;

sending said unique email messages to associated recipients; and

storing the unique serial number and an identifier for the associated recipient.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said unique serial number comprises at least one of a cyclic redundancy code (CRC) value of a modulus checking value, which is able to be used to ensure post conveyance modifications of the unique email messages have not been made.

11. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

identifying content of one of the unique email messages;

computing a serial number associated with the identified content; and

querying a storage space to determine a recipient associated with the serial number.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein each replacement word is a synonym of the associated detected word.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein said steps of claim 9 are performed by at least one machine in accordance with at least one computer program stored in a computer readable media, said computer programming having a plurality of code sections that are executable by the at least one machine.

14. Software for tracking email recipients using modified message content comprising:

an original word set comprising a plurality of words included within email content of an original message;

a plurality of substitution sets, each associated with one of the plurality of words of the original word set, wherein each of the substitution sets comprises at least one synonym for the associated original word;

a serial number generator configured to generate a plurality of unique serial numbers that are to be associated with a unique variation of the original message, wherein given a unique serial number and given the original message, the unique email message associated with the unique serial number is able to be automatically generated by an algorithm, wherein a number of statistically unique combinations of original words and associated substantiation sets determines a number of unique serial numbers that the serial number generator is able to generate; and

a unique message generator configured to receive the original message and a unique serial number as input and to generate a unique variation of the original message as output, wherein each unique variation of the email content comprises the email content of the original message in which zero or more of the words from the original word set have been substituted with associated words of the substitution set, wherein the original word set and the substitution sets are specified by digitally encoded data stored in a computer readable media, and wherein serial number generator and the unique message generator are software digitally encoded in a computer readable medium executable by a computing device, which causes the computing device to perform a set of actions for which the serial number generator and the unique message generator are configured.

15. The software of claim 14, further comprising:

a unique message decoder configured to receive a unique variation of the original message as input and to automatically determine the associated serial number based upon which substitution words are contained within the unique variation, wherein the unique message decoder is software digitally encoded in a computer readable medium executable by a computing device, which causes the computing device to perform a set of actions for which the unique message decoder is configured.

16. The software of claim 15, further comprising:

a serial number manager configured to automatically store records associating recipients with serial numbers; and

a recipient determination engine configured to determine from a serial number determined by the unique message decoder and from associations managed by the serial number manager, a recipient identifier associated with a unique variation, wherein serial number manager and the recipient determination engine are software digitally encoded in a computer readable medium executable by a computing device, which causes the computing device to perform a set of actions for which the serial number manager and the recipient determination engine are configured.

17. The software of claim 14, further comprising:

a user interface configured to permit a user to determine whether to create said unique variations that are associated with serial numbers created by the serial number generator.

18. The software of claim 17, wherein said user interface is an interface of an email application.

19. The software of claim 17, wherein said user interface automatically suggests a set of automatically determined synonyms for each of the words of the word set, wherein the synonyms included in the substitution sets are user approved ones of the suggested synonyms.

20. The software of claim 16, further comprising:

a user interface configured to permit a user to determine whether to create said unique variations that are associated with serial numbers created by the serial number generator and further configured to permit a user to input a unique variation, which is processed by the unique message decoder and the recipient determination engine to determine a recipient to whom the unique variation is associated.