Anonymous Email Relay for Privacy-Preserving Single Sign-On
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Single sign-on services often share users' private information with service providers without their knowledge, exposing sensitive information such as email addresses and usage patterns.
Innovation Solution
An anonymous email relay system that uses anonymized email addresses and a private relay mail transfer agent to forward emails between users and developers, preserving user privacy by hiding real email addresses and usage patterns.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a single sign-on service is used to allow users to access multiple services, then user convenience is improved, but user privacy is worsened as private information is shared with service providers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an anonymous email relay service as an intermediary between users and service providers. This relay service receives emails from service providers, anonymizes the user's email address, and forwards the email to the user without revealing the user's real email address to the service provider. This mediator approach allows single sign-on functionality to be maintained while preventing direct exposure of user private information to service providers.
2Reliability
If real email addresses are used for communication between users and developers, then communication reliability is improved, but user privacy is worsened as email addresses and usage patterns are exposed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a copy of the user's email address (an anonymized version) that can be used for communication purposes without revealing the real email address. The anonymous email relay service maintains a mapping between the anonymized email address and the real email address, allowing reliable communication while the service provider only sees the anonymized copy, thus preserving user privacy.
Data Source
AI summary
A method and apparatus of a device that forwards an email from a developer or provider of an application or service to a user is described. In an exemplary embodiment, the device receives an email, where the email includes a provider email address associated with the provider, the provider email address is a “from” email address, an anonymized user email address associated with a user, wherein the anonymized user email address is a “to” email address. The device further extracts an anonymous user identifier from the anonymized user email address and the device determines a provider identifier using at least the anonymous user identifier. In addition, the device determines one or more replacement email addresses and forwards the email using the one or more replacement email addresses.