Email Header Field Protection via Body Insertion
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing secure email protocols do not effectively protect the integrity and confidentiality of header fields in electronic mail messages, allowing tampering with header content during transmission, as only the message body is typically encrypted or signed, not the header fields.
Innovation Solution
Inserting the contents of header fields to be protected into the message body before encoding and transmission, allowing existing secure communication protocols to encrypt and sign the message body, which includes the protected header field contents, ensuring their integrity and confidentiality.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If only the message body is encrypted or signed, then the encryption/ signing process remains simple and fast, but the header fields are vulnerable to tampering and lack integrity protection
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the message into protected and unprotected parts by extracting header fields that require protection and moving them to the message body, while leaving other header fields unchanged. This allows selective encryption/Signing of only the critical portions, balancing security improvement with processing complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary structure (the modified message body containing extracted header fields) that serves as a bridge between the original header fields and the encryption/Signing mechanism. This intermediary allows the existing encryption system to protect header integrity without requiring fundamental changes to the overall message structure.
2Reliability
If header fields are not protected, then the message structure remains simple and compatible with existing protocols, but header integrity and confidentiality are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by providing protection only to specific header fields that require it (such as Subject, From, To), while leaving other header fields unmodified. This selective approach maintains compatibility with existing email protocols while enhancing security where most needed.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary action by extracting and moving header fields to the message body before encryption/Signing is applied. This preliminary reorganization ensures that the subsequent encryption process can protect the header integrity without requiring changes to the encryption protocol itself, thus maintaining compatibility.
3Reliability
If header field contents are inserted into message body for protection, then integrity and confidentiality are ensured, but the message structure becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the message structure by separating header fields into two groups: those that are protected (extracted to message body) and those that are not. This segmentation allows the message structure to remain relatively simple while providing confidentiality to critical fields through the extraction and encryption process.
Data Source
AI summary
Embodiments of the systems and methods described herein facilitate the transmitting, receiving, and processing of encoded messages wherein the header fields in the message header are protected. In one embodiment, the contents of the header fields to be protected are inserted into the message body as one or more additional lines of text, for example, prior to encoding and transmitting the message to a message recipient. Upon receipt of the message, the message recipient processes the encoded message such that the contents of the protected header fields can be extracted from the message body. Accordingly, by inserting the contents of the header fields to be protected into the message body, the header fields may be protected using existing standards and protocols for facilitating secure message communication.