Email Message Segmentation for Secure Transmission
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing email systems face challenges in ensuring secure and reliable transmission of electronic communications, as messages can be intercepted or lost during transit, and recipients cannot confirm receipt without read receipts, and encryption does not fully address these issues.
Innovation Solution
Dividing an email message into multiple components, attaching each to a single email, and sending them through separate servers, with parity data generated for resilience, making it difficult to intercept and ensuring message reconstruction even if components are lost.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If email messages are sent as plain text across the public Internet, then ease of operation is improved, but security and reliability deteriorate as messages can be intercepted and read or altered en route
Solution Approach 1:
The email message is divided into multiple separate components (first component, second component, third component) that are transmitted through different mail servers. This segmentation ensures that even if one component is intercepted, the complete message cannot be reconstructed without all components, thereby maintaining security while preserving ease of operation.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If encryption schemes are used to protect email messages, then security is improved, but device complexity increases due to additional processing requirements at sending and receiving ends
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of applying complex encryption to the entire message, the system segments the message into multiple components and transmits them separately. This approach provides security through distribution rather than cryptographic complexity, reducing processing requirements at sending and receiving ends while still protecting against interception.
Solution Approach 2:
Multiple mail servers act as intermediaries in transmitting different message components. These intermediaries distribute the components across different paths, providing security through architectural design rather than cryptographic methods, thereby avoiding the complexity of encryption processing.
3Reliability
If message components are sent through separate mail servers, then reliability is improved by reducing interception risk, but device complexity increases due to the need to coordinate multiple servers
Solution Approach 1:
The mail servers perform multiple functions: they not only transmit email components but also store and forward them according to routing information. This multi-functionality allows the system to achieve reliable delivery through standard email infrastructure without requiring complex coordination protocols, as each server independently handles its portion of the message components.
Data Source
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AI summary
Method, system and email client for sending and receiving electronic communications comprising: dividing the message into a plurality of components. Attaching each one of the plurality of components to a single email. Sending the email containing the attachments to a message server configured to perform the step of transmitting the message to a recipient.