Hosted Email Authentication with Dynamic DNS Sender Policies
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing email validation systems, such as Sender Policy Framework (SPF), face challenges in managing complex rule sets for sender identity verification, especially when intermediaries are involved, leading to inefficiencies and limitations in authenticating emails.
Innovation Solution
Reframe email authentication by encoding network information from the SMTP connection into a targeted domain name using SPF protocol, combined with a custom DNS system backed by a database that maps network information to a list of known organizations, allowing domain managers to authorize multiple senders without manual updates and enabling dynamic rule generation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If SPF rules are expanded to include all valid intermediaries and mailing lists, then sender identity verification accuracy is improved, but the complexity and size of rule sets increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the complex SPF rule set into hierarchical components: organization-level policies define broad authorization scopes, while intermediary-specific rules are nested within those scopes. This segmentation allows receiving systems to evaluate rules in a structured hierarchy rather than checking hundreds of individual IP addresses, reducing computational complexity while maintaining comprehensive verification coverage.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces organization-level policy records as intermediaries between the original sender and the receiving system. These policy records act as mediators that consolidate multiple intermediary authorizations under a single verifiable framework, allowing the system to verify sender identity through organizational policy rather than checking each intermediary individually.
2Reliability
If the number of DNS lookups is increased to validate complex rule sets, then validation accuracy is improved, but the burden on receiving systems increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the complex rule evaluation logic from the receiving system and relocates it to the DNS infrastructure through organization-level policy records. Instead of requiring receiving systems to perform thousands of DNS lookups to evaluate SPF rules, the policy records are published in DNS in a condensed format that can be verified with minimal lookups, extracting the computational burden from receiving systems while maintaining validation accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary consolidation of SPF rules into organization-level policy records that are published in advance in DNS. This preliminary action pre-processes the complex rule sets into a compact, verifiable format, so that when emails need validation, receiving systems can quickly verify against the pre-consolidated policies rather than evaluating raw rule sets at the moment of reception.
3Reliability
If manual updates of DNS TXT records are required for each new sender, then security control is improved, but the ease of operation deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables organization-level policy records to be automatically generated and updated by domain managers through standardized procedures. Instead of requiring manual DNS TXT record updates for each new sender, the system allows automated policy generation that incorporates new senders and intermediaries according to organizational authorization rules, maintaining security control while eliminating manual configuration burdens.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a universal organization-level policy framework that can accommodate multiple types of senders and intermediaries through a single policy structure. This universal approach allows domain managers to define once and authorize many, where a single policy record can cover multiple intermediaries, mailing lists, and sender types, reducing the need for repetitive manual configurations while maintaining comprehensive security control.
Data Source
AI summary
A DNS server receives from a receiving email system, a DNS query for an email domain stored at the DNS server, the DNS query including identifying information of a sender of an email. The DNS server extracts the identifying information of the email sender from the DNS query and identifies one of a plurality of delivering organizations from the information. The DNS server determines whether the identified delivering organization is authorized to deliver email on behalf of the email domain. In response to determining that the identified delivering organization is authorized to deliver email on behalf of the email domain, the DNS server generates a target validation record based on the identity of the authorized delivering organization and the email domain, the target validation record including one or more rules indicating to the receiving email system whether the delivering organization is an authorized sender of email for the email domain.