Proxy Address Generation for Email Identity Protection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users face issues with unsolicited spam communications due to unauthorized disclosure of their email addresses, making it difficult to manage incoming email traffic and identify the source of spam.
Innovation Solution
A system that generates a proxy address based on a user-determined risk value, obfuscating the user's actual address during electronic communication, and manages replies to filter and report spam activity, allowing users to maintain their identity protection.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a user's actual email address is provided directly to the destination, then communication is straightforward and simple, but the user's identity is exposed and spam increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a proxy address as an intermediary between the user's actual email address and the destination. The proxy address receives communications from the destination and forwards them to the user, while the user's actual address remains hidden from the destination. This mediator resolves the contradiction by enabling communication while preventing direct identity exposure.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the email address into two parts: the proxy address that is visible to the destination and the user's actual address that remains private. This segmentation allows the system to maintain communication functionality while separating the identity protection requirement from the communication requirement.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If a proxy address is used to mask the user's actual address, then identity protection is improved, but the system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The proxy address acts as a simple intermediary that forwards communications between the destination and the user. This approach provides identity protection without requiring complex cryptographic systems or multiple authentication layers, thus limiting the increase in system complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses a proxy address as a copy or alias of the user's actual email address. This copy maintains the functional characteristics of an email address for communication purposes while lacking the identity-revealing property, providing protection with minimal complexity overhead.
3Productivity
If the user's actual address is disclosed to the destination, then communication efficiency is maintained, but the user cannot identify spam sources
Solution Approach 1:
The proxy address serves as an intermediary that maintains communication efficiency while enabling spam source identification. Since the proxy address is associated with the user's actual address, any spam received at the proxy address can be traced back to the destination that disclosed the user's information, thus solving the identification problem without sacrificing communication efficiency.
Data Source
AI summary
Identity protection and management for electronic communication is described, including receiving a request to provide data from a first address to a second address, the request including an attribute associated with the second address, determining a risk value of the second address based on the attribute associated with the second address and a risk score, based on the risk value of the second address generating a third address that is associated with the first address, and providing the data and the third address to the second address without providing the first address to the second address.