SASEP Email Authentication via Intermediary Server
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing anti-Spam technologies either require significant changes to the Internet infrastructure or overlook important aspects, leading to continued Spam operations, with filtering approaches often blocking legitimate emails and failing to intercept Spam messages effectively.
Innovation Solution
The Secure Anti-Spam Email Protocol (SASEP) utilizes a separate server accessible through existing infrastructure, providing users with public and private email addresses, where the private address is included in the Bcc field of outgoing messages, and manages lists and challenge systems to authenticate senders, ensuring legitimate emails are not blocked while filtering out Spam.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a challenge system or whitelist approach is used, then Spam filtering capability is improved, but the complexity of Internet infrastructure increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary authentication server that mediates between senders and recipients. This server issues challenge-response tokens that prove legitimate email sending without requiring changes to existing SMTP infrastructure. The intermediary handles the complex authentication logic centrally, keeping the infrastructure simple while improving Spam filtering reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
The authentication system is segmented into separate components: the existing SMTP mail transfer agents remain unchanged, while a separate authentication server handles challenge-response verification. This segmentation allows the complex authentication logic to be isolated in one component without affecting the simplicity of the overall email infrastructure.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If filtering approaches are used, then Spam messages are blocked, but legitimate emails may be blocked as well
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies preliminary anti-action by requiring senders to obtain authentication tokens before sending emails. Legitimate senders prove their identity through challenge-response authentication in advance, while Spam senders cannot obtain valid tokens. This preliminary verification ensures that legitimate emails are not blocked while Spam is filtered out.
Solution Approach 2:
The authentication server provides feedback to mail servers about whether sending is permitted based on challenge-response verification. This feedback mechanism allows mail servers to make informed decisions about whether to accept or reject incoming emails, improving the accuracy of Spam filtering while protecting legitimate email delivery.
Data Source
AI summary
The Secure Anti-Spam Email Protocol (SASEP) as proposed by this invention is based on public/private/invitation email address architecture. Each user that will register at any SASEP server will receive a public and a private email address. The public email address (e.g. user@domain.com) can be used as a regular email address or alias. The private email address (e.g. privatecode.user@domain.com) has to be in Bcc: field of all outgoing email messages. The user can also request arbitrary number of invitation email addresses (e.g. invitationcode.user@domain.com) that can be used for registration on web sites. The main advantage of SASEP is that the user can continue to use standard outgoing (SMTP) and incoming (POP3, IMAP or HTTP) email server and standard desktop or web email client. This is ensured by SASEP that defines an automatic mechanism for managing different lists and challenge system.