Patent ID: 8108477

Claim:
A method for classifying a message, the method comprising: registering one or more signatures for a database in memory, the database for maintaining legitimate signatures corresponding to legitimate contact points, each of the legitimate contact points previously identified as legitimate based on aggregated user inputs indicating legitimacy of a corresponding message, wherein registration comprises: receiving a registration message associated with a certificate of legitimacy, executing instructions stored in memory, wherein execution of the instructions by a processor: determines that the certificate of legitimacy is valid, tests the registration message to determine that the registration message is not spam, generates one or more signatures based on one or more contact points included in the registration message, and stores the one or more signatures in the database; receiving the message over a communication network; and executing further instructions stored in the memory, wherein execution of the further instructions by the processor: identifies one or more contact points in the message, generates one or more signatures corresponding to each of the contact points identified in the message, classifies the message as acceptable when at least one of the one or more signatures for each of the contact points exists in the database, and submits the message to further processing when at least one of the one or more signatures for each of the contact points does not exist in the database.