Patent ID: 7653816

Claim:
A method of handling an electronic mail (“e-mail”) message, comprising: a) at a sender's side, providing to a service, via a network, a request comprising meta-data information regarding the e-mail message, wherein the meta-data information includes at least an e-mail address of the sender and an e-mail address of a receiver of the e-mail message; b) at the service, b1) receiving the request off the network and processing at least a portion of the request to determine a result using a service private key, the service private key kept secret by the service; and b2) providing the result, from the service via the network, to the sender's side; c) at the sender's side, c1) incorporating the result into the e-mail message, and c2) transmitting the result-incorporated e-mail message via an e-mail system; d) at the receiver's side, d1) receiving an e-mail message which is the result-incorporated e-mail message; d2) processing the received result-incorporated e-mail message using a service public key to assess the integrity of the e-mail message.