Patent ID: 8812853

Claim:
A method comprising: originating a first electronic message comprising user content; receiving a user selection of a quoted portion of a second electronic message; receiving a user instruction to perform a copy and paste operation on the quoted portion to incorporate in the user content of the first electronic message the quoted portion of the second electronic message; in response to detecting the copy and paste operation, determining if the quoted portion corresponds to a digitally signed source chunk of the second electronic message; in response to the quoted portion comprising entire said digitally signed source chunk, including the digitally signed source chunk and its digital signature into the user content of the first electronic message; in response to the quoted portion comprising less than entire said digitally signed source chunk, including the quoted portion and a delimiting character into the user content of the first electronic message and attaching the digitally signed source chunk and its digital signature to the first electronic message; breaking up the first electronic message into a plurality of chunks; signing any unsigned said chunks of the first electronic message with a digital signature of an originator of the first electronic message; delivering the first electronic message to a recipient; validating the digital signatures of the plurality of chunks of the first electronic message; presenting the first electronic message to the recipient, including indicating for the plurality of chunks of the first electronic message results of the validating of the digital signatures; and in response to the recipient selecting the delimiting character of the quoted portion in the first electronic message, presenting the digitally signed source chunk for display to the recipient, including indicating the results of the validating of the digital signature of the digitally signed source chunk.