Patent ID: 7822820

Claim:
A secure e-mail system, comprising: a server system including: a secure e-mail service configured to: receive a request from a sender to subscribe to the e-mail service: subscribe the sender to the e-mail service; receive, at a time of composing of an original e-mail message by the sender, a permission request from a sender computing device associated with the sender, the permission request including a request for authorization to send the original e-mail message to a recipient using the secure e-mail service, authorize sending of the e-mail message by the sender via the secure e-mail service responsive to the permission request, based on the sender being subscribed to the secure e-mail service, receive the e-mail message in unencrypted form from the sender computing device via an HTTPS communications protocol, receive a request from a recipient computing device for the original e-mail message, and transmit the original e-mail message to the recipient computing device using the secure e-mail service, in response to the request from the recipient computing device; a centralized message repository for storing the e-mail message received from the sender computing device and for storing other e-mail messages associated with the original e-mail message, including a reply e-mail message addressed to the sender from the recipient; a cryptographic engine that encrypts the e-mail message with a cryptographic method designated by an administrator of the secure e-mail service, prior to storage of the e-mail message at the centralized message repository, and decrypts the e-mail message at the server system prior to delivery to the recipient upon receiving a request for retrieval of the e-mail message from the recipient; and an interface executable on a computing device that provides functionality for the administrator to add an executable cryptographic method to the cryptographic engine, and to designate a particular executable cryptographic method to be used to encrypt and/or decrypt e-mail messages that are received and sent using the secure e-mail service at the server system.