Patent ID: 8166122

Claim:
A method for generating a figure of merit for use in transmission of messages in a multi-level secure environment, comprising: receiving a message having a data provenance wrapper, wherein the message includes one or more attachments and the data provenance wrapper contains one or more data provenance records with data provenance information for the message and each of the one or more attachments; examining each of the one or more data provenance records of the message and the one or more attachments for discrepancies, wherein the examination of each of the one or more data provenance records of the message and the one or more attachments includes: verifying signatures of senders of the message and the one or more attachments; calculating a hash value for the message and the one or more attachments; verifying that the hash value for the message and the one or more attachments matches values in the data provenance record for the message and the one or more attachments; verifying a timestamp of the message and the one or more attachments; and verifying information assurance attributes of the message and the one or more attachments, the information assurance attributes being at least one of authenticity, confidentiality, integrity, non-repudiation, and availability; identifying the discrepancies in the examination of each of the more or more data provenance records of the message and the one or more attachments; determining if the message is to be transmitted to a recipient across a security domain, wherein if it is determined that the message is to be transmitted to the recipient across the security domain, determining if the data provenance information can be transmitted with the message across the security domain, wherein if it is determined that the data provenance information cannot be transmitted with the message across the security domain, generating the figure of merit based on objective and subjective information, wherein the objective and subjective information includes at least one of information assurance attributes, certificate of authority confidence information, and workflow component confidence information; substituting the figure of merit for the data provenance information; and transmitting the figure of merit with the message across the security domain.