E-Mail Guardian™
(email-guardian.com)

Guarding Your E-mail in Ways You Control™*

While we are developing this product it is available for licensing only.

A Short History of Product Development

       For some of us most the fun is in the journey, meaning a new and wonderful product without a history is like celebrating a holiday without telling its tale.

We confess that attempting to solve the e-mail spam problem was never on our mind until about the middle of 2003 when viruses began to spread through many e-mail folders, the news of the ever increasing problems seemed to cry of hopelessness, and we began to experience serious amounts of junk e-mail ourselves. The solution we thought would soon be about - surely there must be a practical solution. Finally, frustrated by not seeing a solution based on what we believed to be the right concept we were determined to find it ourselves, and once committed to the task, it took only a few weeks to develop it. Then we argued about it for several weeks - it just couldn't be this simple, we thought.

As a way to convince ourselves that the solution was truly a good one we began to develop webpages to explain it and compare it to other methods. This was relatively easy to do although time consuming as we were also developing the websites for Budget-Master.com and Safety-Zones®, but the diversion to another product from time to time was fun. (The journey.) Each day the arguments made more sense while Internet news, research and personal experience showed a world of e-mail out of control. Finally, last December 2003, we sent the material to the patent attorney. Along the way we gave it a name befitting its intended future responsibilities.

During the spring of 2004 we hired an e-mail expert to review the concept. He said that he believed the concept to be unique and would work, but questioned its value to those who manage several hundred e-mails a day simply because he thought that the password register would be too time consuming to set up and manage. Since our goal has always been to help the average consumer who manages far fewer e-mails we were not deterred. But we did take his advise and made the password register simpler and easier to use and created useful tools to use it. With these changes, and feedback from our patent attorney that we were not in conflict with the ZoEmail patent, our resolve was strengthened.

Most forms of guarding e-mail and blocking spam try to determine if the e-mail has legitimate content and is therefore probably not spam; this is a very difficult thing to do. It's also very expensive because many skilled people need to be involved in creating methods to screen many words and constantly update the software, in some ways like screening for viruses. And most of these methods don't convert to other languages very well. By contrast, our method of blocking unwanted e-mail uses just one simple password controlled by the e-mail recipient. It's very easy to use, and it converts for use in other languages with ease. (Sorry to put so many e-mail spam-blocking software engineers and programmers out of work.)

Basic (free) Solution

       If you don't want to use a spam blocking program and prefer to look through all your e-mails to find the good one's, try this*: Ask the people who send you e-mail to put a word in the subject line known only to them and you. Simple. Easy. And it works. When you see the word you can believe with some confidence that the e-mail is legitimate. This simple screening method was created a long time ago. But it doesn't block spam or protect you from viruses or spyware entering your Inbox; it just provides a way that's quicker and easier to find the e-mail you want. When you get tired of using this method, because it takes up too much of your time and it still subjects you to too many possibilities of accidentally receiving e-mails with viruses or spyware, use E-Mail Guardian™ because we improved on this method, and help you to block spam from entering your Inbox automatically. There's no magic here. It's just a very effective screening method with practical options on how to use it.

*We are just discussing controlling spam. For full protection you still need to install a firewall and virus protection software.

The E-Mail Guardian™ Solution

You send an e-mail to Alice with her password = #>		#>   Internet   >>> (spam) >>>™		E-Mail Guardian	#>   Alice
You   <#	E-Mail Guardian	<<< (spam) <<<   Internet   <#™		<# = Alice sends an e-mail to you with your password

Exhibit A

When we said simple .... We meant simple .... And very effective!

       The Password Register controls the use of passwords. Once the Password Register is setup, the receiver's password is sent automatically in e-mail messages to those who are listed. Or it may be included manually in a location we provide or manually in the subject line of an e-mail message. The password is sent and received in the e-mail header (which is not normally seen by anyone) or in the subject line in some situations (which is not normally seen by anyone except the sender and receiver), to prove permission to be accepted. All other e-mails are blocked.

The Password Register also allows you to create as many passwords or personal ID's as you want. This means that you can create different ID's for different reasons. For example, to logically limit the need to manage too many passwords we show you how you can have different ID's for different classes of e-mails - family, friends, business associates, etc.

Process

E-mail Input

E-Mail Guardian

Scan for Password & Accept or Reject

E-Mail Guardian

User Screen and Related Controls

1	Family	Friends	Colleagues	Alice	'B Team'	eBay	Job Search	Trash
2	.	1	.	.	1	.	1	18
3	gat836	4Tra72	9tch50	39Gm6	Sa3510	endofauction@ebay.com	L7hpe4	.

Exhibit B

Here is a diagram to help you to understand the primary user controls of the process using passwords that relate to the examples in the password register shown below.

In this display we show what your e-mail screen might look like above or below the traditional e-mail display information.

Row 1 shows the category names that you created.

Row 2 shows how the guardian software sorted the e-mails when they arrived - it tells you who the e-mails are from. In this display there are 21 e-mails: one from friends, one from someone on your 'B Team', one from a job search, and 18 that were trashed because they didn't have passwords.

Row 3 shows the passwords you are using and sharing with people in the categories you created. In the unlikely event that you need to change a password you would just do it here and inform the person(s) you wish to inform in your password register by a simple method that we provide or by whatever method you prefer. You have the ability to create as many or as few categories (gateways or guardians) as you wish.

The eBay e-mail address is shown just to reinforce that you can show vendor e-mail addresses as ID's to limit the possibility of the password ending up being shared with affiliates. (This is the password exception rule that confirms the use of the vendor's digital certificate, explained after showing the Password Register - Row G below.)

Small Business Users

Small business users will also find E-Mail Guardian™ useful. Let's see how an attorney might set up his or her e-mail screener.

Process

User Screen and Related Controls

1	Allen10	Bates13	Collins9	Decker16	Estes4	Olsen2	Inquiries	Trash
2	.	1	.	.	1	1	2	18
3	10Allen9	13Bates8	9Collins7	16Decker6	4Estes5	2Olsen1	hope2003	.

Exhibit C

In this display we show what the e-mail screen might look like above (or below) the traditional e-mail display information.

Row 1 shows the client categories the attorney created.

Row 2 shows how the e-mails in his Inbox were sorted when they arrived - it tells him who the e-mails are from. In this display there are 23 e-mails: one from Bates, one from a Estes, and one from Olsen, 2 inquiries, and 18 that were trashed because they didn't have passwords.

Row 3 shows the passwords he is using and sharing with people in the categories he created. If there is a need to change a password he would just do it here and inform the person(s) he wishes to inform, excluding all others. He has the ability to create as many client categories (gateways or guardians) that he wishes to have.

Solving the Web-listed E-mail Address Problem

       Of particular concern is spam coming in through the web-listed e-mail address or Inquiries box, so we will explain how this is handled: When the attorney posts an e-mail address or link on his Website he is opening it to spammers and information crawlers, so a password is used here too. It is a password a special program enters. But the password is of no use to spammers because we change the password automatically at regular intervals so the spammers or information crawlers will not have time to collect and distribute the correct password for use later. If they create programs to sell or use their lists quicker we provide a way to just shorten the time to change the password. A small business version of E-Mail Guardian™ has the ability to change the password at any chosen interval, from about 24 hours to one minute, because it does not need to be remembered for any particular reason or for any needed length of time - it's just for allowing first contact while guarding against the intrusion of spam later.

E-Mail Guardian™ Password Register

(The heart of the process. The 'family jewels'. The engine. The simple thingamajig that makes it work!)

.	Incoming	E-Mail Guardian Password Register		Outgoing
A	My Passwords	Name	E-mail address	Their Passwords
.	.	Family	.	.
B	gat836	Jean	jean27@provider.com	gat836
C	gat836	Mom	Alice56@provider.com	gat836
.	.	Friends	.	.
D	4Tra72	George	georges16@provider.net	M9ae85
E	4Tra72	Kelly	.	ko2ko10
F	4Tra72	Sarah	happiness43@provider.com	47Gd73
.	.	No Password	.	.
G	endofauction@ebay.com	eBay	support@ebay.com	.

Exhibit D

       Exhibit D shows how you keep track of individual assignments of passwords for both incoming and outgoing E-Mail Guardian™ e-mails. Once entered you do not need to change them unless someone used a password that shouldn't have one. Should this unlikely event happen a password can be changed by way of the master display shown above in Exhibit B, and the selected list of recipients would be sent an e-mail notifying them. In addition, for those that use E-Mail Guardian™ at both ends of the e-mail process, the program is optionally configured to update your new password in the receiver's register automatically, if the receiver so chooses.

A note about creating e-mail passwords. We are showing e-mail passwords that have several letters and numbers, but the truth is that you probably don't need to use long e-mail passwords because passwords are not easy for people to figure out, if they even try (for e-mail). With the English alphabet as a reference, with 26 lowercase and 26 uppercase letters and our numbering system, an alphanumeric password of just 4 characters has (26+26+10)⁴ = 14,776,336 combinations. So feel free to use short passwords for e-mail as long as they are not words and not easy to guess. For all other forms of security you should continue to use as long a password as is recommended or permitted because thieves may try to use automatic programs to try to get beyond them.

To make the management of passwords even easier, within a group, everyone could also agree to use the same password. In other words, everyone in a family or team or study group or classroom or relatively closed group of any size could just decide to use the same password both ways when communicating with each other, making passwords for some groups very simple to manage. If this were agreed-to for the family above, they would all perhaps use 'gat836' in both My Password and Their Password locations.

Row E. To make a point, Kelly's e-mail message can still be received, even though she is moving and you don't have her new e-mail address, because all she needs to do is to put your password in the subject line to be recognized by E-Mail Guardian™. This is because you don't need her e-mail address to receive her e-mail; she just needs to know yours. And she can still receive your e-mail without a password at another computer if she gives you its e-mail address. Or she could continue to receive spam-free e-mail at a temporary location on a computer with E-Mail Guardian™ if you just enter her temporary e-mail address and use her password in the location provided or in the subject line.

We Create then Solve a Problem

       Under normal circumstances E-Mail Guardian™ does not provide any way that uninvited businesses may enter your e-mail Inbox. If we were to provide a way it would quickly become known to spammers and the method would be compromised, so we do not provide such entry. Each member of the business community is therefore required to 'sell' its reason to have an e-mail password to reach you. We see no problem with this simple logic because E-Mail Guardian™, like the door, was invented to permit privacy and allow entry by invitation only.

With E-Mail Guardian™ in place we create a problem that turns out to be a blessing - we block e-mails from vendors who send us order confirmations by e-mail and don't use this ID system. This is a blessing because we probably wouldn't want them to participate in this method anyway just to prevent the possibility of the password being shared with their 'affiliates', which would permit uninvited e-mail until we changed the ID or stopped using the vendor and deleted the ID. But we have a simple solution, described next.

Row G. The solution to this problem is shown in Row G and also covers the limited situation when others don't have or use a password to be accepted: Since we are not putting any restriction on what the password or identifier (ID) is, in these special cases we simply use the sender's e-mail address as a personal ID in a special password location for this purpose. When we do this, the software recognizes that we are using an e-mail address as a password and instead of a password it requires validation of who the sender is by confirming the sender's unique digital certificate, after the first e-mail from the sender that establishes receipt of the certificate.

Protecting You from Phishing (as in fishing for valuable information from you)

       "The Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) is an industry association focused on eliminating the identity theft and fraud that result from the growing problem of phishing and email spoofing. The organization provides a forum to discuss phishing issues, define the scope of the phishing problem in terms of hard and soft costs, and share information and best practices for eliminating the problem. Where appropriate, the APWG will also look to share this information with law enforcement." Their website is antiphishing.org.

On their website they explain phishing attacks as "'spoofed' e-mails and fraudulent websites designed to fool recipients into divulging personal financial data such as credit card numbers, account user names and passwords, social security numbers, etc. By hijacking the trusted brands of well-known banks, online retailers and credit card companies, phishers are able to convince up to 5% of recipients to respond to them."

As reported frequently, companies do not make these kinds of requests, but they rarely explain why, so consumers still have doubts and fall for these tricks. So we will explain. They don't make these kinds of requests because they don't need to. They don't need to because transactions are always completed before you leave their websites, and all companies make regular backups of all their information. But some people never get the message, don't believe this to be true, are easily misled or never understand, because it's hard for them to believe the difference between manual systems with errors made by people and who sometimes lose information and computer systems that don't make mistakes. They just don't believe or understand how fast, accurate and thorough, computer systems are, but it's very true - computers are great machines that don't make mistakes!

The point we want to make is that you should not respond to any e-mail that makes this kind of request, and by using E-Mail Guardian™ the possibility of you being 'phished' is almost zero because every company that you receive e-mail from needs your permission because you need to give each sender a password to enter 'your personal space'.

But, what if? Okay! With E-Mail Guardian™ we offer you the opportunity to take the safety process one step further, if you wish, and you also use Safety-Zones® (see identity theft protection below). Users of Safety-Zones® may request (by a simple click within E-Mail Guardian™) that each provider company that is requesting information from you (in an e-mail directly or at a website it is asking you to visit) to 'direct' a simple password to come to you in a separate e-mail as proof of a valid request that you had previously imbedded into the Safety-Zones® identification system (and that you control right on your computer). The provider company would never see this password itself but only have the ability to direct it to you, as proof that the company is real and honest, if it's an authorized Safety-Zones® provider company.

Getting Started & E-Mail Rejection Notices

       E-Mail Guardian™ is perfect for most people. But if you manage a large number of e-mail addresses we help to make the transition to E-Mail Guardian™ easy by providing you a simple to use selection and transfer routine that copies multiple e-mail addresses to the password record-keeping register.

Getting started and having concerns about notifying everyone about your use of E-Mail Guardian™ is legitimate until you discover how easy it is to use. Our approach is, don't worry, it will all fall into place. To setup the password register you would: a) add e-mail addresses to the register the way you want to group them and then assign passwords to each group or person; b) send everyone a short message asking them to use your password from now on (either in the box we provide or in the subject line). It's that simple. We make sending these messages easy by providing you the ability to send everyone in the group an e-mail with the password. If you don't know someone's e-mail address yet and he or she needs to be told verbally that's fine too. It's just that simple.

Okay. Now what? You wait to see what will happen. Surprise! Everyone seems to be using your password. Wow! It works! Well, almost. If someone listed in your password register forgets because s/he is not yet using E-Mail Guardian™ and an e-mail message is rejected because it did not contain a password we will have the program send the sender a rejection notice that says, 'Sorry. Your e-mail was rejected because it did not contain a password.' We do this because the e-mail could also be a spoof. We do not send an e-mail rejection message to any other sender because most e-mails that are rejected will be spam and will therefore not be received by the sender and will be returned as undeliverable, then blocked without a password creating more return notices, endlessly.

When others realize how good E-Mail Guardian™ is or can be they will use it too, and when they send you their passwords you would just enter them in the register. In fact, when others begin to send you e-mail requesting that you use their passwords the E-Mail Guardian™ Password Register is the only practical place to store them. Spam is probably here to stay. With E-Mail Guardian™ you are in control. But you have choices. This is our simple and very effective solution. If everyone used it the only place that spam would have to go is directly to the trash.

Extending Your Life (!)

       If using E-Mail Guardian™ seems like it would be too much work because until now the people in the world of computers have done everything for you. Our response is that this is no accident; it's done this way on purpose so that the people in the world of computers can remain in control of what you see. If you want to be in control you need to install your own door yourself! E-Mail Guardian™ will probably be the best $30 you every spent because it will put you in control of spam! And from this: a) your computer should last longer for reasons we haven't figured out yet but we will; b) you should derive great pleasure from being in control and getting rid of this pest - a 'twofa'; c) your pleasure should produce good endorphins (good proteins in your brain); d) and your good endorphins should help to extend your life!! Imagine! We are providing a $30 product that might increase your life span!