Trustworthy e-mail using secure XML Web services

Abstract

The potential for e-mail as a legitimate technology for e-commerce has been hampered by the abuse of open e-mail protocols by senders of unsolicited commercial e-mail. In this paper, we introduce a new e-mail protocol, known as the extensible mail protocol (ExMP), that uses XML Web Services to provide a simple but trustworthy server-server transmission capability. The use of ExMP on mail servers does not require modification to client-side software, reducing the impact on end-users. This paper discusses how ExMP implements trustworthy e-mail to enable future e-commerce systems.