In e-mail date spoofing an e-mail message contains forged date field that keeps e-mails listed on top in recipient’s mailbox in some commercial and corporate e-mail servers, thereby maximizing the chances of immediate attention by its recipients. The date header field in a date spoofed e-mail may contain a date which is ahead or before the actual date it was sent and thus a date spoofed e-mail may be either a pre-dated or a post-dated message. E-mail date spoofing which emerged as a spamming trick can lead to manifold of problems like i) confusion to recipients, ii) loss of work productivity, iii) increase in false positive, iv) various time scheduling problems, v) increases chances of opening spam, vi) host legal issues, and vii) render date field insignificant. Date header field of an e-mail message is a trust field and can be violated without being detected by protocols involved in the e-mail system. To ensure credibility of dates in e-mail messages a trust mechanism can be devised by incorporating a trusted date and time signature at sending, transporting and receiving MTAs by the use of some designated third party Trusted Time Stamping Service (TTS). A TTS supports assertions of proof that a datum existed before a particular time. In order to associate a datum with a particular point in time, a Time Stamp Authority (TSA) may need to be used. This trusted third party provides a proof-of-existence of a particular datum at a given time. The TSA can also be used to indicate the time of submission when a deadline is critical, or to indicate the time of transaction for entries in a log. A digital time stamping service issues timestamps which associate a date and time with a digital document in a cryptographically strong way. The digital time stamp can be used at a later date to prove that an electronic document existed at the time stated in its time stamp. This paper proposes an effective measure employing the use of trusted third party time stamping service for authentication of date in e-mail messages. The model proposed can check and control date-spoofing at sending, forwarding, or receiving servers.

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E-mail Date Spoofing Security Protocols E-mail Security Time Stamping Trusted Time Stamping Service TSS Time Stamping Authority TSA