Journaling, Analysis, and Archiving of Electronic Communications

Abstract

Disclosed is a communication journaling and archival system which obtains content from social networks, handles re-authentication requirements which occur with respect to monitored users and social networks, includes content obtained from social networks in a journal and archiving system compatible with email journaling and archiving, and can be configured to send a journaled communication to multiple journal destinations and journal formats.

1 . A first computer configured to journal and archive email messages, which first computing device executes a method comprising the following steps:
 receiving a message, which message contains an inner message which had been sent to or from a monitored user;   determining a format of the received message and/or of the inner message;   identifying addresses of senders and/or recipients in the received message;   determining a monitor customer container count;   if the monitor customer container count is greater than one, then branching the message and/or inner message for each monitor customer container count greater than one;   performing a pre-scan of the message and/or inner message, and analyzing the pre-scan result to identify if the pre-scan result is associated with a journal destination;   analyzing message and/or inner message components;   determining if analysis of message components is associated with a journal destination;   delivering the message and/or inner messages thereof to at least one journal and/or archive.   
     
     
         2 . The method according to  claim 1  wherein identifying addresses of senders and/or recipients in the received message further comprises identifying addresses in at least one inner message. 
     
     
         3 . The method according to  claim 1  wherein identifying addresses of senders and/or recipients in the received message further comprises parsing the message headers to determine if the received message was addressed to a sender and/or recipient not in the received message envelope. 
     
     
         4 . The method according to  claim 1  further comprising mapping sender and/or recipient addresses to alternatives. 
     
     
         5 . The method according to  claim 4  further comprising including the alternatives in the message envelope. 
     
     
         6 . The method according to  claim 1  further comprising delivering the message to more than one journal when a result of message and/or inner message component analysis is associated with more than one journal. 
     
     
         7 . The method according to  claim 1  where a monitor customer container count is determined by a domain name found in a message sender and/or recipient address. 
     
     
         8 . The method according to  claim 7  further comprising adding a recipient address associated with the domain name which caused the customer container count to exceed one to the message envelope of the branched message and iterating the method of  claim 1  with the branched message. 
     
     
         9 . The method according to  claim 8  wherein the added recipient address is pre-determined and indicates that the customer container count for the branched message is one. 
     
     
         10 . The method according to  claim 1  where a monitor customer container count is determined by comparing senders and/or recipients from the message and/or inner message to records associated with monitor customers to determine one or more customer containers associated with senders and/or recipients associated with monitor customers. 
     
     
         11 . The method according to  claim 1  wherein analyzing message and/or inner message components further comprises at least one of performing lexical analysis on text, performing optical character recognition on a graphic, performing speech-to-text, and performing image recognition on a graphic. 
     
     
         12 . The method according to  claim 1  further comprising determining if the message or any branches thereof are to be delivered to a remote destination, and, if so, determining a format for delivering the message and any branches thereof and delivering the message and any branches thereof to the remote destination in the determined format. 
     
     
         13 . The method according to  claim 12  wherein the format for delivering the message is selected from at least one of an email format, a text format, an SQL format, a Lotus Notes format, and an XML format. 
     
     
         14 . The method according to  claim 1  further comprising a second computing device which receives the message and sends the message to the first computing device. 
     
     
         15 . A first computer configured to obtain content associated with a first party from a social media provider, which first computing device executes a method comprising the following steps:
 querying a social media provider for content associated with the first party;   obtaining from the social media provider content associated with the first party;   formatting a message to contain at least of the of the selected obtained content;   mapping the obtained content to the message format;   transmitting the message to a second computer configured as a journal processor;   updating a record associated with the first party to indicate that the content associated with the first party from the social media provider has been obtained.   
     
     
         16 . The method according to  claim 15  wherein the message is an email message. 
     
     
         17 . The method according to  claim 15  further comprising customizing the message according to instructions received from a second party, prior to transmitting the message to the computer configured as a journal processor. 
     
     
         18 . The method according to  claim 15  further comprising providing a user interface to allow a second party to select what of the obtained content to journal and/or archive. 
     
     
         19 . The method according to  claim 15  wherein selecting obtained content to journal and/or archive comprises selecting at least one of all content obtained from the social media provider, non-video content obtained from the social media provider, and non-graphic content obtained from the social media provider. 
     
     
         20 . The method according to  claim 15  wherein the first computer and the computer configured as a journal processor are the same computer. 
     
     
         21 . The method according to  claim 15  wherein updating a record associated with the first party to indicate that the content associated with the first party from the social media provider has been obtained comprises associating an identifier associated with the first party with a timestamp associated with when the content associated with the first party was either obtained from the social media provider or posted to the social media provider by the first party. 
     
     
         22 . The method according to  claim 15  wherein updating a record associated with the first party to indicate that the content associated with the first party from the social media provider has been obtained comprises performing a hash on content associated with the first party obtained from the social media provider and storing the hash value in association with the first party. 
     
     
         23 . The method according to  claim 22  wherein the hash is an MD5 hash. 
     
     
         24 . A first computer configured to obtain content associated with a first party from a social media provider and to journal and archive the obtained content, which first computing device executes a method comprising the following steps:
 determining from the social media provider that a permission granted to access content posted to the social media provider and associated with the first party is invalid;   determining the permissions required to access the social media provider;   creating a first message to the first party requesting the determined permissions;   transmitting the first message to the first party;   obtaining the requested permission from the first party via data received from social media provider; then utilizing the obtained permission to obtain content associated with the first party from the social media service;   creating a second message containing the obtained content;   journaling the second message.   
     
     
         25 . The method according to  claim 24  wherein creating the first message to the first party requesting the determined permissions further comprises generating a link associated with the first party, which link points to a webpage hosted by the first or a second computer, and including the generated link in the first message. 
     
     
         26 . The method according to  claim 25  further comprising performing a hash algorithm on at least one of an identifier associated with the first party and content associated with the first party, output from which hash algorithm is associated with the first user in a database accessible to the first computer, and including output from the hash algorithm in the generated link. 
     
     
         27 . The method according to  claim 24  wherein creating the second message containing the obtained content comprises formatting the second message to contain at least of the of the obtained content and mapping the obtained content to the second message format. 
     
     
         28 . The method according to  claim 24  wherein the data comprises an OAUTH credential. 
     
     
         29 . The method according to  claim 24  wherein the second message is an email message.