The Authentication function provides an additional level of confidence and security. It allows you to create a bona fide identity for another person within the Safe-mail^TM community, to create a closed-off group of users sharing a common purpose or interest and to restrict access to your personal information to a group of people who have been authenticated by the same person or persons.

Creating a Bona Fide Identity
You may authenticate another person because you know, absolutely, the true identity of the person being authenticated (i.e. you are friends, colleagues or related in any other way), or you may authenticate another person without knowing him, but in this case the trust element is lost and your authentication certificates will be less credible.

Once you send an authentication certificate and the recipient agrees to accept it, (the subjective value of your certificate plays an important role here,) your name as the authenticator will immediately appear on all the Safe-mail^TM messages that your authenticated person sends. People receiving messages from that person bearing your name as an authenticator (and who know you as a trustworthy person) will immediately accept that the sender of the message is who he or she claims to be, even if the receivers do not actually know the person sending the message.

You may authenticate as many people as you wish. To authenticate another person click the Authent button at the top level of the Safe-mail^TM interface, select the Send tab and key in the user names in the To: field. Use the Content box to define the significance of the authentication; this information will be displayed to the receiver of the authentication. When you press Send the recipient will get a notice in his or her mailbox about the new authentication sent.

Accepting a Certificate
When a Safe-mail^TM user sends you an Authentication certificate you get a notice about it in your mailbox that includes the full details of the certificate (date, sender, content). You can accept the certificate by clicking the Accept button or you can reject it by clicking the Reject button.

Once the recipient accepts a certificate it will automatically be added to the recipient's 'Authentications Received' list and to the sender's 'Authentications Given' list.
The new certificate will override any previous certificate from the same sender. A valid authentication certificate is the most recent certificate granted by a certain sender.

Closed-off Groups
The reasons for wanting to create a fenced-off community of users are numerous. In the business environment a department may want to confine the exchange of information to certain parts of the company. More casual groups of people with a common interest (hobbies etc.) may want to ensure that their incoming messages are only from people who share the same interests. Whatever the reason, in a closed group all the members are authenticated by one person and only accept incoming Safe-mail^TM from people who have been authenticated by that person.

Restricted Access to Personal Information
You may wish to restrict the access of your personal information to people who have been authenticated by a certain person you trust. To restrict access to your personal information, click on the My Info button at the top level of the Safe-mail^TM interface, go to the bottom of the page and complete the Publish List section.

Restriction of Incoming Messages
You may specify to accept only messages that are authenticated by specific users by clicking Security, then Mail Security, then scrolling down to 'Incoming messages' and checking the appropriate boxes there.

Viewing and Removing Authentication Certificates
You may view the list of authentication certificates you have given and the list of authentication certificates you have received. Click the Authent button at the top menu and select either Received or Given. While viewing each certificate you may remove any certificate you have given and any certificate you have received by clicking the date of that certificate and clicking the Remove button at the top.

Certificate Removal
When the issuer of an authentication certificate removes a certificate sent by him or her, the recipient of the certificate gets a notice about it in his or her mailbox. When the recipient of a certificate doesn't accept it or cancels it at a later time, the issuer can see that it was rejected in the Status section of his or her Authentications Given list.

The Authentication function allows you:

• To create a bona fide identity for another person within the Safe-mail^TM community.
• To create a closed-off group of users sharing a common purpose or interest.
• To restrict access to your personal information to a group of people who have been authenticated by the same person or persons.

When you authenticate a user your name as the authenticator will appear as the authenticator on all the Safe-mail^TM messages that the user sends.

A closed group is where all the members are authenticated by the same person and they accept incoming messages only from people who have been authenticated by that person.

You may view the list of people you have authenticated and the list of people who have authenticated you.

You may remove any authentication certificate you have given and any authentication certificate given to you at any time.