EmailXpose Specification

AI-Powered Email Clarity

HTML Mirror: https://roxanneardary.com/emailxpose-specification/

Specification Overview

EmailXpose is an open source, modular AI email security and intelligence system designed to analyze email content, sender identity, links, attachments, images, and video to identify phishing, spam, scams, malware, social engineering, deception, and contextual anomalies.

EmailXpose combines conventional email security analysis with natural language processing, computer vision, multi-modal intelligence, behavioral analysis, threat intelligence, and symbolism interpretation. The system is designed to explain its findings rather than simply assigning a threat classification.

The architecture shall support local-first and offline operation, modular AI models, configurable detection policies, human review, extensible threat intelligence, and optional plugins without requiring users to depend on a specific vendor or cloud provider.

Design Principles

Open source implementation
Modular architecture
Local-first processing
Offline-capable analysis
Privacy-preserving operation
No automatic execution of untrusted email content
Human-in-the-loop decision making
Explainable AI
Multi-modal analysis
Vendor-neutral integrations
Replaceable AI models
Configurable detection policies
Extensible plugin architecture
Reproducible analysis
Secure-by-default behavior

Core System Requirements

EmailXpose shall provide a unified analysis pipeline capable of accepting email messages from local files, mailboxes, supported protocols, APIs, or compatible integrations.

The system shall separate ingestion, normalization, analysis, scoring, explanation, storage, and presentation into independent modules.

Each analysis component shall produce structured findings that can be independently evaluated, combined, displayed, exported, or passed to another analysis module.

The system shall never execute untrusted email attachments directly on the host system.

Core Modules

Email Ingestion Module

The Email Ingestion Module shall provide secure mechanisms for importing email messages into EmailXpose.

Features:

IMAP email ingestion
SMTP-compatible message processing
Local email file import
MIME message parsing
Multipart message processing
HTML email extraction
Plain-text extraction
Embedded-content extraction
Attachment identification
Message metadata extraction
Message normalization
Duplicate message detection
Message integrity tracking
Configurable mailbox scanning

The module shall pass normalized email objects to downstream analysis modules without executing active content.

Email Header Forensics Module

The Email Header Forensics Module shall inspect technical metadata associated with email delivery and authentication.

Features:

Complete header inspection
SPF analysis
DKIM analysis
DMARC analysis
Authentication-results analysis
Return-Path inspection
Reply-To analysis
Sender and recipient relationship analysis
Display-name mismatch detection
Received-header analysis
Routing anomaly detection
Domain alignment analysis
Spoofing indicators
Authentication confidence scoring
Header timeline generation

The module shall produce structured authentication and routing findings that can be incorporated into the overall threat assessment.

Sender Identity & Trust Module

The Sender Identity & Trust Module shall evaluate whether the apparent sender is consistent with known identities and organizational relationships.

Features:

Sender identity profiles
Sender trust scoring
Known-contact recognition
First-time sender detection
Trusted-domain recognition
Sender behavior history
Display-name impersonation detection
Executive impersonation detection
Contact impersonation detection
Organization identity validation
Sender relationship mapping
Sender identity graph generation
Lookalike sender detection

The module shall support local trust information without requiring centralized collection of user contacts.

Domain Intelligence Module

The Domain Intelligence Module shall analyze domains associated with senders, links, redirects, and embedded content.

Features:

Domain reputation analysis
Domain age analysis
Newly registered domain detection
Lookalike domain detection
Homograph detection
IDN attack detection
Suspicious subdomain detection
Domain relationship analysis
Domain consistency checks
Organization-domain validation
IP reputation analysis
Domain threat scoring

The module shall support replaceable and configurable intelligence sources.

Link Analysis Module

The Link Analysis Module shall inspect URLs without requiring the user to open them.

Features:

URL extraction
URL normalization
Destination analysis
Redirect-chain inspection
URL shortening analysis
Suspicious parameter detection
Encoded URL detection
Domain mismatch detection
Displayed-link versus destination comparison
Malicious-domain detection
Phishing URL pattern detection
Link reputation scoring
Safe link inspection

Link analysis shall occur within controlled network and security boundaries.

Threat Intelligence Module

The Threat Intelligence Module shall correlate EmailXpose findings with available threat intelligence.

Features:

Threat-feed integration
Known malicious domain matching
Known malicious URL matching
IP reputation
Phishing campaign fingerprinting
Malware indicator matching
Scam pattern matching
Threat signature matching
Emerging threat identification
Threat intelligence correlation
Local threat database support
Community threat intelligence support

Threat intelligence sources shall be optional and replaceable.

Natural Language Analysis Module

The Natural Language Analysis Module shall analyze the semantic and linguistic characteristics of email content.

Features:

Text classification
Semantic analysis
Intent classification
Entity recognition
Suspicious phrase detection
Phishing language detection
Scam language detection
Spam classification
Credential request detection
Payment request detection
Sensitive-information request detection
Semantic similarity analysis
Writing-style analysis
Language identification
Multilingual analysis
AI-generated content indicators

The module shall support multiple models and allow models to be replaced without redesigning the core application.

Behavioral & Psychological Analysis Module

The Behavioral & Psychological Analysis Module shall identify social engineering and manipulation patterns within messages.

Features:

Urgency detection
Fear-based persuasion detection
Authority pressure detection
Emotional manipulation detection
Reward manipulation detection
Threat-based persuasion detection
Social engineering analysis
Coercion indicators
Pressure tactics
Isolation tactics
False scarcity detection
Artificial deadline detection
Secrecy requests
Unusual behavioral requests
Tone analysis
Tone-shift detection
Writing-style anomaly detection
Possible compromised-account indicators

Findings shall be presented as probabilistic indicators rather than definitive statements about the sender's psychological state or intentions.

Scam & Fraud Detection Module

The Scam & Fraud Detection Module shall identify patterns associated with fraudulent communications.

Features:

Fake invoice detection
Payment fraud detection
Business email compromise detection
Investment scam detection
Employment scam detection
Government impersonation detection
Financial institution impersonation
Technical support scams
Delivery scams
Subscription scams
Charity scams
Advance-fee fraud indicators
Relationship scam indicators
Blackmail and sextortion indicators
Credential theft campaigns
Account recovery scams
Identity theft patterns

The module shall support continuously updated detection rules and machine learning models.

Spam Detection Module

The Spam Detection Module shall identify unsolicited and low-value email.

Features:

Content-based spam detection
Sender-based spam detection
Reputation-based spam detection
Campaign clustering
Repeated-message detection
Bulk-message indicators
Advertising pattern detection
Suspicious mailing behavior
User feedback integration
Personalized spam classification

Malware & Attachment Defense Module

The Malware & Attachment Defense Module shall inspect attachments and potentially dangerous content without executing it on the host system.

Features:

Attachment quarantine
File-type identification
Extension spoofing detection
Static malware analysis
Archive inspection
Nested archive inspection
Executable detection
Macro detection
Script detection
Malicious document analysis
PDF threat analysis
Office document analysis
Obfuscation detection
Payload indicators
File metadata inspection
Hash generation
Malware signature matching
Isolated sandbox analysis
ClamAV integration
Configurable malware-analysis engines

All potentially executable content shall remain isolated until explicitly released by the user or authorized security workflow.

Image Analysis Module

The Image Analysis Module shall analyze images embedded within emails or supplied as attachments.

Features:

Image classification
Object detection
Visual similarity analysis
Logo recognition
Brand identification
Image authenticity indicators
Image manipulation indicators
OCR
Hidden-text detection
Metadata inspection
Suspicious visual pattern detection
Image context analysis
Image-to-email semantic comparison
Image-to-text alignment
Misleading image detection

Brand & Logo Spoof Detection Module

The Brand & Logo Spoof Detection Module shall identify visual impersonation of organizations, products, services, and trusted brands.

Features:

Logo recognition
Logo similarity analysis
Altered-logo detection
Fake corporate branding detection
Financial brand impersonation
Government branding impersonation
Retail brand impersonation
Technology brand impersonation
Brand-text consistency analysis
Brand-domain consistency analysis
Visual identity mismatch detection

Video Analysis Module

The Video Analysis Module shall inspect video content attached to or embedded within email.

Features:

Video metadata inspection
Frame extraction
Key-frame selection
Scene analysis
Frame anomaly detection
Visual-text comparison
Video-to-email context comparison
Manipulation indicators
Misleading-media detection
OCR from video frames
Audio transcription where supported
Multi-modal video interpretation

Video analysis shall operate through isolated processing environments.

Hidden Content & Steganography Analysis Module

The Hidden Content & Steganography Analysis Module shall identify indicators that information has been concealed within media.

Features:

Hidden text detection
Low-contrast text detection
OCR-based extraction
Suspicious image metadata detection
Steganography indicators
Embedded-content anomaly detection
Concealed URL detection
Encoded-content indicators
Unusual image-structure analysis
Attachment metadata analysis

The module shall identify indicators and anomalies without claiming that concealed information is malicious solely because it is hidden.

Symbolism & Context Interpretation Module

The Symbolism & Context Interpretation Module shall analyze symbolic and contextual meaning across email text and media.

Features:

Symbol detection
Symbol classification
Contextual symbolism analysis
Visual symbolism interpretation
Textual symbolism analysis
Cultural symbol mapping
Psychological symbolism mapping
Emotional symbolism analysis
Authority symbolism detection
Fear and threat symbolism
Trust symbolism
Financial symbolism
Brand symbolism analysis
Relevant cultural or political symbolism identification
Symbol-to-context relationship mapping
Contextual meaning analysis

The module shall distinguish between detected symbols and inferred interpretations and shall communicate uncertainty where interpretation is ambiguous.

Narrative Intent Module

The Narrative Intent Module shall analyze what a message appears to be attempting to communicate, persuade, encourage, or cause the recipient to do.

Features:

Narrative intent modeling
Persuasive narrative analysis
Requested-action extraction
Implied-action detection
Behavioral objective identification
Manipulation pattern correlation
Emotional framing analysis
Authority framing
Reward framing
Threat framing
Secrecy framing
Trust-building narrative analysis
Intent confidence scoring

The module shall report inferred intent as an analytical assessment rather than a factual determination of the sender's private motives.

Context Drift Module

The Context Drift Module shall identify contradictions between different components of an email.

Features:

Text versus image comparison
Text versus video comparison
Text versus attachment comparison
Sender versus content consistency
Brand versus domain consistency
Subject versus body consistency
Attachment versus message consistency
Claimed organization versus visual identity consistency
Narrative consistency analysis
Semantic contradiction detection
Multi-modal anomaly detection

The Multi-Modal Intelligence Module shall combine findings from text, image, video, attachment, sender, link, and symbolism analysis.

Features:

Text-image fusion
Text-video fusion
Text-attachment fusion
Sender-content fusion
Visual-intent fusion
Multi-modal anomaly detection
Cross-modal contradiction detection
Semantic alignment analysis
Unified intent graph
Combined evidence evaluation
Multi-modal confidence scoring

Risk Scoring Module

The Risk Scoring Module shall combine findings from individual analysis modules into a transparent assessment.

Features:

Overall threat score
Phishing probability
Spam probability
Scam probability
Malware probability
Social engineering score
Sender risk score
Domain risk score
Link risk score
Attachment risk score
Media risk score
Contextual anomaly score
Symbolism anomaly score
Combined threat score
Configurable thresholds
User-defined policies
Organization-defined policies
Evidence-weighted scoring

The scoring system shall preserve individual contributing factors so that users can understand how the final assessment was produced.

Explainability Module

The Explainability Module shall translate analysis findings into understandable evidence.

Features:

Why-this-was-flagged explanations
Suspicious phrase highlighting
Suspicious link highlighting
Suspicious attachment highlighting
Header anomaly explanations
Sender-risk explanations
Visual anomaly explanations
Symbolism explanations
Behavioral analysis explanations
Risk-factor breakdown
Evidence-based scoring
Confidence indicators
Human-readable reports
Analyst-oriented reports

Threat Investigation Module

The Threat Investigation Module shall provide tools for examining suspicious messages in greater depth.

Features:

Email forensic workspace
Message reconstruction
Header timeline
Link investigation
Attachment investigation
Sender investigation
Domain investigation
Media investigation
Evidence collection
Related-message discovery
Campaign relationship mapping
Threat timeline visualization
Investigation notes
Exportable reports

Threat Campaign Detection Module

The Threat Campaign Detection Module shall identify relationships between multiple suspicious messages.

Features:

Email campaign clustering
Similar-message detection
Template fingerprinting
Sender clustering
Domain clustering
URL clustering
Attachment fingerprinting
Repeated scam detection
Campaign evolution tracking
Related-threat correlation
Emerging campaign detection

User Intelligence Module

The User Intelligence Module shall allow EmailXpose to improve relevance based on user feedback and locally stored preferences.

Features:

Personalized threat profiles
Local sender memory
Local trust lists
Local block lists
User feedback learning
False-positive feedback
False-negative reporting
Personalized threat trends
Inbox threat heatmaps
Threat history
Daily threat summaries
Weekly threat reports
Recurring threat identification
Personalized security recommendations

User intelligence shall remain subject to configurable privacy and retention controls.

Privacy & Security Module

The Privacy & Security Module shall enforce privacy-preserving and secure processing throughout the application.

Features:

Local-first processing
Offline analysis
Optional cloud processing
User-controlled data sharing
Data minimization
Encrypted local storage
Secure model execution
Attachment isolation
Zero-click attachment handling
Configurable data retention
Configurable analysis retention
Local threat databases
Privacy-preserving threat reporting

Reporting & Visualization Module

The Reporting & Visualization Module shall present analysis results to users and security analysts.

Features:

Inbox risk dashboard
Individual email analysis
Threat severity indicators
Interactive risk scores
Suspicious-content highlighting
Header forensic viewer
Attachment inspection panel
Media analysis panel
Symbolism analysis panel
Threat timeline
Sender trust profile
Domain intelligence panel
Threat history dashboard
Investigation workspace
Configurable alerts
Exportable analysis reports

API Module

The API Module shall provide programmatic access to EmailXpose functionality.

Features:

REST API
Email submission endpoint
Analysis endpoint
Threat scoring endpoint
Sender intelligence endpoint
Domain intelligence endpoint
Attachment analysis endpoint
Media analysis endpoint
Threat report endpoint
Configuration endpoints
Health and status endpoints
Webhook support
Authentication controls
Rate limiting
API audit logging

Optional Plugin Modules

Optional plugins shall extend EmailXpose without requiring changes to the core analysis architecture.

External Threat Intelligence Plugin

Provides optional integrations with external threat intelligence services and feeds.

Capabilities:

External URL reputation
External domain reputation
External IP reputation
Malware intelligence
Phishing intelligence
Threat-feed synchronization

VirusTotal Integration Plugin

Provides optional integration with VirusTotal or compatible external analysis services.

Capabilities:

URL reputation queries
File hash queries
Domain intelligence
IP intelligence
Optional file analysis workflows

External services shall remain disabled unless explicitly configured by the user.

ClamAV Plugin

Provides local antivirus scanning through ClamAV.

Capabilities:

File scanning
Archive scanning
Signature matching
Malware detection
Local signature updates

Sandbox Plugin

Provides isolated execution analysis for authorized security workflows.

Capabilities:

Disposable analysis environments
File behavior monitoring
Process monitoring
Network activity monitoring
File-system activity monitoring
Behavioral indicators
Sandbox reports

Advanced Vision Model Plugin

Provides additional computer vision and vision-language models.

Capabilities:

Alternative image models
Alternative vision-language models
Logo recognition
Object detection
Image similarity
Visual reasoning

Advanced Video Intelligence Plugin

Provides additional video-processing capabilities.

Capabilities:

Advanced frame analysis
Scene classification
Temporal analysis
Audio transcription
Video semantic analysis
Video manipulation indicators

Symbolism Knowledge Base Plugin

Provides expandable symbolic and contextual knowledge.

Capabilities:

Symbol dictionaries
Cultural context databases
Visual symbol relationships
Historical symbol references
Psychological symbolism references
Domain-specific symbolism

The plugin shall distinguish factual references from model-generated interpretation.

Community Threat Intelligence Plugin

Provides optional community-driven intelligence sharing.

Capabilities:

Anonymous threat fingerprints
Community phishing indicators
Shared scam patterns
Threat signature sharing
Emerging campaign information
Community reputation signals

Participation shall be opt-in.

SIEM Integration Plugin

Provides optional integration with security information and event management platforms.

Capabilities:

Event forwarding
Threat alerts
Structured security events
Investigation identifiers
Risk scores
Evidence references

Mail Client Integration Plugin

Provides optional integrations with supported desktop or browser-based email clients.

Capabilities:

Message analysis
Inline threat indicators
User-triggered scanning
Analysis summaries
Quarantine workflows
Safe-release workflows

Organization Policy Plugin

Provides configurable organizational security policies.

Capabilities:

Custom risk thresholds
Domain allowlists
Domain blocklists
Sender policies
Attachment policies
Link policies
Data-retention policies
Reporting policies
Security-team workflows

Custom AI Model Plugin

Allows users and organizations to provide compatible AI models.

Capabilities:

Custom phishing classifiers
Custom spam classifiers
Custom malware classifiers
Custom language models
Custom vision models
Custom symbolism models
Custom embedding models
Model version management
Model evaluation

AI Model Architecture

EmailXpose shall use a model-agnostic architecture.

AI models shall be replaceable without requiring changes to the surrounding analysis modules.

Supported model categories may include:

Transformer-based language models
Text classifiers
Embedding models
Vision-language models
Image classifiers
Object detection models
Video models
OCR models
Audio transcription models
Malware classification models

Models shall expose consistent interfaces to the analysis pipeline.

Security Requirements

EmailXpose shall:

Treat all inbound email as untrusted input
Never automatically execute email attachments
Isolate potentially dangerous files
Sanitize rendered HTML
Prevent unsafe URL activation during analysis
Validate file types independently of extensions
Limit resource consumption during media processing
Protect against maliciously crafted files
Protect analysis services from parser exploitation
Maintain configurable audit records
Provide safe failure behavior
Separate privileged operations from ordinary analysis
Apply least-privilege principles
Support secure model execution

Privacy Requirements

EmailXpose shall prioritize user ownership of email data.

The system shall support:

Local-only operation
Offline analysis
Configurable storage
Configurable retention
User-controlled external integrations
Optional anonymized threat sharing
Explicit external-service configuration
Data minimization
Secure deletion
Local processing of sensitive content

No external service shall receive email content unless the user or administrator has explicitly enabled the applicable integration.

Human Oversight

EmailXpose shall not represent AI classifications as infallible determinations.

The system shall:

Display confidence levels
Preserve supporting evidence
Explain major risk factors
Allow users to review findings
Support false-positive reporting
Support false-negative reporting
Permit authorized users to override classifications
Preserve override information
Distinguish automated findings from human decisions

Configuration

EmailXpose shall provide configurable controls for:

Threat thresholds
Analysis modules
AI models
Threat intelligence sources
Attachment handling
Sandbox policies
Data retention
Privacy settings
External integrations
User trust rules
Organization policies
Alert levels
Reporting preferences

Extensibility

The architecture shall permit new analysis capabilities to be added as independent modules or plugins.

New modules should be able to:

Receive normalized email data
Analyze specific content types
Produce structured findings
Contribute evidence to risk scoring
Provide explainability information
Register configurable settings
Operate independently from other modules
Be enabled or disabled without modifying unrelated modules

Interoperability

EmailXpose should use open and widely supported formats and interfaces wherever practical.

The system should support:

Standard email formats
Standard MIME structures
Standard authentication mechanisms
REST APIs
JSON-based analysis results
Portable threat indicators
Exportable reports
Interoperable threat intelligence formats

Analysis Result Model

Each analysis result should contain, where applicable:

Analysis type
Classification
Confidence
Severity
Evidence
Source module
Timestamp
Related entity
Recommended action
Explanation
Model information
Detection-rule information

The combined result shall preserve the relationship between individual findings and the final risk assessment.

Specification Branding License (SBL)

Standard

Fully AGPL-3.0+ compliant system
Copyleft enforced for network deployments
Required attribution:
- Roxanne Ardary
- https://www.roxanneardary.com/

Optional

Specification Branding License (SBL)
- Attribution-free commercial deployment
- Pricing based on scale, usage, and deployment scope
- https://roxanneardary.com/emailxpose/

License & Notice Requirements

EmailXpose is released under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later (AGPL-3.0+).
By contributing to this project, you agree that your contributions will also be released under this license.

Please note the following:

All contributions must comply with the AGPL-3.0+ terms.
Under Section 7 of the license, all redistributions, forks, and derivative works must preserve attribution to:
Roxanne Ardary and roxanneardary.com.
EmailXpose specificiations are free to use with attribution. A Specification Branding License can be negotiated upon request.
The project's notice.md file tracks attribution requirements and contributor acknowledgments.
Any update that adds new contributors or modifies attribution should also update notice.md.
When submitting a pull request, ensure that any new files maintain the attribution headers where applicable.
Network-deployed versions of this software must also remain fully AGPL-3.0+ compliant, including exposure of source code modifications when applicable under the license.

For full legal details, please refer to the AGPL-3.0+ license and the project's notice.md file.

Open Arsenal Hub
https://gitlab.com/Roxanne_Ardary/open-arsenal-specs

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