DomainKeys Identified Mail
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DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) is an email authentication method using a digital signature added to the the headers of a message. The signature provides strong assurance that there was no alteration of selected headers or the body of a message at any point after it left the signer's domain.
The signature can be verified by doing a DNS query for a public key in the signer's domain. Thus DKIM security depends on the distribution of public keys through DNS, rather than through a Public Key Infrastructure.
Verification does not depend on IP addresses or the path a message followed from signer to verifier. Thus DKIM avoids the forwarding problem seen by IP-based authentication methods.