JP2000299697A - Mail server device - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Problem] To provide a mail server device capable of providing a new distribution service capable of transmitting anonymous electronic mail from a mobile phone. In a mail server, received mail is randomly transferred to a predetermined number of members selected by a predetermined method among members registered in advance. At this time, the sender information of the received mail is converted into a corresponding nickname address registered in the member database 33, and the mail is transferred. According to the present invention, an anonymous e-mail can be sent from a mobile phone, for example, when a new delivery service is performed, for example, a received mail is randomly delivered to a desired registered member. The telephone number of the telephone will not be known.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a mail server device, and more particularly to a mail server device having a new transfer and distribution function.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, the spread of electronic mail has been remarkable mainly on the Internet, and a terminal device capable of transmitting and receiving electronic mail using a proprietary protocol or a standard protocol used in the Internet has emerged even in a portable telephone. I have. In the case of a unique protocol, electronic mail can be exchanged with a terminal in the Internet via a protocol conversion server, and in the case of a protocol used in the Internet, via a relay server.

[0003]

When the electronic mail function is used in the above-described portable telephone having the electronic mail function, an electronic mail address predetermined by a communication company of the portable telephone is used. However, some mobile phone carriers use the phone number of the mobile phone as it is as the user name for identifying the subscriber in the e-mail address. Therefore, when an e-mail is transmitted to the Internet using this e-mail address, there is a problem that the telephone number of the mobile phone is known to the transmission destination.

Further, even when an attempt is made to provide a new delivery service different from the ordinary mail function using the electronic mail function of the mobile phone, if the mail is forwarded as it is, the telephone number of the mobile phone is transmitted to the other party. There was a problem that it would be found. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to solve the above-mentioned problems of the prior art and to provide a mail server device capable of transmitting an anonymous electronic mail from a mobile phone and providing a new distribution service.

[0005]

The present invention is characterized in that the mail server converts source information of a received mail into a corresponding nickname address registered in the mail server and transfers the mail. . Another feature is that the received mail is transferred to a predetermined number of members selected by a predetermined method among members registered in advance. According to the present invention, an anonymous electronic mail can be sent even from a mobile phone, and the telephone number of the mobile phone is not known to the other party. In addition, since mail can be exchanged anonymously, it is possible to implement a new distribution service such as, for example, randomly distributing received mail to a desired registered member.

[0006]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the entire electronic mail system to which the present invention is applied. Mobile phone 1
Reference numerals 0 and 11 denote terminal devices capable of transmitting and receiving e-mail using a unique protocol or a standard protocol used on the Internet in addition to the functions of the telephone. The mobile telephones 10 and 11 and the mail transfer server 21 are exchanged and connected by a well-known mobile telephone network. In the present embodiment, the mobile phones 10 and 11 are terminal devices capable of transmitting and receiving electronic mail according to a standard protocol used on the Internet, and the telephone number of the mobile telephone is used as the user name of the electronic mail address. The example used is described.

A well-known Internet 22 includes a mail transfer server 21 and a computer 2 such as a personal computer (PC).
3. The server device 24 and the like according to the present invention are connected to each other, and transmit and receive e-mail according to a standard e-mail protocol (SMTP, POP3, etc.) on the Internet.

[0008] The server device 24 includes a mail server 31,
Database server 3 provided with member database 33
2. Equipped with a router 30 and the like, and are interconnected by a LAN 34. A commercially available server device can be used for both the mail server 31 and the database server 32, and well-known OSs such as UNIX (registered trademark) and Win
dowsNT (registered trademark) can be used.

The mobile telephone network 20 is directly connected to the server device 2.
4 may be connected, or the server device 24 may be connected to only one or a plurality of mobile telephone networks 20 without being connected to the Internet. In this case, the server device 24 is connected to a mobile phone network (SMS network: Short).
Message Service) 20 must be supported.

FIG. 2 shows a mail server 3 to which the present invention is applied.
FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of the configuration of software in 1. In the embodiment, UNIX (registered trademark) is used as the OS 40, and a SendMai program known as a mail control program 41 for providing a basic mail transmission / reception function is additionally provided.
1 (registered trademark), and a mail management program 42 for executing mail management described later is further mounted thereon.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the contents of the mail management program 42 executed by the mail server to which the present invention is applied. In S10, the process waits until a mail addressed to a specific mailbox in the server is received.
In step 1, it is determined whether the received mail belongs to a registered user.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of the contents of the member database. The server device 24 is a member database 33
, In which data such as a part of which is shown in FIG. 7 is registered. These data are created by, for example, inputting the contents entered in the application form when the member registers the mobile phone.

The format of an e-mail address on the Internet is, for example, "aaa@bbb.ne.jp", and "aaa" (the number of characters is arbitrary) is the user name (user ID) of the mail address. is there. In S11, it is the user name of the mail address of the sender. "
It is determined whether or not there is a member whose “aaa” portion matches the mobile phone number of the member registered in the member database. If there is no member, error processing such as transfer to an administrator or return to the sender is performed.

In step S12, it is determined whether or not the content of the mail does not violate public order and morals (details will be described later). If the determination result is negative, the process proceeds to step S13 to receive the received mail. Is transferred to the system administrator, and the administrator checks. In S14, it is determined whether the received mail is a reply. In the case of the delivery service of the present invention, if the message is an outbound message, the destination is addressed to a specific mailbox in the server device. If not, the user name portion of the called party address is registered with the nickname of the registered member. It is determined whether there is a match. If there is a matching member, the process proceeds to S15.

In S15, the user name part of the destination address described in the address part of the e-mail is converted into the corresponding member's mobile phone number. If the destination of the e-mail is neither outbound nor return, the same processing as the error processing for the non-registered user in S11 is performed. S
At 16, a predetermined number of distribution destination members are selected from the member database by a method described later. In S17, the sender address in the header portion of the mail is converted by a method described later. In S18, the mail is transferred to the destination server.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the contents of the contents check processing in S12 of FIG. In the system, words that may be used in expressions that are against public order and morals are registered in advance, and in S20 to S22, a full-text search is performed for each of those words one by one in the title and body, and the corresponding words are searched. NG if found
And the process moves to S13.

In addition, stating the telephone number of one's own or another person may be used for misuse or mischief of the system.
In S23, a full-text search is performed on the title and the main body, for example, whether there is a character string of 10 digits or more written in an arbitrary character type (half-width, full-width, Chinese numerals). In this case, numbers that may be inserted in the middle of the numeric string, such as hyphens, commas, periods, underscores, slashes, and bullets, are ignored, and the numbers are counted. Then, if a numeric string is found in S24, the process proceeds to S13 as NG.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the contents of the distribution destination selection process in S16 of FIG. In S30, the initial value of the mail distribution number counter n is set to 0. In S31, it is determined whether or not there is a member whose distribution completion flag provided for each registered member is 0. If the result of the determination is negative, distribution has been completed, and the flags of all members are set to 0. To

In S33, one member is randomly selected from members whose flag is 0, and the flag of that member is set to 1. In S34, 1 is added to n indicating the number-of-mail-distribution counter, and in S35, it is determined whether or not n is equal to or greater than a predetermined number c of mail-delivery. If the determination result is negative, the process is repeated from S31. The value of c is experimentally determined by measuring the response rate and the like.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the contents of the address conversion process in S17 of FIG. In S40, the header part of the mail is extracted, and in S41, the contents of the header are divided for each predetermined item. The header is a collection of a plurality of character strings in the format {[item header]: [item content]}. For example, "To" in the item header indicates the destination (recipient address). The contents include the recipient's e-mail address. The item (header) in the mail header is "T
There are essential ones such as "o", "From", "Date", and "Subject", and optional ones such as "Replay-To" and "Errors-To".

In S42, the portable telephone number of the caller is obtained from the user name portion of the mail address of the caller, for example. In S43, a full text search is performed on the header portion of the character string of the acquired telephone number. If it is determined in S44 that a telephone number exists, S45
To determine which item the telephone number was in. If the telephone number exists as a user name which is a part of the mail address in an item such as “From” or “Replay-To”, the user name of the mail address is converted to a corresponding nickname. I do.

If the telephone number exists in a portion other than the mail address in S45, the item is deleted if it can be deleted, but if the item is an essential item, only the telephone number portion is deleted. , Or nickname or ×
× ... is converted into a hidden character. If the search and conversion are completed for all the items in S48, the converted header is linked to the body to generate a converted e-mail.

With the above-described configuration and processing, anonymous mail can be sent and received from the mobile phone, and a new mail distribution service for the mobile phone is also possible.

Although the embodiments of the present invention have been disclosed above, the present invention may have the following modifications. In the embodiment, an example in which a plurality of members are selected at random from the entire member as a distribution destination is disclosed.For example, based on information registered in a member database, a region, age, occupational aptitude, blood type aptitude, etc. For example, a search may be performed with conditions added thereto, and a plurality of persons may be selected at random and distributed. As an embodiment, an example in which a mobile phone having a mail function is used as a terminal is disclosed. However, if a member is registered in advance, the mail server device of the present invention can be used from any PC connected to the Internet. It is possible. It is also possible to provide the service of the present invention to the user of the provider at the server of the provider. Although the server device having only a function of performing a new distribution service is disclosed as the mail server device of the embodiment, the service of the present invention may be performed together with, for example, an existing mailing list service or bulletin board service.

As the address conversion processing, an example in which the header of a received mail is read and an inappropriate part is converted or deleted has been disclosed. However, by generating the minimum necessary header items, the entire mail header is newly generated. A new mail may be generated by linking to the text. Further, the items (formats) included in the header of the received mail are determined for each mobile phone company, and which part is to be converted or deleted is determined for each company. In addition, the part of the sender address after the {} (the part of bbb)
Which company it is. Therefore, only predetermined items may be converted or deleted for each company.

[0026]

As described above, in the present invention,
The mail server converts the source information of the received mail to the corresponding nickname address registered in the mail server and forwards the mail, so that anonymous e-mail can be sent even from a mobile phone. Has the effect that the telephone number of the mobile phone is not known. In addition, there is an effect that it is possible to implement a new distribution service for randomly transferring mail received to a predetermined number of members selected by a predetermined method among members registered in advance.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of an electronic mail system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram showing a software configuration example of a mail server of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing the contents of a mail management program of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the content of a content check process.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the contents of a distribution destination selection process.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing the contents of an address conversion process.

FIG. 7 is an explanatory diagram showing an example of the contents of a member database.

[Explanation of symbols]

, 10, 11 ... band telephone, 20 ... mobile telephone network, 21 ... mail transfer server, 22 ... Internet, 23 ... computer, 24 ... server device, 30 ... router, 31 ... mail server, 32 ... database server, 33 ... member Database, 34 ... LAN

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) H04M 11/00 303 H04Q 7/04 D 5K101 H04Q 7/38 (72) Inventor Masahide Saito Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 2-1-1, Otemachi Nomura Building, 23rd Floor Hikari Tsushin Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Tohru Saito 8F Tokyo Opera City Tower, 8th Floor, 3-20-2 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo Flexfaum Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Michiyo Sakagami 3F, Tokyo Opera City Tower, 8F, 3-20-2 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo F-term in Flexfam Co., Ltd. 5B089 GA11 GA26 JA31 KA17 KB06 KC21 KH03 LA08 MC08 5K024 CC11 GG01 5K030 GA15 HA06 HC01 HC09 HC14 HD03 HD09 JT09 LD11 5K036 AA07 BB11 BB18 DD11 DD25 JJ04 5K067 AA34 BB04 BB21 DD13 DD51 EE02 EE10 EE16 FF 02 HH05 HH17 HH23 HH24 KK15 5K101 KK02 LL12 NN21 PP03

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. Member registration means in which second e-mail address information is registered in correspondence with a first e-mail address of a member, and source information of the received mail are registered in the member registration means. A mail server device comprising: an address conversion unit that converts the second electronic mail address into a second electronic mail address; and a transfer unit that transfers the electronic mail whose address has been converted by the address conversion unit. 2. Member registration means for registering member information, selection means for selecting a predetermined number of members by a predetermined method from members registered in advance in the member registration means, A mail server device comprising: a mail transfer unit that selects a member by the selection unit and transfers a received mail to the selected member. 3. A member registration means in which second e-mail address information is registered in correspondence with a first e-mail address of a member, and a predetermined member from members registered in the member registration means in advance. Selecting means for selecting a predetermined number of members by a method; address converting means for converting the source information of the received mail into the second e-mail address registered in the member registering means; Then, a mail server device comprising: a mail transfer unit that selects a member by the selection unit and transfers an electronic mail whose address has been converted by the address conversion unit to each of the selected members. 4. The method according to claim 1, further comprising a reply address converting means for converting the destination of the received e-mail to the first e-mail address when the destination of the received e-mail is the second address. The mail server device according to claim 3, wherein 5. A full-text search of the received mail for a character string registered in advance and an arbitrary number string of a predetermined digit. If the character string is found, the mail is transferred to an administrator. The mail server device according to claim 3, further comprising a mail monitoring unit that performs the mail monitoring.