KR20040095008A - Method for filtering spam mail using quiz mail - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A method for filtering spam mails using a quiz mail is provided to make a user not confirm titles and contents of the spam mails one by one by blocking the spam mail transmitted through a conventional method and filtering the spam mail disguised as a normal mail with use of the quiz mail. CONSTITUTION: It is confirmed that the received mail is a replied mail for the quiz mail. In case of not replied mail, the received mail is stored in a temporary mail database and the quiz mail is transmitted to a sender. In the case of the replied mail, it is confirmed that the received mail includes a right answer for the quiz mail(S320). If the right answer is included in the received mail, the received mail stored in the temporary mail database is transferred to a mailbox of a receiver(S340). If not, the received mail stored in the temporary mail database is removed(S350).

Description

Method for filtering spam mail using quiz mail}

The present invention relates to a spam mail blocking system and method, and more particularly, to a spam mail filtering method for sending a quiz mail to the sender of the received mail to determine that the correct mail is correct.

Recently, with the development of communication networks such as the Internet, a rapidly increasing number of Internet users and spam mails are increasing as a social problem. In general, an electronic message sent by a sender to a recipient who has nothing to do with it is called spam mail, and it is also called junk mail because it is nothing but garbage. It can also be classified as unsolicited bulk e-mail or unsolicited commercial e-mail.

Conventional advertisement or spam mail blocking techniques block spam mail based on the subject, content, sender's mail address, sender's IP address, and the like.

However, when determining spam based on the subject and content, it is possible to avoid the extraction of spam mail by slightly changing the phrase of the subject or the content itself, and even if the sender determines the spam based on the sender's email address, You can easily avoid spam by simply typing the wrong e-mail address from the beginning. In addition, even if spam is discriminated based on the sender's IP address, a sender with basic Internet protocol knowledge can change the IP as much as it does not become a fundamental anti-spam measure.

Conventional inventions for solving such spam mails include "Downmail method and system that can suppress the generation of spam mail" of Patent Application No. 2002-007823, and "E-mail blocking system and method of Patent Application No. 2002-0016768". ”,“ Spam filtering and method ”of Patent Application No. 2002-0035691.

“Downmail method and system that can suppress the generation of spam mail” (Patent Application No. 2002-007823) is characterized by a downmail method that downloads mails from the sender's mail mailbox. The original mail is stored on the sender's mail server, and only the sending notification mail is delivered to the recipient by the conventional mail method, but the sender of the spam mail does not follow the method of the present invention. When it is impossible to effectively prevent spam mail, there is practically little possibility that a person who actually sends spam mail uses the method of the present invention.

“E-mail Blocking System and Method” (Patent Application No. 2002-0016768) allows users to create different e-mail addresses for each site they wish to join as a member, and sends e-mails from unwanted parties. When it comes, it blocks the route that mails the user doesn't want to receive by discarding the email address itself. However, the present invention is insufficient as a countermeasure against spam mail that is directly transmitted to an e-mail address which is mainly used to remove an e-mail address itself.

“Spam mail filtering and method” (Patent Application No. 2002-0035691) is a mail header filtering process that blocks mail sent and received through an email processing system according to the header condition of spam mail, and spam mail filtered by the mail header. Mail body filtering process to block according to the body condition of the mail, Connection filtering process to block the mail body filtered mail according to the condition of the number of connections of the spam mail, SMTP (simple mail transfer) of the spam mail to the connection filtered mail protocol) Features the SMTP command filtering process to block according to the command conditions. Spam filtering similar or identical to this invention is currently used in many e-mail services or anti-spam services. However, this filtering method only filters about 70-90% of spam mails, and spam mails disguised as normal mails cannot be effectively filtered. In addition, since spam mails filtered under strict conditions sometimes contain normal mails, users need to check the subject and contents of spam mails.

Accordingly, the present invention has been made in order to solve the above problems, by using a quiz mail to block the spam mail sent by the conventional mail transmission method and filter the spam mail disguised as a normal mail by the user of the subject of the spam mail The purpose of this article is to provide a method for filtering spam mail using quiz mail, which does not require checking the contents.

1 is a view for explaining a configuration example to which the spam mail filtering method according to the present invention is applied, (a) is a case where a spam processing engine is included in the mail server, (b) is a spam processing engine to the mail client If included.

2A is a flowchart illustrating a process of checking spam mail according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

2B is a flowchart illustrating a process of checking spam mail according to another embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 3 is a flow chart showing in detail the step of checking the spam mail by the quiz mail of Figures 2a and 2b.

4 is an example of a spam mail confirmation quiz mail of the present invention.

5a and 5b are examples of the quiz index table of the present invention, Figure 5a is an example of using the mail index to distinguish the quiz mail, Figure 5b is a case of using the sender address to distinguish the quiz mail Is an example.

6A and 6B are examples of the index table of the temporary mail DB of the present invention. FIG. 6A is an example of using a mail index to distinguish quiz mails, and FIG. 6B is a sender address to distinguish quiz mails. This is an example of use.

In the present invention, the quiz mail is sent to the sender of all mails suspected of being received or spam mails. If the quiz mail is properly answered, it is determined that the previous mail is not spam mail.

To this end, when the mail is received, check whether the received mail is a reply mail to the quiz mail. If it is not a reply mail for the quiz mail, the received mail is stored in the temporary mail DB and the quiz mail is sent to the sender. If the incoming mail is a reply mail to the quiz mail, check whether the received mail includes the correct answer to the quiz mail. If the incoming mail contains the correct answer, the corresponding original received mail stored in the temporary mail DB is delivered to the recipient's mail inbox of the original received mail. If the correct answer is not included in the received mail, the corresponding original received mail stored in the temporary mail DB is deleted from the temporary mail DB.

On the other hand, if the sender of the received mail is a mail sender is allowed to receive, the step of sending a quiz mail can be omitted. In addition, the recipient of the mail sent by the user can be automatically registered as a mail sender allowed to receive. In addition, it is possible to designate a sender address that has passed the spam mail checking step by the quiz mail as an allowable address. Such a reception permission address may be established for each user. In addition, the user can specify a reception permission address.

In one embodiment of the present invention, whether or not the received mail is a reply to the quiz mail, using the address of the sender of the quiz mail as a specific address used only to send the quiz mail when sending the quiz mail, the received mail If the address of the recipient is the specific address, it is determined that the reply to the quiz mail. There are a number of such specific addresses, and each time a quiz mail is sent, the sender's address is used as one of a plurality of specific addresses, but the correct answer of the quiz sent by the sender address used when sending the quiz mail is stored. Then, whether or not the correct answer is included in the reply mail is determined whether the correct answer of the stored quiz is included in the reply mail corresponding to the address of the recipient of the received reply mail.

In another embodiment of the present invention, whether or not the received mail is a reply to the quiz mail, the mail index that can be distinguished whether the quiz mail when sending the quiz mail is inserted into the quiz mail, the received mail to the quiz mail Whether or not the reply mail is determined by whether the mail index is inserted in the quiz mail.

In addition, when sending a quiz mail, using a mail index that can distinguish each quiz mail uniquely, and stores the correct answer of the quiz sent by the mail index used when sending the quiz mail. Then, whether or not the correct answer is included in the reply mail is determined whether the correct answer of the stored quiz is included in the reply mail corresponding to the mail index included in the received reply mail.

In addition, when storing the received mail in the temporary mail DB, the saving time is also saved.Refer to the storage time of the received mail stored in the temporary mail DB for a certain period of time. You can also delete it from the DB.

The method of the present invention may be applied to all received mails, or may be applied only to received mails determined as spam mails using other spam mail filtering methods, for example, spam mail filtering by keywords.

At this time, the quiz included in the quiz mail is preferably a quiz mail difficult to reply automatically. For example, by processing quiz questions graphically, a person can't answer without reading the quiz mail directly.

Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

1 is a view for explaining a configuration example to which the spam filtering method according to the present invention is applied, (a) is a case where the spam processing engine 400 is included in the mail server 200, (b) is spam This is the case when the processing engine 400 is included in the mail client 300.

When the user wants to check his or her mail, he or she accesses the mail server 200 using a mail client 300 such as Outlook ^TM or accesses a web server using a web browser. On the other hand, the mail server 200 stores the mail received by the mail server and delivers it if the user requests.

In the case of (a) of FIG. 1, the mail received by the mail server 200 undergoes a spam mail checking process according to the present invention by the spam processing engine 400. This process allows the user to access only the mail determined to be not spam. On the other hand, it is also possible to go through the spam mail verification process according to the conventional method before the spam mail verification process according to the present invention.

In the case of FIG. 1B, the mail received by the mail server 200 is delivered to the mail client 300 according to a conventional procedure. In this case, the user may not access all the received mails delivered to the mail client 300, but may access only the mails determined as not spam by the spam processing engine 400 included in the mail client 300. do.

2A is a flowchart illustrating a process of checking spam mail according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. Figure 2a shows a case of going through the spam mail confirmation process according to the present invention for all received mail.

When the mail client 300 installed in the mail server 200 or the user's computer 100 receives the mail (S100), the mail client 300 parses a sender address, a recipient address, a mail index, a quiz answer, and the like included in the received mail ( S200). After parsing the necessary data, the process of checking the spam mail by the quiz mail according to the present invention is performed (S300). On the other hand, it is also possible to omit step S200 and to extract necessary data as necessary in the spam checking step (S300).

2B is a flowchart illustrating a process of checking spam mail according to another embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, a spam mail is checked according to a conventional method for checking spam by a keyword, and the received mail is determined to be spam. Only the spam mail verification process of the present invention is carried out.

When the mail client 300 installed in the mail server 200 or the user's computer 100 receives the mail (S100), first, whether the mail is spam or not includes a specific keyword included in the mail. It is determined whether or not (S130). For example, check whether the message includes words mainly included in spam mail such as 'advertisement', 'adult information' and 'public information'.

Received mail is determined not to be spam because it does not contain these words is delivered to the user (S400). However, if such a word is included, since there is a possibility of spam mail, the sender address, recipient address, mail index, quiz answer, etc. included in the received mail are parsed (S200), and then the quiz mail according to the present invention is included in the quiz mail. Spam mail check process by the (S300). On the other hand, it is also possible to omit step S200 and to extract necessary data as necessary in the spam checking step (S300).

Next, with reference to Figure 3 will be described in detail spam confirmation step (S300) by the quiz mail.

First, check whether the received mail is a reply mail for the quiz mail (S310). Whether the incoming mail is a reply mail to the quiz mail can be confirmed in various ways.

For example, when sending a quiz mail, an e-mail index that can be identified as a quiz mail is inserted into the quiz mail, and whether the received mail is a reply mail to the quiz mail is determined by whether the mail index is inserted in the quiz mail. do. If only one quiz is used in the quiz mail, it is not necessary to distinguish each quiz mail from each other, so only one mail index can be used. For example, if you include the keyword 'quizmail' in the title of the quiz mail, the title of the reply will include the keyword 'quizmail', so the reply to the quiz mail can be seen.

On the other hand, when using one or more of a number of quizzes, it is necessary to distinguish each quiz mail from each other in order to confirm the correct answer. In this case, as shown in Fig. 5A, the correct answer 520 needs to be recorded for each mail index 510 used. That is, when sending a quiz mail, the mail index 510 is added to the mail subject, such as 'quizmail 000123', and the correct answer 520 of the quiz used in the quiz mail is recorded as shown in FIG. 5A. On the other hand, if the reply mail for the quiz mail does not come within a certain period after receiving the received mail and send the quiz mail, if you want to process the received mail as spam mail, when you send the quiz mail as shown in Figure 5a It is necessary to record the date of sending the mail or the date of receiving the received mail (530).

Another way to check whether the message is a quiz mail is to use the address of the sender of the quiz mail as a specific address used only to send the quiz mail when sending the quiz mail, and the address of the recipient of the received mail is the specified address. In this case, there is a way to determine that the reply to the quiz mail. In other words, when sending a quiz mail, if the sender's mail address is used such as 'quizmail@mailserver.co.kr', the recipient address of the reply mail to the quiz mail will be 'quizmail@mailserver.co.kr'. It is easy to see if the reply to the quiz mail.

On the other hand, when using only one quiz in the quiz mail, it is not necessary to distinguish each quiz mail from each other, only one mail address can be used. However, when using one or more of the multiple quizzes, it is necessary to distinguish each quiz mail from each other in order to confirm the correct answer. In this case, as shown in Fig. 5B, it is necessary to record the correct answer 520 for each e-mail address 515 used. That is, if the mail address 'quizmail01@mailserver.co.kr' was used when sending the quiz mail, the correct answer 520 of the quiz mail using the address is recorded as shown in FIG. 5B. On the other hand, if the reply mail for the quiz mail does not come within a certain period after receiving the incoming mail and send the quiz mail, if you want to treat the received mail as spam mail when you send the quiz mail as shown in Figure 5b It is necessary to record the date of sending the mail or the date of receiving the received mail (530).

With respect to the received mail determined not to be a reply mail to the quiz mail in step S310, it is checked whether the sender's address is in the effective address DB (S360). Effective address DB is a database that stores the sender's e-mail address allowed to receive mail, the e-mail address specified by the mail server 200 or the mail client 300, or the mail address specified by the user, the mail sent by the user The recipient's address, the sender's address that once passed the spam mail verification process using the quiz mail may be stored.

If the sender address of the received mail is an address in the effective address DB, since the reception of the mail is allowed, the corresponding mail is delivered to the receiver (S370). If the sender address of the received mail is an address that does not exist in the effective address DB, the spam mail may be stored in the temporary mail DB (S380), and the quiz mail is sent to the sender of the received mail (S390). An example of a quiz mail sent is shown in FIG. 4. The quiz included in the quiz mail can be solved simply, but it is also desirable that it cannot be solved automatically by a computer. For example, a combination of keyboards that can be easily entered with a computer keyboard can be saved as a graphic file to view the graphic file, and the sender can input the combination of the keyboard, or a simple problem as shown in FIG. For example, to enter a correct answer.

On the other hand, when a large number of quiz mail is sent in response to a large number of incoming mail should be able to distinguish which quiz mail for the received mail. For this purpose, a mail index is assigned to each quiz mail as shown in FIG. 6A, and a record of which received mail is related to a quiz mail having a corresponding mail index, or the sender address of each quiz mail as shown in FIG. 6B. Alternatively, it is desirable to record which incoming mail the quiz mail with the corresponding sender address relates to.

For the received mail determined to be a reply mail for the quiz mail in step S310, it is checked whether the correct answer of the quiz included in the quiz mail is included in the received mail (S320).

If the quiz answer is included, when determining that the mail stored in the temporary mail DB when the quiz mail is not spam mail, take the corresponding mail from the temporary mail DB and deliver it to the recipient (S330). In addition, it is desirable to delete the mail stored in the temporary mail DB and index records related to the mail. After that, by storing the sender address of the mail in the effective address DB (S340), from now on, it is preferable that the mail from the sender is immediately delivered to the recipient without going through the quiz mail sending process.

If the check result received in step S320 does not include the correct quiz answer, the mail stored in the temporary mail DB when the quiz mail is determined to be spam mail and deletes the corresponding mail from the temporary mail DB (S350).

In the above, the present invention has been described with reference to some examples, but the present invention is not limited thereto, and a person of ordinary skill in the art may make many modifications and variations without departing from the spirit of the present invention. I will understand.

As described above, according to the present invention, since only the sender's mail that has normally responded to the quiz mail is delivered to the recipient, it is possible to reliably determine whether the spam mail is spam. In addition, when the method of the present invention is applied only to the mail classified as spam mail by the conventional method, there is an effect that the mail classified as spam mail does not have to be concerned about the possibility that the normal mail is included.

Claims (14)

Step 1 to check whether the received mail is a reply mail to the quiz mail, If not the reply mail for the quiz mail, the second step of storing the received mail in the temporary mail DB and sending a quiz mail to the sender, In the first step, if the received mail is a reply mail to the quiz mail, a third step of checking whether the received mail includes the correct answer to the quiz mail; A fourth step of forwarding the corresponding original received mail stored in the temporary mail DB to the recipient's mail inbox of the original received mail, if the received mail contains the correct answer; Step 5 of deleting the corresponding original received mail stored in the temporary mail DB from the temporary mail DB if the correct answer is not included in the received mail. Spam filtering method comprising a. The method of claim 1, wherein the second step Step 2-1 of checking whether the sender address is an allowable address; If the sender address is a mailing address, the received mail is delivered to the recipient's mail inbox. If the sender address is not a mailing address, the received mail is stored in a temporary mail DB, and steps 2 to 2 are sent to the sender. How to filter spam. The method of claim 2, Spam mail filtering method further comprises the step of designating the sender address of the incoming mail as a reception address in the fourth step. The method of claim 2, Safe mail filtering method characterized in that the address is built for each user. The method of claim 4, wherein Spam filtering method characterized in that the user can specify a safe address. The method of claim 4, wherein And when the user sends the mail, registering the recipient address of the mail as a safe address. The method of claim 2, When sending the quiz mail in step 2-2, use the address of the sender of the quiz mail as a specific address used only for sending the quiz mail. In the first step, whether or not the received mail is a reply mail to the quiz mail is determined based on whether the recipient address is the specific address. The method of claim 7, wherein There are a plurality of specific addresses, Each time the quiz mail is sent in step 2-2, the sender's address is used as one of the plurality of specific addresses, and each quiz mail includes at least one of the plurality of quizzes, and the sender address used when sending the quiz mail. Save the correct answer to the quiz sent to each star, And whether or not the correct answer is included in the reply mail in the third step is to check whether the correct answer of the stored quiz is included in the reply mail corresponding to the address of the recipient of the received reply mail. The method of claim 2, When sending a quiz mail in Step 2-2, insert an email index to identify the quiz mail in the quiz mail, In the first step, whether or not the received mail is a reply mail to the quiz mail is determined by whether the mail index is inserted into the quiz mail. The method of claim 9, When sending the quiz mail in the step 2-2, an email index that uniquely distinguishes each quiz mail is used, and each quiz mail includes at least one of a plurality of quizzes, and each mail index used when sending the quiz mail. Save the correct answer to the quiz sent, And whether or not the correct answer is included in the reply mail in the third step is to check whether the correct answer of the stored quiz is included in the reply mail corresponding to the mail index included in the received reply mail. The method of claim 1, When saving incoming mail in the temporary mail DB in the second step, the saving time is also saved. And deleting the received mail stored in the temporary mail DB for more than a predetermined period from the temporary mail DB with reference to the storage time of the received mail stored in the temporary mail DB for each predetermined period. The method of claim 1, Determining whether or not the received mail is a spam mail using another spam mail filtering method before the first step, and passing only the received mail determined as spam mail to the first step. Way. The method of claim 12, wherein the other spam mail filtering method is a spam mail filtering method based on a keyword that determines whether the mail is spam based on whether a specific keyword is included. The method of claim 1, The quiz mail spam filtering method characterized in that the quiz is included in the graphic form.