JP2002207675A - Data distribution system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a new data distribution system independent from FTP and HTTP. SOLUTION: When a data provider 50 transmits a mail to which data is attached toward a mail address for prescribed data transmission, a registration processing part 12 in a host computer 4 performs prescribed inspection concerning information written in the mail. When the mail passes the inspection, data attached to it is related with mail addresses for obtaining data and retained in a data library 24. When data requesting person 60 transmits the mail toward one of the mail addresses for obtaining data, a request processing part 26 reads data related with the mail address for obtaining data and transmits the mail with the data toward the requesting person 60.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to a data distribution system for distributing data to an unspecified number of consumers via a computer network.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art With the spread of the Internet, more people are involved in transmitting and receiving data than before. For example,
It is common practice for individuals to set up a WWW site and allow a wide variety of data to be viewed and downloaded by an unspecified number of people. In this case, when people obtain data from the WWW site, In addition to the transmission and reception of data, the site administrator can download various data files
Data transmission / reception also occurs when uploading to the W server.

[0003] As a data transmission / reception procedure, the file transfer protocol (FTP) has been known for a long time than the spread of the Internet, but it is a protocol developed in an era when the network was small and users were limited. However, there are many aspects that are not suitable for distributing data to an unspecified number of people through a large-scale network such as the Internet today. On the other hand, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which is another data transmission / reception procedure, can be said to be a protocol developed for transmitting and receiving data through the Internet.
Suitable for distributing data to an unspecified number of people.
However, since HTTP basically assumes the anonymity of the user, if the user wants to perform processing such as providing data only to a person who has a legitimate data use right, authentication information (ID, password) is separately provided to the user. ) Or storing the authentication information in the user's computer using a technique called a cookie, so that the input of the authentication information for the second time or later can be omitted. The present invention has been made in order to solve such a problem, and its object is to use FTP or H
It is to provide a new data distribution system that does not depend on TTP.

[0004]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a data distribution system for identifying a type of an electronic mail received from a computer network based on the content of the electronic mail. When the e-mail is identified by the mail identification unit as a data registration request mail of a predetermined format to which the data for distribution is attached, the data for distribution attached to the data registration request mail is replaced with the data corresponding to the data. A registration processing unit that stores the data in the data storage unit in association with the identification information, and when the electronic mail is identified by the mail identification unit as a data request mail of a predetermined format including the data identification information,
A request processing unit that reads data corresponding to the data identification information described in the data request mail from the data storage unit, and transmits an e-mail attached with the data to a mail address of a sender of the data request mail. It is characterized by.

[0005]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION A data distribution system according to the present invention is a type of system for automatically creating an electronic mail in response to an electronic mail received at a predetermined mail address. Such a system includes, for example, various server programs (for example, an SMTP server and a POP3 server) that operate in accordance with standard procedures (for example, SMTP and POP3) relating to transmission / reception of e-mail on a computer, and mail from a mail reception server. And performs a process in accordance with the contents of the mail, outputs a result in the form of an e-mail, and operates a mail processing program to be transferred to a mail transmission server, thereby forming a software configuration. A well-known data storage device such as a fixed magnetic disk is used for the data storage unit.

[0006] When the e-mail processing unit receives the e-mail from the network, the e-mail processing unit receives the e-mail based on the destination of the e-mail (To: the e-mail address described in the column), the title (Subject: the character string described in the column), the text, etc. Identify the type of email.

As an example, consider the case where the type of an electronic mail is identified based on the destination of the electronic mail. The system administrator prepares an e-mail address for accepting a data registration request (e-mail address for data registration), and also prepares an e-mail address for acquiring data for each data for distribution (e-mail address for data acquisition). . The mail processing unit forwards the e-mail to the registration processing unit if the e-mail received from the network is addressed to the data registration e-mail address, and if the e-mail is addressed to any data acquisition e-mail address, Forward the email to the billing processor.

When the registration processing unit receives the data registration request mail from the mail identification unit, it extracts distribution data attached to the mail, and stores the data in the data storage unit in association with the data identification information corresponding to the data. . The data identification information is a unique code or character string corresponding to each data stored in the data storage unit, and is used when a consumer who wants to acquire data specifies his or her desired data. For example, when a data acquisition mail address is separately prepared for each data, the data acquisition mail address can be used as it is as data identification information.

Upon receiving the data request mail from the mail identification unit, the request processing unit reads out the data corresponding to the data identification information described in the mail from the data storage unit, and transmits the e-mail attached with the data to the data request mail. To the sender's email address.

The data distribution system according to the present invention as described above includes, for example, an HTML document, image data (still image,
Video), audio data (MP3 etc.), music performance data (M
IDI, etc.), executable program data, etc. The provider of the distribution data (data provider) can register the distribution data in the present system simply by sending an e-mail of a predetermined format with the data attached to a predetermined mail address.
Also, a person who wants to acquire data registered in the system (data requester) simply sends an e-mail with necessary items described in a predetermined e-mail address and receives a response e-mail with the desired data attached. be able to. Furthermore, if the system prepares a different data acquisition e-mail address for each data for distribution, the data requester sends a blank e-mail (e-mail with a blank title or body) to the e-mail address corresponding to the desired data. You can get that data.

[0011]

FIG. 1 shows a schematic configuration of a data distribution system according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the following description, the word "e-mail" is abbreviated as "e-mail" as necessary,
The word “database” is abbreviated as “DB”.

The data distribution system of the present embodiment is provided on a host computer 4 (hereinafter, referred to as a host 4) capable of communicating with an external terminal computer or a similar terminal device (hereinafter, these are collectively referred to as terminals) through the Internet 2. Is configured as software by operating a predetermined server program.

In the host 4, the mail transmission / reception unit 10 receives all mails sent through the Internet 2, and transfers or stores the mails to various parts of the system according to the destination address. Hereinafter, the data provider 50 provides data to the present system, and the data is provided to the data requester 60.
The configuration and operation of the present system will be described by taking as an example the case in which is acquired.

Data Registration Process The process in which the data provider 50 registers data in the system will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

Transmission of an address application mail (step S1)
2) When wishing to register data in the present system, the data provider 50 first activates mail transmission / reception software (hereinafter referred to as a mailer) on its own terminal 52 and prepares an address application mail prepared in advance. Address (here apply @
mik.ne.jp). The address application mail is, for example, a mail in which an account ID and a password issued in advance to a data provider of the present system are described in a predetermined format, as shown in FIG.

Mail Inspection (Step S 14) When the mail transmitting / receiving unit 10 receives a mail whose destination address is an address application address, it transfers the mail to the registration processing unit 12. The registration processing unit 12 sets a value between the domain name in the mail address of the sender of the mail and the domain name in the mail server name (recorded in the header part of the mail) that relayed the mail first. Check for mismatches. If the two domain names do not match, there is a possibility that the sender has spoofed the mail address. Therefore, in such a case, the registration processing unit 12
Sets the result of the mail check to "No", sends an error mail notifying the check result to the data provider 50 (step S15), and writes the contents of the error to the error log 13.

Account Check (Step S16) If the result of the mail check is "Yes", the registration processing unit 12 checks whether the account is valid according to the following procedure. First, the registration processing unit 12 checks whether the account ID described in the e-mail has been registered in the provider DB 14. If the account ID has been registered in the provider DB 14, the registration processing unit 12
Is the mail address of the sender of the mail is the provider DB1
In step 4, it is checked whether it matches the mail address recorded corresponding to the account ID. If it is determined that the account is not valid as a result of such a check, the registration processing unit 12 sends an error mail to the data provider 50 (step S15), and writes the content of the error to the error log 13. . .

Send address notification mail (step S1)
8) If the result of the account check is “Yes”, the registration processing unit 12 issues an e-mail address for data transmission and a temporary password, and transmits an address notification e-mail describing them to the data provider 50. FIG. 4 shows an example of the address notification mail. In the present embodiment, the format of the data transmission mail address is "tmp??@mik.ne.jp" (where "??" is one of two-digit numbers 00 to 99). Also,
The registration processing unit 12 registers the issued data transmission mail address, the temporary password, and the date and time of the issuance in the temporary information for authentication DB 16 in association with the account ID of the data provider 50. Furthermore, the registration processing unit 12 creates a mail account corresponding to the issued data transmission mail address in the temporary mailbox 18.

The registration processing unit 12 sets a valid period for the data transmission mail address and the temporary password issued as described above. In this embodiment, the validity period is set to 24 hours from the transmission of the address notification mail (see FIG. 4). In addition, the registration processing unit 12 checks the contents of the temporary information for authentication DB 16 at predetermined time intervals, and deletes the e-mail address and the temporary password whose validity period has expired from the temporary information for authentication DB 16 if there are any. ,
Temporary mailbox 18 corresponding to the email address
Delete your email account.

Transmission of Registration Request Mail (Step S20) The data provider 50 receives the address notification mail with the mailer, and confirms the data transmission mail address and the temporary password. Next, the data provider 50 creates an e-mail (registration request e-mail) in which the account ID, the notified temporary password, and items necessary for data registration are described in a predetermined format. Items necessary for data registration include, for example, an acquisition condition (a condition to be satisfied by a user who wants to acquire data) and an explanatory note (an explanatory note such as a data use condition and a use method). FIG. 5 shows an example of a registration request mail. In the example of FIG. 5, the account ID and the temporary password are described in the “title” column, and the acquisition conditions and the description are described in the text of the mail. The acquisition conditions describe that the user of this system has been registered (user registration) and that the same person can acquire data up to three times (the number of times is limited to three). When the registration request mail is completed, the data provider 50 attaches the data file to be registered to the mail, and sends the mail to the data transmission mail address notified earlier.

Inspection of E-mail (Step S22) The e-mail transmission / reception unit 10 determines that the destination address is tmp??@mik.ne.j
When a mail in the format of p is received, it is regarded as a registration request mail and transferred to the registration processing unit 12. The registration processing unit 12 checks the registration request mail in the same manner as in step S14 described above.

Account and password check (step S
24) If the result of the mail check in step S22 is “Yes”, the registration processing unit 12 performs password authentication according to the following procedure. First, the registration processing unit 12 determines that the account ID described in the registration request mail is
Check if it is registered in. If the account ID is registered in the temporary authentication information DB 16, then the registration processing unit 12 registers the valid data transmission address and temporary password registered in the temporary authentication information DB 16 corresponding to the account ID. Check if it is included in the request email. When it is determined that at least one of the account ID and the temporary password described in the registration request mail is not valid, the registration processing unit 1
2 transmits an error mail to the data provider 50 (step S15), and writes the content of the error in the error log 13. On the other hand, when it is determined that the account and the temporary password are valid, the registration processing unit 12 stores the registration request mail in association with the corresponding account in the temporary mailbox 18 (step S26), and furthermore, stores the registration request mail in the mail. Information (acquisition conditions, explanations, etc.) registered application information DB2
0 (step S28).

Virus Inspection (Step S30) Next, the registration processing unit 12 extracts data from the registration request mail, and if it is a compressed file, decompresses the data and then performs a virus inspection on the data by a predetermined method. If the data is suspected of being infected with a virus, the registration processing unit 12 sends an error mail to the data provider 50 (step S1).
5) Write the contents of the error to the error log 13;
Delete the data and the registration request mail. In this embodiment, only the virus check is performed on the data, but another type of security check may be further performed.

Saving of Data (Step S32) If there is no doubt that the data is infected with a virus, the registration processing unit 12 saves the data file in the data library 22. At this time, the registration processing unit 12 gives the data file a name associated with the data acquisition mail address assigned to the data provider 50 in advance. In the example of FIG. 1, get001@mik.ne.jp is assigned to the data provider 50 as a data acquisition mail address, and the file name of the data provided by the data provider 50 is set to dat001. It is associated with the data file name. After storing the data, the registration processing unit 12 transmits a registration completion notification mail to the data provider 50 (step S34).

Through the above series of processing, data (dat001, dat002, dat003,...) Provided by various data providers are accumulated in the data library 24, and the mailbox 25 stores each data. Corresponding email address for data acquisition (get001@mik.ne.jp, get002 @ mi
k.ne.jp, get003@mik.ne.jp…) is created. The administrator of the system widely informs consumers of data contents and data acquisition mail addresses through various information media (WWW, direct mail, magazines, advertisements, etc.).

Data Requesting Process A process in which a consumer who has learned about the present system using the information medium as described above acquires data registered in the present system will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. Note that in the following description, the consumer uses the data provider 50
It is assumed that the user acquires data (dat001) provided by this system.

Data request mail transmission (step S52) The consumer (hereinafter, the data requester) 60 sends his / her own terminal 62
To start the mailer, and the mail address for data acquisition corresponding to the data to be acquired (here, get001@mik.ne.jp)
Send data request email to. The data request email is
For example, as shown in FIG. 7, this is a mail in which a data acquisition mail address is simply entered in the destination.

Mail Inspection (Step S54) The mail transmitting and receiving unit 10 sets the destination address of the received mail to the format of the mail address of the data request mailbox 27 (here, get???@mik.ne.jp. When "???" has a three-digit number of 000 to 999), the mail is regarded as a data request mail and transferred to the request processing unit 26. The billing processing unit 26 checks the data billing mail by the same method as in step S14 of the flowchart of FIG. 2 described above. If the result of the mail check is “No”, the billing processing unit 26 sends an error mail notifying the check result to the data claimant 60 (step S55), and writes the contents of the error to the error log 13. .

Specification of Data (Step S56) If the result of the mail inspection is "Yes", the billing processing unit 26 specifies data corresponding to the destination address of the data billing mail. In this system, the destination address get0
The data file corresponding to 01@mik.ne.jp is dat001, and the data file corresponding to the destination address get002@mik.ne.jp is
The data file can be specified from the three-digit number part of the destination address, such as dat002.

Inspection of User Registration (Step S58) Next, the billing processor 26 checks in the registration application information DB 20 whether or not user registration is an acquisition condition for the specified data. If the data is based on the user registration as an acquisition condition, the billing processor 26 checks the user DB 28 to determine whether the sender of the data billing mail has been registered as a user of the present system. When the caller is a user who has performed user registration, the billing processing unit 26 sets the result of the user registration inspection to “Yes”. On the other hand, if the caller is not the person who registered the user, the billing processor 26 sets the result of the user registration check to "No", transmits an error mail to the data claimant 60 (step S55), Is written in the error log 13. If user registration is not an acquisition condition for the specified data, the billing processing unit 26 always sets the result of the user registration check to “Yes”.

Inspection of Usage Restriction (Step S58) If the inspection result of the user registration is "Yes", the billing processor 26 checks the usage restriction on the data. In the present embodiment, a use restriction of “limit of the number of times 3” is provided for the data dat001. Accordingly, when the data claimant 60 requests acquisition of the data dat001, the billing processing unit 26
The past acquisition history of dat001 is checked in the usage history DB 30 and da
Check whether the cumulative number of data acquisition requests for t001 exceeds the upper limit. If the cumulative number exceeds the upper limit number, the billing processing unit 26 sets the use restriction check result to "No", transmits an error mail to the data claimant 60 (step S55), and The contents are written to the error log 13. On the other hand, if the cumulative number does not exceed the upper limit number, it is checked whether or not there is another use restriction, and if there is another use restriction, the inspection is also performed. In this embodiment, it is assumed that there is no usage restriction other than the frequency limit, but the usage restriction may be in various forms other than the frequency limit. The following is an example. -The next data acquisition is not permitted until a predetermined number of days has elapsed since the last data acquisition. -Acquisition of data D2 is permitted only to a person who has already acquired data D1. -Data acquisition is permitted only to those who have registered direct mail in advance.

Creation and Transmission of Data Distribution Mail When it is confirmed in step S58 that no use restriction is applied to the data acquisition request, the billing processing unit 26 sets the use restriction check result to "Yes". Create a data delivery email by following the steps described above. That is, first, the billing processing unit 26 reads a description corresponding to the requested data from the registration application information DB 20, and creates a standard mail including the description (step S6).
2). Next, the billing processing unit 26 reads out the file of the billed data from the data library and attaches the file to the mail (step S64). FIG. 8 shows an example of the data distribution mail. The billing processor 26 sends this mail to the mail address of the data claimant 60 (step S6).
6).

Update of Usage History DB (Step S68) After transmitting the error mail or the data distribution mail to the data claimant 60, the billing processing unit 26 records the contents of a series of processing in the usage history DB 30. In the usage history DB 30,
The mail address of the data claimant 60, the date and time of receiving the data request, the content of the response (error or data delivery), the name of the delivered data file, and the like are recorded. Further, for example, when a service of giving points to the data requester 60 is performed when the data request is valid (that is, when the data is actually distributed in response to the data request), the points are also used in the usage history DB 30. Can be recorded.

[0034]

According to the data distribution system of the present invention,
Since data registration by the data provider, data acquisition request by the data claimant, and data distribution from the system to the data claimant are all performed by e-mail, data registration and registration can be performed without using an FTP client or a Web browser. Delivery is possible. In addition, since all communications are performed by e-mail, inspection and authentication based on the sender's e-mail address can be easily performed at any processing stage. In addition, since data is delivered to the sender's e-mail address described in the data request e-mail, it is impossible to obtain the data even if someone misrepresents the e-mail address of another person and tries to obtain the data illegally . Also, as in the above-described embodiment, if the domain name match / mismatch between the sender's mail address described in the data request mail and the address of the mail server that relayed the mail first is checked. Attempts to obtain unauthorized data by spoofing the e-mail address are more reliably prevented.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a data distribution system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of a data registration process.

FIG. 3 shows an example of an address application mail.

FIG. 4 is an example of an address notification mail.

FIG. 5 shows an example of a registration request mail.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of a data acquisition process.

FIG. 7 shows an example of a data request mail.

FIG. 8 shows an example of a data distribution mail.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 ... Mail transmission / reception part 12 ... Registration processing part 13 ... Error log 16 ... Temporary information database for authentication 18 ... Temporary mailbox 22 ... Data library 26 ... Billing processing part 27 ... Mail box for data billing 28 ... User database 30 ... Usage History database

Claims (3)

[Claims] An e-mail identification unit for identifying the type of e-mail received from the computer network based on the content thereof; the e-mail identification unit converts the e-mail into a data registration request e-mail with a predetermined format attached with delivery data. A registration processing unit that stores the delivery data attached to the data registration request mail in the data storage unit in association with the data identification information corresponding to the data, and When the mail is identified as a data request mail in a predetermined format including the data identification information, data corresponding to the data identification information described in the data request mail is read from the data storage unit, and the electronic mail attached with the data is read. A billing processor for sending the mail to the mail address of the sender of the data billing mail. Data distribution system for the butterflies. 2. The mail identification unit checks whether a domain name of a mail address of a sender of an e-mail received from a computer network matches a domain name of a mail server that first receives the e-mail. The data distribution system according to claim 1, wherein: 3. The processing executed by the registration processing unit further includes: when receiving a data registration application mail in a predetermined format, preparing a data registration reception address corresponding to a sender of the data registration application mail; Generating a temporary password corresponding to the data registration reception address, transmitting an address notification mail describing the data registration reception address and the temporary password to the sender of the data registration application mail, and the data registration request 3. The data distribution system according to claim 1, further comprising a step of checking whether a correct data registration reception address and a temporary password are described in the mail.