JP2002368940A - Network facsimile terminal - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a network facsimile terminal that makes facsimile communication on the Internet by means of polling. SOLUTION: The network facsimile terminal at a side requested by polling stores image data to be sent and transmits the image data in a form of electronic mail when detecting a prescribed character string such as POLLING in the electronic mail sent from a polling request side.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a network facsimile apparatus, and more particularly to a network facsimile apparatus for realizing image data communication by polling in a network such as the Internet.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art The G3 facsimile has a standard of polling, and a polling requester stores image data to be transmitted, and transmits the requested image data in response to a request from the polling requester. Also, in order to realize facsimile communication over a network such as the Internet, MIME (MultipurposeInt
The image data is transmitted as an attached file of an e-mail using Internet Mail Extensions). However, transmission of image data by polling on a network has not been performed yet.

[0003]

A basic object of the present invention is to enable transmission of image data by polling on a network. Another object of the present invention is to facilitate specification of image data to be transmitted. Another object of the present invention is to enable a network facsimile apparatus on the polling request side to easily determine whether image data can be transmitted.

[0004]

According to the present invention, in a network facsimile apparatus which stores image data and transmits / receives it in an e-mail format via a network, when a predetermined character string is detected in the received e-mail, a predetermined character string is detected. The image data is sent back to the destination of the received e-mail (claim 1).

Preferably, when the image data to be returned is not specified in the received electronic mail, a list of the stored image data is returned (claim 2). The stored image data means image data that can be sent back to the sender of the e-mail, and other image data stored for transmission is not included in the “stored image data” here. Preferably, the sender is authenticated based on a password in the received e-mail or an address of the sender (claim 3). The address may be an address with a sub-address specifying the source device name or the user name, or an address up to the domain name.

[0006] In this specification, image data, image data, facsimile data, and manuscript are synonyms in accordance with customs in facsimile communication. The accumulation and storage of data are synonymous.

[0007]

According to the present invention, when a predetermined character string such as "POLLING" is detected in a received e-mail, the stored image data is returned to the transmission source of the e-mail. Transmission of image data by polling can be realized (claim 1). For this reason, the image data stored therein can be extracted from a remote location when desired.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, when the image data to be returned is not specified in the received electronic mail, the list is returned. Therefore, the polling request side can specify and transmit necessary image data from the list. Therefore, it is easy to specify the image data to be transmitted, the image data is specified by the first e-mail, and if the specified image data exists, that is, if the specified image data is stored, the image data is transmitted and specified. If the specified image data does not exist, or if there is a lot of image data and the image data specification is unspecified,
The list of image data is transmitted, and the polling requester can select and specify necessary image data.

When transmitting image data in response to a polling request, it may be necessary to confirm whether or not the image data can be transmitted. In case of such a case,
After confirming the recipient by password or sender address,
The image data cannot be seen by a third party (claim 3).

[0010]

1 to 7 show an embodiment. In FIG.
Reference numeral 2 denotes a network facsimile apparatus on the polling request side, and reference numeral 3 denotes a network facsimile apparatus on the polling request side. Network facsimile machines 2, 3
Transmits and receives facsimile data such as G3 via a public telephone network (PSTN), and transmits and receives facsimile data in an e-mail format via a network such as the Internet. Note that the polling request side may be a personal computer of a mail client instead of the network facsimile machine 3. The network facsimile apparatuses 2 and 3 are SMTP (Simple Mail Tran
sfer Protocol), MIME, POP3 (Post Office P
An e-mail is exchanged based on a protocol such as rotocol version 3), and the attached file is facsimile data.

The polling procedure is such that the requesting network facsimile apparatus 3 requests polling to the network facsimile apparatus 2 by e-mail with the subject set to "POLLING". If the image data can be specified by the user, the image data is returned to the network facsimile apparatus 3 as an attached file of an electronic mail.
If the specified image data does not exist, or if a plurality of image data are stored, but it is not specified which image data is to be transmitted, the network facsimile apparatus 2 stores the list of the stored image data in the network. Send to facsimile machine 3. In the network facsimile machine 3, the received list is displayed on, for example, a display or a monitor, and the user designates a desired image data file from the list and resends the file as an e-mail to the network facsimile machine 2. When the image data to be transmitted is identified and the transmission destination can be authenticated, the network facsimile apparatus 2 transmits the specified image data to the network facsimile apparatus 3 in an e-mail format.

FIG. 2 shows the configuration of the Internet facsimile apparatuses 2 and 3, 10 is a main controller, 12 is a network controller, 14 is a modem, and the network controller 12 is a public telephone line network (PSTN). And establish a connection with
Communication is performed for transmission and reception of three facsimile machines. An image memory 16 stores image data compressed for facsimile communication, and a RAM 18 stores uncompressed image data and the like. A ROM 20 stores a control program and the like. Reference numeral 22 denotes a display unit having a display such as an LCD,
An operation unit 24 includes, for example, a touch panel provided on the LCD display and input keys such as numeric keys. A scanner 26 scans a document image and reads image data. Reference numeral 28 denotes a recording unit which prints a received image or an image read by a scanner.

Reference numeral 30 denotes a LAN interface for connecting to a network such as the Internet via a LAN (not shown). 32 is a main body bus, 34
Is a mailbox storing image data to be transmitted in response to a polling request, divided into a plurality of boxes, and each box has an authentication key. Here, the data for authentication is a password, an address, a domain name, and the like. The data for authentication is transmitted in the polling request, and polling is performed on the image data of the box that can be authenticated with the data. Although the mailbox 34 may store only facsimile data for polling, in the embodiment, a dedicated mailbox is provided for each user of the network facsimile apparatus 2, and communication for each user is performed in each mailbox. It shall be stored.

Reference numeral 36 denotes a polling processing unit that processes both polling requests and responses. Reference numeral 38 denotes an authentication unit.
8 is the password and “original” in the polling request mail.
Authentication is performed from the domain name or address of "sender". Authentication based on the domain name or address is simpler because the user on the polling request side does not need to enter a password. If there is a box that can be opened with the authentication data in the box, the polling processing unit 36 is notified that access to the box has been authenticated, and to the polling processing unit 36 if authentication is not possible.

The polling request and response will be described with reference to FIGS. As shown in FIG. 3, the polling requester sends a polling request e-mail to the polled requester, includes a character string such as "POLLING" in the subject column, etc., and describes authentication data such as a password and a domain name. And send. FIG. 4 shows a polling request mail 4
In the example of 0, the character string "POLLING" is shown in the subject field, and the description data "sender" and "receive
“r” is actually the user's last name, etc. The mail 40 in FIG.
When the polling request is received, the polling requester checks the address of "sender" in the From field of the header by the authentication unit 38 to determine whether or not polling is possible, and the image data in the mailbox relating to this "sender" is subject to polling. And the address of the polling response automatically becomes the "sender" address of the mail 40. Also, besides this, mail 4 not shown
From the information on the transmission progress of 0, it is checked whether the address of "sender" described in the From field of the header matches the actual address of "original sender", and if they do not match, polling may be rejected. .

The image data to be polled is the image data in the "sender" mailbox described in the From field of the mail 40. In the mail 40 of FIG. 4, since the file name of the image data to be polled is not specified,
If there is only one file of image data in the corresponding mailbox, the image data is automatically returned. Also, if there are many image data files in the corresponding mailbox, or if the file name is specified in the mail 40, but there is no such file, and there are other alternative files, Polling response mail 4
As shown in 2, the list of the image data in the corresponding mailbox is transmitted to the polling requester. This list describes file attributes such as file name, date and time of reception, format such as black and white or color, and file size (here, in units of K bytes) to facilitate file selection on the polling request side. I do. For example, in the case of the response mail 42, FILE NO.00001 etc. is a file received from "Yoshioka" to "sender", and FILE NO.0000
It turns out that 3 and 0004 are drawings, and FILE NO.00005 is a photograph. In addition, since the reception date and time and the size are described, the polling request side can easily determine which file to select.

Thus, for example, on the polling request side,
Suppose FILE NO.00001 is selected. Such a polling request mail 44 is shown in FIG. FIG. 6 shows an example in which the polling request side has been authenticated using the password “123456”. In contrast, the polled requestor
FILE NO.00001 by polling response mail 46 in FIG.
Send a response mail with "." As an attachment to "sender".

In the above procedure, the polling requesting side can access only the mailbox having the proper authority, and even if a third party invades, the destination of the response mail is the regular mail stored in the polling processing unit. Since it is the address of the polling request destination, the contents of the mailbox are not peeped by a third party. Next, when there is only one corresponding image data, the image data is immediately transmitted, and when there are a plurality of corresponding image data and it is not specified which one of them, Does not exist but other image data exists, a list of existing image data is returned as shown in FIG. For this reason, the polling request side can select and poll necessary image data without knowing the exact file name in advance, and can know how much image data for itself is stored.

If the password or the domain name is invalid and cannot be authenticated, it is notified by a response mail that the authentication cannot be performed.

In the embodiment, the mailbox is divided according to the user or the requester of the polling and the like, and the authentication is required. However, this is based on the premise that there are a plurality of users, so that the personal use is required. The network facsimile apparatus may omit the sorting and authentication of mailboxes.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a connection between a polling request side and a requested side network facsimile apparatus in an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a network facsimile apparatus according to the embodiment;

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the exchange of electronic mail between the polling requesting side and the requested side network facsimile apparatus in the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a sample of a polling request mail in the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a sample polling response mail in which a polling document list is described in the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a sample polling request mail specifying a file in the embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a sample polling response mail to which a polling document is attached in the embodiment.

[Explanation of symbols]

 2, 3 Internet facsimile apparatus 10 Main control unit 12 Network control unit 14 Modem 16 Image memory 18 RAM 20 ROM 22 Display unit 24 Operation unit 26 Scanner 28 Recording unit 30 LAN interface 32 Main bus 34 Mailbox 36 Polling processing unit 38 Authentication unit 40,44 Polling request mail 42,46 Polling response mail

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A network facsimile apparatus which stores image data and transmits and receives the image data in an e-mail format via a network, when a predetermined character string is detected in the received e-mail, the predetermined image data is stored in the e-mail. A network facsimile apparatus wherein a reply is sent to a destination of a received e-mail. 2. The network facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a list of stored image data is returned when the image data to be returned is unspecified in the received electronic mail. 3. The network facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the sender is authenticated based on a password in the received e-mail or an address of the sender.