JPH11163923A - Electronic mail transfer method, electronic mail transmission device and electronic mail reception device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electronic mail transfer method which voluntarily judges whether or not a mail receiver receives a text of a mail and by which the receiver can receive the text only when the receiver has an intention to receive it. SOLUTION: In a transmission node 101, a header transmission part 212 transmits a header part of a transmission mail stored in a transmission mail storage part 211 to a reception node 103 or a repeater node 102 specified by the header part. A text transmission control part 214 directly establishes a link with the reception node when there is a text transfer request from the reception node 103, selects a text part of the requested mail from the transmission mail storage part 211 and transmits the transmission command to the text transmission part 214.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

The present invention relates to an electronic mail transfer method, an electronic mail transmitting device, and an electronic mail receiving device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As a method of transferring e-mail, (1) a method of transferring a mail body portion and a header portion together without separating them, and (2) a method of dividing mail into a body portion and a header portion. There is a way to transfer.

Here, the method (1) of transferring a mail body part and a header part together without separating the mail is performed by transferring a mail created at a transmitting terminal to a receiving terminal via a relayer. This is the basic way to send.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an apparatus for transferring an electronic mail according to the method (1). In the figure, the transmitting node 101 transmits the created mail from the mail transmitting unit 111 to the mail receiving unit 131 of the receiving node 103.

In most cases, the transmitting node 101 and the receiving node 103 are not adjacent to each other, so that relaying by the relay node 102 is required. There may be a plurality of relay nodes 102. In the relay node 102, the mail receiving unit 121 receives the mail from the sending node 101,
The mail itself is temporarily stored in the transfer buffer 124. Also, the header information of the mail is notified to the header information analysis unit 122. The header information analysis unit 122 obtains a transfer destination from the header information, and instructs the mail transmission unit 128 on the transfer destination. The mail transmitting unit 128 extracts the mail from the transfer buffer 124 and transfers the mail to the receiving node 103. The above is the outline of the above method (1).

[0006] Next, the method of (2) for transferring a mail by dividing it into a main body part and a header part is disclosed in
This is a method described in Japanese Patent Publication No. This method (2)
Then, the sender terminal creates a header part together with the main body part of the mail, and first transmits the header part to the transmission destination. Then, after receiving the header portion, the receiving side terminal checks this against the transmission / reception schedule of the receiving side terminal, and returns the receivable time to the transmitting side terminal. The transmitting terminal checks the receivable time returned from the receiving terminal, and transmits the mail body to the receiving terminal when the receivable time comes.

[0007] According to the method (2), the occurrence of contention between transmitting stations on one line can be reduced, and the line can be used efficiently. Also, when the mail body data amount is included in the header part, the receiving station can calculate the required reception time based on the data. For this reason, it is possible to finely allocate time when making a reservation for reception,
Further, the efficiency of the line can be improved.

[0008]

By the way, the above-mentioned conventional e-mail transfer methods all have the following problems.

(1) There is a possibility that the mail body part may be lost, plagiarized, or broken. This is because, until the text of the mail is transferred to the receiving terminal, the transfer is repeated one after another via a plurality of relay nodes, so that there may be a relay node waiting for malicious in the middle.

(2) When the mail body part is relatively large data or when it is transmitted to a plurality of recipients, a heavy load is applied to the relay node. because,
Since the relay node stores the mail in a temporary buffer,
This is because it is not easy to process a large amount of mail with a limited buffer. In addition, when relaying is performed by a plurality of nodes, the larger the amount of data, the more the transmission processing is continued, and the more the network traffic around the relay node increases.

(3) The receiving side does not understand the contents of the mail until it receives the mail, and the receiving node receives the mail unconditionally regardless of the receiving intention of the receiver. It also receives emails that you do not want to receive, such as unsolicited emails such as direct mails.

[0012] The present invention has been made in view of the circumstances described above, and the mail recipient voluntarily determines whether to receive or not to receive the text of the mail, and only when the mail recipient intends to receive the text, An object of the present invention is to provide an e-mail transfer method, an e-mail transmission device, and an e-mail reception device that can receive a text.

[0013]

According to the present invention, a header part and a body part of a mail are transferred separately. The transfer of the text is not unconditionally performed, and the necessity of the text transfer is determined on the receiving side. When transferring the body part, the receiving node makes a direct link to the sending node and receives the body. According to the invention,
Since not all text is received, the traffic is reduced accordingly. In addition, since the timing of receiving the text is highly random, the traffic is dispersed. In addition, security can be improved by directly transferring the body part at the transmitting / receiving node.

[0014]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is an image diagram showing an electronic mail transfer method according to an embodiment of the present invention. On the Internet 401, many nodes 402
Exist and are connected by various routes.

When the transmitting node 101 transmits a mail, there are two routes, a header transfer route 403 for transferring a header and a text transfer route 404 for transferring a text. In the header transfer route 403, a plurality of header relay nodes 102 generally exist on the way. In the text transfer route 404, the transmitting node 101 and the receiving node 1
03 is directly connected.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the electronic mail transfer device according to this embodiment. In the present embodiment, the transmission node 101 is a terminal (e-mail transmission device) on the mail transmission side, and includes a transmission mail storage unit 211, a header transmission unit 212, a text transmission unit 213, and a text transmission control unit 214. Have.

Here, the outgoing mail storage unit 211 stores outgoing mail. The outgoing mail stored in the outgoing mail storage unit 211 includes a header portion and a body portion.
12, the text portion can be read from the text transmission unit 213. Then, the header transmission unit 212
It has a function of transmitting the header part of the mail to the receiving node 103 or the relay node 102. On the other hand, the text transmitting unit 213 has a function of transmitting the text of the mail directly to the receiving node 103. The body transmission control unit 214
When there is a text transfer request from the receiving node 103, a function of directly linking to the receiving node, selecting the requested mail text from the transmission mail storage unit 211, and instructing the text transmitting unit 218 to transmit the selected text is provided. Have.

The relay node 102 is a device that transfers only the header part of the mail. This relay node 102
There are multiple on the Internet. Therefore, when transferring the mail header, the transfer can be repeated through a plurality of relay nodes. In this relay node 102,
The mail receiving unit 121 has a function of receiving a header of a mail from the transmission node 101 or another relay node 102 and a function of passing the received header to the header information analysis unit 122. The header information analysis unit 122 selects the receiving node or the most optimal relay node from the destination information included in the header information, and instructs the mail transmission unit 123 to transmit the header. have.

The mail receiving unit 1 of the relay node 102
The conventional technology can be used as it is for 21 and the mail transmission unit 123. However, in the present invention, only the header part of the mail is transferred by the relay node.

The receiving node 103 is a terminal (e-mail receiving device) on the mail receiving side, and includes a header receiving unit 231.
, A text reception unit 232, a text reception control unit 233, and a received mail storage unit 234.

Here, header receiving section 231 receives the header of the mail from transmitting node 101 or relay node 102, and writes the header information to received mail storage section 284. The text receiving unit 232 has a function of receiving the text of the mail directly from the transmission node 101 according to the instruction of the text reception control unit 233. The text reception control unit 233 receives the instruction from the recipient, sends a text transfer request to the transmission node 101 using the header information in the received mail storage unit 234, and establishes a direct link. The received mail storage unit 234 stores the received header and text.

FIG. 3 shows the structure of a mail transferred in the present embodiment. The above-described transmission mail storage unit 211 of the transmission node 101 stores the entire mail including the header 301 and the body 302. However, the relay node 102 handles the header unit 30
There is only one. In the received mail storage unit 234 of the receiving node 103, only the header 301 is first written, and then, if necessary, the body 302 is written.

FIG. 4 is an operation sequence diagram showing an electronic mail transfer procedure according to this embodiment. Hereinafter, the operation of the present embodiment will be described with reference to FIG.

First, the mail created by the sender is stored in the sent mail storage unit 211 of the sending node 101. This mail is composed of a header 301 and a body 302.

Then, of the header section 301 and the body section 302, a transmission instruction for the header section 301 is given to the header transmitting section 212. As a result, the header transmission unit 211 performs a header transmission procedure 501 to the mail reception unit 121 of the relay node 102.

In the relay node 102, the header information analysis unit 122 transmits the header 30
1 is analyzed, and information on the recipient address 311 (see FIG. 3)
Route 403 to the receiving node (see FIG. 1)
Is selected, and the next relay node 1 is
Then, the header transfer procedure 502 is performed to the header 02.

If there is no next relay node, a header transfer procedure 502 is performed on the receiving node 103.
In the receiving node 103, the header receiving section 231 receives the header section 301 and stores the header section 3 in the received mail storage section 234.
Only 01 is stored. Thus, the transfer operation of the header unit 301 ends.

On the other hand, the user on the receiving side can refer to the reception header section 301 at an arbitrary time and receive mail storage section 284.
From the header section 301. Referring to the header section 301, the receiving user determines from the sender address and the information of the text subject 315 and the text file size 314 (see FIG. 1) whether or not the text needs to be received. If it is determined that the text is not necessary, the text transfer need not be performed, and the e-mail transfer ends with this.

If the text is required, the receiving user instructs the text reception control unit 233 to receive the text. In that case, it is necessary to specify the corresponding header. The text reception control unit 233 reads the transmission node address 312 and the text file name 318 from the header information 301 stored in the received mail storage unit 234 (see FIG. 1). Then, in order to establish a link with the transmitting node 101 by the direct transfer route 404, a text transfer request procedure 503 is performed on the transmitting node 101 indicated by the transmitting node address 312.
To start. At this time, the text file name 313 is required as a parameter of the request. Further, the body reception control unit 23
3 instructs the text receiving unit 232 to establish a link.

On the other hand, the text transmission control unit 214 of the transmission node 101 that has received the text transfer request procedure 503 confirms that the text information 302 of the corresponding text file name exists from the transmission mail storage unit 211, and 213 is instructed to establish a link and transfer the relevant text file. When a link is established between the text receiving unit 232 and the text transmitting unit 213 by the link establishing procedure 504, the text transmitting unit 213 sends the text part 302 specified by the text file name 313 to the text receiving unit 232. Transfer procedure 5
05. The text receiving section 232 stores the received text section 302 in association with the header part existing in the received mail storage section 234.

Although the embodiment of the present invention has been described above, the present embodiment can be variously modified. For example, as shown in FIG. 5, it is possible to add a transmission time 316, a reception time limit 317, a random number for recipient authentication 318, text encryption information 319, and the like to the components of the header unit 301. When the transmission time 316 and the reception time limit 317 are added in this way, the transmitting user can also delete the mail whose reception time limit 317 has passed from the transmission mail storage unit 211. In addition, the receiving user can determine that the information is old information from the content of the transmission time 316 and do not receive the text. Further, at the time of transferring the text, the text can be encrypted using the text encryption information 319 in order to prevent eavesdropping on the communication. It is also possible to use the random number for recipient authentication 318 to check whether the recipient is valid before starting the transfer of the text.

FIG. 6 is an operation sequence diagram showing an operation when an electronic mail is transferred using the random number 318 for recipient authentication. Hereinafter, the electronic mail transfer will be described with reference to FIG.

The procedure from the receiving node 103 to the transmitting node 101 for requesting a text transfer 503 is the same as the operation of the above-described embodiment, and the description is omitted.

Sending node 1 receiving text transfer request 503
01 is an authentication request procedure 506 to the receiving node 103.
I do. At the time of this authentication request, the receiver authentication random number 318 is used as a parameter.

The receiving node 103 uses the random number for recipient authentication 318, and returns an authentication response procedure 507 with a calculation result using the authentication random number as a parameter.

When the sending node 101 confirms the validity of the authentication response, the next link establishment procedure 504 is executed, and then the body transfer procedure 505 is executed. Since the authentication method shown here is not specified in the present invention, any method may be used. Instead of the authentication request procedure 506 and the authentication response procedure 507, a password request procedure and a password response procedure are used. It is also possible to change to The present invention does not specify a specific procedure for the link establishment procedure 504, but it is easily conceivable to use a file transfer protocol (FTP) or the like.

[0037]

According to the present invention, the following effects can be obtained. (1) The possibility that the mail body is lost, plagiarized, or falsified is reduced. This is because, even through a plurality of relay nodes, damage occurs only in the header portion. (2) The temporary buffer of the relay node becomes unnecessary. This is because only the header part needs to be relayed. (3) The recipient does not need to receive the mail that he does not want to receive. That is, since the receiver can determine the suspicious sender or the suspicious subject mail by receiving the header portion, the receiver need not make a request to transfer the text. (4) The transmitting side knows whether the receiving side has reliably received the mail. This is because the link is directly established and the text is transferred. (5) Outgoing mail can be canceled on the sending side. This is because, even if the header is transmitted, the relevant text need not be transferred before the text is transferred. (6) The amount of communication data on the network during mail transmission is reduced. That is, for example, when data is transmitted to three places at the same time as shown in FIG. 7, the conventional method shown in FIG. When only the header indicated by ()) is transmitted, the amount of transmission data on the network is small. (7) The load of communication on the network can be distributed.
This is because the timings at which the recipients request the transfer of the text are generally different from each other, and thus it is unlikely that a plurality of mails will be transferred simultaneously on the network as shown in FIG.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an electronic mail transfer method according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of an electronic mail transfer device according to the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a configuration of a mail transferred in the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is an operation sequence diagram showing an operation of the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a configuration of a header portion of a mail according to a modification of the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is an operation sequence diagram showing an operation of the modification.

FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining the effect of the embodiment in comparison with the related art.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a conventional electronic mail transfer device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 101 transmission node 211 transmission mail storage unit 212 header transmission unit 214 text transmission control unit 213 text transmission unit 102 relay node 103 reception node 234 reception mail storage unit 231 header reception unit 233 text reception control unit 232 text reception unit

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A transmitting node transmits only a header part of a mail composed of a header part and a body part to a receiving node, and thereafter transfers the body part only when there is a text transfer request from the receiving node. E-mail transfer method characterized by the above-mentioned. 2. An outgoing mail storage unit for storing an outgoing mail including a header part and a body part, and a receiving node or a relay node in which a header part of the outgoing mail stored in the outgoing mail storage unit is designated by the header part. A header transmitting unit for transmitting to the receiving node, when a text transfer request is received from the receiving node, a direct link is established between the receiving node and the receiving node, and a text portion of the requested mail is selected from the transmitted mail storage unit. A text transmission control unit that outputs the transmission command; and a text transmission unit that transmits the text portion stored in the outgoing mail storage unit to the receiving node according to a transmission command from the text transmission control unit. An e-mail transmitting device characterized by the above. 3. A received mail storage unit for storing received mail, a header reception unit for receiving a mail header unit from a sending node or a relay node, and storing the received mail header unit in the received mail storage unit. A text transfer request to the corresponding transmitting node in accordance with the header information stored in the received mail storage unit, and establishes a direct link with the transmitting node. An e-mail receiving apparatus comprising: a main body receiving section that receives a main body part of a mail transmitted from the transmission node in response to the main body transfer request and stores the main body part in the received mail storage part.