JPS60154778A - Secret system in facsimile communications - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make a large-capacity storage device at the receiving side unnecessary by performing secret processing by a data compression part, and its reproduction by original reader and compression data restoration part respectively. CONSTITUTION:A transmitter sets an original 2a to an original reading part on a facsimile and designates that the contents to be transmitted should be held in secret. A device 1a compresses this information in terms of data by compressing to transmit it to a circuit by a transmission control part. During this time, the device sends out the secret-designated information, too. A receiving side B, when receiving the information if the information is designated in terms of secret, stores it in a receiving recording form 2b without restoring the compression data. A receiver sets the form 2b in the original reading part of the device 2a when reproducing the form 2b, and inputs secret codes into the device 2a. The device restores the information read from the form 2b through the compression data restoration part to store it when the code is significant.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Technical Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for keeping transmitted information confidential in facsimile communication, and maintains the confidentiality of transmitted information by adding slight improvements to conventional facsimile communication equipment. Regarding methods that can be used.

(b) Background of the technology Facsimile communication is a method of electronically sending information to a recipient far away.The document to be sent is optically scanned, the black and white shading is converted into electrical signals, and the information is transmitted via a line. Transmit. On the receiving side, the same information as the original can be obtained by recording in accordance with the received electrical signals. However, although facsimile communication devices are usually shared by a large number of people, a variety of miscellaneous contents are transmitted, such as information that requires secrecy, confidential documents, and information that may be seen by anyone.

(C) Prior Art and Problems Against this background, systems aimed at maintaining confidentiality have been proposed in the facsimile field as well.

The methods include a shuffling method and a scrambling method. The former is a method in which the order is randomly switched on a scanning line basis, and the latter is a method in which points are further switched on the same scanning line or between a plurality of scanning lines. All of these convert signals into what appears to be jamming by changing the arrangement of information points and lines. This conversion involves replacing the array of scanning lines and points by generating random numbers, and this conversion is performed in the shift register of the transmitter. The receiver can return the random scanning lines and points to their original state by controlling the shift register in the opposite direction to the transmission, using this random number generation as a key for decoding.

Furthermore, a concealed image transmission method has been proposed, which is a step further than the method of transmitting noise information. In this method, another document (not encrypted) is superimposed on the shuffled or scrambled information as described above and is transmitted.

All of these require special processing such as shuffling, scrambling, and superimposition processing on the transmitting side to make the image confidential, and special processing on the receiving side to reproduce it. Further, it has disadvantages such as requiring a large-capacity storage device on the receiving side to store the received information until the recipient later reproduces the information.

(dl) Purpose of the Invention The present invention provides a security system that does not require special processing for security on either the transmitting side or the receiving side, and does not require a large-capacity storage device on the receiving side.

(e) Structure of the Invention The present invention utilizes the characteristics that compressed information has low redundancy when transmitting information, making it difficult to read the contents when viewed, and the ability to record a large amount of information on paper. This is what I did. In other words, the present invention includes a data receiving means for receiving compressed information, a compressed data restoring means for restoring the received information, a recording means for recording the restored information on paper, and a recording means for optically recording the original. In a facsimile communication device including an image reading means for scanning and reading information, and a transmission control means for transmitting the read information as transmission information via a line, a code determination means for determining whether an input pin code is appropriate or not. and a security designation determining means for determining whether or not the received information is classified as confidential; when the received information is designated as confidential by the security designation determining means, the compressed data is recorded on paper without being restored; When the input code is determined to be valid by the code determining means, the reading information of the information recorded without being restored is restored via the compressed data restoring means and recorded on paper. .

(fl Embodiment of the Invention An embodiment of the security system according to the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the principle of the present invention, where A is the transmitting side and B is the receiving side. The facsimile communication device 1a on the sending side has only a sending function or both sending and receiving functions, while the facsimile communication device 1b on the receiving side has sending and receiving functions. On the sending side, the sender sends the original document 2a to the original reading section of the apparatus, and also specifies that the contents of the transmission should be kept confidential. This designation can be considered to be caused by a switch or the like. In the device 1a, the read information is compressed by well-known compression processing and sent to the line by the transmission control unit. At this time, classified information is also sent. On the other hand, when the receiving side B receives the received information, if it is designated as confidential, it records the compressed data on the reception recording paper 2b without decompressing it. Therefore, the contents of the information compressed as described above are difficult to read at first glance, and even if it comes into contact with a third party, the contents cannot be read and the confidentiality is maintained. When the recipient wants to reproduce the reception recording paper 2b, he or she inserts the reception recording paper 2b into the document reading section of the device 2a and inputs the password into the device. When this password code is significant, the information read from the reception recording paper 2b is restored via the compressed data restoration section and recorded in the same way as normal reception.

Therefore, the confidential processing uses the image reading section and the data compression section existing in the conventional device, and the reproduction thereof uses the data decompression section also existing in the conventional device, so that no special processing means is required.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing details of the facsimile communication device 1b on the receiving side in FIG.
14 is a data compression unit, 14 is a transmission control unit, 15 is a bit information restoration unit, 16 is a data reception unit, 17 is a confidentiality designation determination unit, 18 is a compressed data restoration unit, 19 is a bit information recording conversion unit, and 20 is a recording unit. Department.

The image reading section 10 receives a transmission document 31 or a confidential reception recording sheet 32, optically scans the information recorded thereon, reads the information, and converts it into an electrical signal. The data compression section 13 is connected to the document reading section 10 via a switch 21, compresses the transmission information obtained by reading the three transmission documents, and transmits the compressed information via the line by the transmission control section 14. On the other hand, received information transmitted via the line is input to the data receiving section 16. This received information is stored in the compressed data restoring section 18.
After being restored, the data is recorded on the reception recording paper 34 by the recording unit 20.

The security designation determination unit 17 determines whether or not security designation information exists in the received information. In other words, it is determined whether the received information is designated as confidential. The determining unit 17 controls the connections of the switches 22, 23, and 24 based on the result of the determination.

That is, the discriminator 17 connects the switch 22 to the terminal d side and the switch 24 to the terminal d side when the received information is designated as confidential, and connects the switch 22 to the terminal d side when the received information is not designated as confidential.
2 is connected to the terminal C side, the switch 23 is connected to the terminal f side, and the switch 24 is connected to the terminal g side.

The code determination section 12 compares the password code input from the password input section 11 with a password code registered in advance in the device, and determines whether the input password code is valid. This determination unit 12 controls switches 21, 23, and 24. If the input code is correct, connect the switch 21 to the terminal side, the switch 23 to the terminal e side, and the switch 24 to the terminal g side. On the other hand, if the password code is incorrect, the image reading section 10 is commanded to stop reading, and the operator is alerted to this fact.

The bit information recording converter 19 converts the compressed received information input via the switch 22 as follows. The received information is expressed as a set of logical "1' or 0", and the converter I9 converts each bit into m
Convert to n pixels. That is, when "1" is recorded in the recording unit 20, all m x n dots become black,
"0" is recorded on the confidential reception recording sheet 33 with all mxn dots being white.

The bit/node information restoring section 15 converts the read information of the confidential reception record sheet 32 (which is equal to the output signal of the bit information recording converting section 19) input via the switch 21 in the opposite way to that of the converting section 19. . In other words, mxn of read information
The density of the dots is detected as one block, and when it is black, it is set as °]゛, and when it is white, it is set as 'O°. In this way, the output signal of the bit information restoration section 15 is equal to the received information before being converted by the bit information recording conversion section 19.

Next, each operation of transmission, normal reception, confidential reception, and reproduction of confidential content will be briefly explained.

When transmitting the contents recorded in the first transmission document 31 to the other party, it is exactly the same as the conventional transmission operation, and the transmission document 31 is set in the document reading section 0, and the transmission start button (not shown) is pressed. ) to instruct the start of transmission. As a result, the original 31 is transferred, and the optical reading section scans the original and converts it into an electrical signal. This transmission information is compressed by the data compression section 13 and transmitted via the transmission control section 14.

When the received information received by the fraud data receiving unit 16 is not classified, the switch 22 is connected to the terminal C, the switch 23 is connected to the terminal f, and the switch 24 is connected to the terminal g, so that the received information is not classified. is restored by the compressed data restoration section 18 and recorded on the reception recording paper 34 by the recording section 20.

When the received information received by the data receiving unit 16 is designated as confidential, the switch 22 is connected to the terminal d, and the switch 22 is connected to the terminal d.
4 are respectively connected to the terminals 1 and 3, so that the received information is converted into a bit image by the bit information recording conversion section 19 and recorded on the confidential reception recording paper 33 by the recording section 20.

The confidential reception record sheet 32 recorded in this way is sent to the reading section 10. Prior to this, the operator inputs a password from the input section 11. If this code is correct, the switch 21 is on the terminal e side, and the switch 23 is on the terminal e side.
Since the switch 24 is connected to the terminal g side, the information read from the confidential reception record sheet 32 is transferred to the bit information restoration unit 1.
5, the information is restored to "1" 0° information, which is restored by the compressed data restoration section 18 and recorded on the reception recording paper 34.

Note that in the above embodiment, the confidential designation information was specified as part of the attribute designation information separate from the manuscript information, but it is also possible to include this confidential designation information as part of the manuscript information and use this confidential designation information as the password code. You may. Therefore, at this time, the password code will be present in the information read from the confidential reception record sheet, so it is not necessary to register the code in the device in advance.

(Effects of the Invention As described above, in the present invention, the confidential processing is performed in the data compression section, and the reproduction is performed in the document reading section and the compressed data decompression section, so there is no need to add a special processing section for confidential processing, and Since the received information can be recorded on paper in the same way as normal reception, a large-capacity storage device is not required on the receiving side.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Figure 1 is a block diagram showing the principle of the present invention, and Figure 2 is a block diagram showing the principle of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing details of a facsimile communication device on the receiving side in the figure. In the figure, 10 is an image reading section, 11 is a PIN code input section, 1
2 is a code discrimination unit, 13 is a data compression unit, 14 is a transmission control unit, 15 is a bit information recovery unit, 16 is a data reception unit, 17 is a confidentiality designation discrimination unit, 18 is a compressed data recovery unit, and 19 is a The focus information recording conversion section 20 is a recording section. 1111th

Claims (1)

[Claims] A data receiving means for receiving compressed information, a compressed data restoring means for restoring the received information, a recording means for recording the restored information on paper, and an image for optically scanning a document to read information. A facsimile communication device including a reading means and a transmission control means for transmitting the read information as transmission information via a line, a code determination means for determining whether or not an input password code is appropriate, and a code determination means for specifying confidentiality of the received information. and a security designation determination means for determining whether or not the code is classified, and when the data is classified as confidential by the security designation determination means, the compressed data is recorded on paper without being restored, and the password input by the code determination means is recorded on paper without being restored. A confidential system for facsimile communication, characterized in that when it is determined that the code is valid, the read information recorded without being restored is restored via the compressed data restoration means and recorded on paper.