KR101005643B1 - E-mail management system and method for preventing spam mail - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention discloses an email management system for blocking spam mails.

Email management system for spam mail blocking of the present invention is issued a unique authentication stamp attached to the authentication stamp when sending the e-mail, whether the authentication stamp attached to the received e-mail when received and included in the attached authentication stamp A spam management server that sorts and processes spam mails among the received mails according to information; And an authentication stamp management server for issuing an authentication stamp of the corresponding recipient upon receipt of a request to purchase an authentication stamp of an email recipient from the spam management server and providing the purchase request to the spam management server, and managing the issue details. It is possible to effectively block spam mail by issuing unique stamps and using sender and receiver stamps when sending and receiving emails.

Description

E-mail management system and method for preventing spam mail}

1 is a view for explaining the principle of email transmission on the conventional Internet.

Figure 2 is a schematic diagram showing the configuration of the entire email system including the email management system of the present invention.

3 is a diagram illustrating information included in an authentication stamp according to the present invention.

4A and 4B are flowcharts illustrating a method of managing spam mail using an email management system according to the present invention.

The present invention relates to a mail management system that can effectively block spam mails and a method of managing the same. More specifically, the sender's authentication stamp and the recipient's authentication stamp are issued when a mail is issued. The present invention relates to a mail management system and a method of managing the same, by checking whether all of them are attached and selectively receiving the corresponding mail to prevent the required mail from being received.

The development of the network through the Internet is leading to the information age with the great change of the whole society. In particular, e-mail has been a convenience for many people as a quick and effective means of exchanging and communicating information.

Currently, there are two main types of e-mail services we use: POP mail and Web-based web mail. POP mail is a method of receiving mail received on a POP server to a user's PC by setting up a POP server using a mail management tool such as Outlook Express in the user's PC environment. Webmail is a method of checking received mail by accessing the ISP (Internet Service Provider) using a web browser without a dedicated mail management tool.

1 is a view for explaining the principle of email transmission on the conventional Internet.

When the e-mail sender 10 composes the e-mail in text form through the mail client and sends the e-mail, the e-mail is transmitted to the sender 10 side SMTP server 41. The SMTP server 41 reads the address of the "TO:" portion of the received e-mail and sends it to the POP server 32 which manages the address. In this case, the e-mail data is divided into hundreds of packets according to the TCP / IP protocol. Done.

Receiving an e-mail, when the POP server 32 of the receiver 20 side receives the e-mail packets, the e-mail packets are recombined in order, completed as one message, and then forwarded to the receiver 20.

Of course, if the email usage is not very high in the domain, the SMTP server 41, 42 and the POP server 31, 32 can be configured as the same mail server.

In the current Internet environment, one of the services frequently used by Internet users is an email service. In particular, email-based advertising is a very useful marketing tool in that each company is using it in terms of low cost and high advertising effectiveness.

However, advertising emails that are continuously scattered even when the recipients no longer want them are not worth any more advertisements from the recipient's point of view, and cause a decrease in work productivity and privacy violations such as the need to delete the emails individually.

There are various forms of such spam mails, such as "advertisement mail", "survey mail", "mail bomb", "good luck letter", "money making mail". The commonality of these spam mails is that other users randomly send a large amount of e-mails because their e-mail addresses are exposed rather than the user wants to receive e-mails. However, spam mail is relative and may be unnecessary for some users but may be necessary for other users. Therefore, filtering such emails at the mail server may violate a user's privacy.

So far, various solutions have been released and applied to cope with spam mails sent and received on the Internet. Currently proposed as a countermeasure against spam, "Opt in" to send an email with the recipient's consent to send an email, and "Opt to not send an email to a person who has unsubscribed." There are three main ways: "Opt out" and "Phrase" to make the subject line "advertise" in the subject line.

However, considering the number of users worldwide who use email, the first and second methods are fairly inefficient to set each email address as denied, and the third method is spam, which is brute-force attacks with anomalous subjects. There is a limit to effectively blocking mail in each client's mail management tool, so there is no clear effect. In addition, effective online blocking is not possible because the online postage system, which has recently emerged at certain online sites, is not a way to reduce a large amount of spam mail.

Accordingly, an object of the present invention for solving the above problems is to effectively block spam mail using the concept of authentication stamp.

The email management system for spam mail blocking of the present invention for achieving the above object, issuing a unique authentication stamp for each email address attached to the sender's authentication stamp when sending the email, for the email received when receiving the email A spam management server that sorts and processes spam mails among the received emails according to whether the sender authentication stamp and the receiver authentication stamp are attached and information included in the receiver authentication stamp; And an authentication stamp management server for issuing a corresponding authentication stamp on the receiving side when receiving the request for purchasing the receiving authentication stamp from the spam management server, and providing the purchase request to the spam management server and managing the issuance details.

An email management method for blocking spam mail of the present invention includes a first step of sending an email by attaching a sending authentication stamp and a receiving authentication stamp; A second step of checking whether the sender and the receiver authentication stamp are attached when the email is received; And a third step of selecting spam mails according to the verification result of the second step and the contents included in the receiving authentication stamp, wherein the authentication stamp has unique information for each email address.

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

Figure 2 is a schematic diagram showing the configuration of the entire email system including the email management system of the present invention.

The email management system of the present invention includes a spam management device (51, 52) and the authentication stamp management device (60).

The spam management servers 51 and 52 are provided for each IP domain like POP servers 33 and 34 and SMTP servers 43 and 44, and issue an authentication stamp of the sender when sending an email for each email address in the domain. To the e-mail sent by the user, and upon receiving the e-mail, it is determined whether the sender and the receiver's authentication stamps are attached to the received e-mail and the information included in the sender's authentication stamp to determine the processing of the received e-mail.

The spam management servers 51 and 52 store the sender's authentication stamps attached to the received e-mail for each e-mail address managed by the spam management server. Send the recipient's authentication stamp, which is stored with the stamp, to the e-mail. At this time, if the authentication stamp of the recipient is not stored, the spam management server (51, 52) may be provided by requesting the authentication stamp of the recipient to the authentication stamp management server (60).                     

If the sender's authentication stamp is not attached to the received e-mail, the spam management server 51 or 52 discards the mail as spam and immediately discards it. The e-mail management regulations determine whether an e-mail is spam.

In this case, the authentication stamp does not have unique information for each email user, but has unique information for each email address. Therefore, in the present invention, the sender's authentication stamp and the recipient's authentication stamp respectively refer to an email address used by the sender for email transmission and an authentication stamp corresponding to the email address from which the email was received.

The authentication stamp management server 60 issues and manages all authentication stamps corresponding to the email address. That is, when the authentication stamp management server 60 is requested to provide the authentication stamp from the sender-side spam management server (51, 52), it issues an authentication stamp of the corresponding recipient and transmits it to the sender-side spam management server (51, 52). Save and manage the issue history. This issuance of the certification stamp is used as a data for the service fee (ie, the purchase amount of the certification stamp) for the sender in the future.

3 is a diagram illustrating information included in the authentication stamp according to the present invention.

Certified stamps contain a 'version' and 'serial number', which represent the unique key of each stamp for each email address, the 'issuer' and 'issue date' that issued the stamp, and a validity period that specifies the validity period of the stamp. ', The' email address of the owner 'indicating who the certificate stamp is,' user email address' used to restrict access to the stamp by a specific user, and the recipient's reuse of the certificate stamp sent. Information indicating 'reuse', which specifies whether or not, and 'digital signature value', etc., for the security of the authentication stamp are stored in the corresponding fields.

4A and 4B are flowcharts illustrating a method of managing spam mail using an email management system according to the present invention.

In the present embodiment, a case of sending and receiving an e-mail using a POP mail is described, but the same principle applies to the case of using web mail.

When the e-mail sender 10 writes the header content and the body content of the e-mail using the mail client program (step 401) and clicks the send button, the e-mail content is transmitted to the SMTP server 43 in the sender's mail domain. (Step 302).

The SMTP server 43 sends the email to the spam management server 51 before sending the email to the recipient's email address (step 303).

The spam management server 51 receiving the email from the SMTP server 43 attaches the authentication stamp of the sender 10 to the received email (step 304). At this time, the contents of the authentication stamp issued by the spam management server 51 are somewhat different from those of the authentication stamp issued by the authentication stamp management server 60. That is, since the stamps are issued in different places, information such as 'version', 'serial number', 'issuer', etc. may be different from each other in each field of FIG. 3, and the stamps issued by the spam management server 51 may be different. The 'validity period' and 'reuse' of the sender 10 can be different from each other because the sender 10 can be changed arbitrarily by the holder of the stamp. If you want to exchange emails between companies, you can set an unlimited number of validity and reuse fields.                     

The spam management server 51 to which the sender 10 attaches the authentication stamp checks whether the authentication stamp of the receiver 20 is stored (step 305), and if so, the authentication stamp of the recipient 20 in the email. Is attached (step 306). The authentication stamp of the recipient 20 is automatically stored by the spam management server 51 when the mail has been received from the recipient 20 before.

However, if the recipient's certificate stamp is not stored in the spam management server 51, the sender 10 notifies the fact through the POP server 33 and asks whether to purchase the certificate stamp of the recipient 20. Is sent to confirm whether or not to purchase the stamp (step 307). The sender 10 may transmit the purchase or not to the spam management server 51 by replying to the e-mail asking whether to purchase the authentication stamp or not. For example, when the sender 10 selects any one of the icons ('purchasing' and 'non-purchasing') in an e-mail asking whether to purchase or not, the contents are automatically added to the spam management server 51. Can be returned.

If the sender 10 decides to purchase the authentication stamp (step 308), the spam management server 51 requests the authentication stamp management server 60 to purchase the authentication stamp of the recipient 20 to authenticate the recipient 20. A stamp is provided (step 309). To this end, the authentication postage management server 60 issues an authentication postage of the corresponding recipient 20 when the request to purchase an authentication postage from the spam management server 51 is transmitted to the spam management server 51, and the issue history thereof. It can be stored and used as billing data for future purchases of certified stamps.

The spam management server 51 receiving the authentication stamp of the recipient 20 from the authentication stamp management server 60 attaches the provided authentication stamp to the mail to be transmitted as in step 306.

If the sender 10 decides not to purchase the authentication stamp in step 308, the spam management server 51 does not attach the authentication stamp of the recipient to the mail to be sent (step 310).

If the spam management server 51 re-sends the e-mail to the SMTP server 43 after the step 306 or 310 ends with the step of attaching or not attaching the authentication stamp of the recipient 10, the SMTP server 43 The e-mail is transmitted by sending it to the POP server 44 of the recipient 20 (step 311).

When the email is received at the POP server 44 (step 312), the POP server 44 transmits the received email to the receiving spam management server 52 (step 313).

The spam management server 313 first checks whether the sender 10's authentication stamp is attached to the email received from the POP server 44 (step 314), and if not, the spam management server checks the received email. It is determined to be retransmitted to the sender 10 or discarded (step 319), and if attached, it is checked whether the authentication stamp of the receiver 20 is attached (step 315).

However, because the standard of spam mail is different for each email user, it may be regarded as spam mail to others, but it can be useful email information to oneself. If you do not prescribe it, you may not be able to get useful information. For example, a person who is familiar with the recipient who has never sent an email but who wants to provide useful information to the recipient but who does not want to send the email while purchasing the stamp. In this case, the recipient authentication stamp is not attached, but it is preferable to receive such an e-mail without discarding it. Alternatively, even if it is not useful information, it is desirable to receive such an e-mail as it is not spam even if the e-mail is sent to the recipient for a long time.

Accordingly, the spam management server 52 checks the sender's e-mail address to determine whether the received e-mail is the first e-mail received from the sender (step 316), and whether the sender e-mail address is a virtual address (advertised e-mail). (Step 317), and whether or not the sender corresponds to the rejector designated by the receiver (step 318). As a result of the check, if the sender's e-mail address is valid and is not subject to rejection, the spam management server 520 stores the sender's authentication stamp (step 325), and the e-mail is received through the POP server 34. (Step 326).

If the authentication stamp of the recipient 20 is normally attached in step 315, the spam management server 52 checks the 'validity period' field in the authentication stamp of the recipient 20 to determine whether the validity period of the authentication stamp has been exceeded. Check (step 320).

If the expiration date is exceeded, the spam management server 52 checks the 'issuance destination' field in the authentication stamp of the recipient 20 to confirm where the authentication stamp is issued (step 321). That is, the authentication stamp is basically issued by the spam management servers 51 and 52, but is confirmed by the authentication stamp management server 60 as necessary.                     

If the authentication stamp of the recipient 20 is issued by the authentication stamp management server 60, the spam management server 52 defines the email as spam mail and resends or discards it to the sender (step 319). Alternatively, the spam management server 52 may inform the receiver 20 of the fact through the POP server 34 by e-mail and determine whether to receive it according to the selection of the receiver 20. The decision on whether or not to receive the message may be delivered by the recipient 20 replying the email to the spam management server 52 through the SMTP server 44.

However, if the authentication stamp of the recipient 20 is issued by itself 52, the spam management server 52 is valid for the authentication stamp owned by the sender 10, unless a separate exception is defined. The data capable of updating the period is transmitted to the spam management server 51 of the sending side (step 323).

The spam management server 52 stores the authentication stamp of the sender 10 in the received e-mail (step 325), and transmits the e-mail to the recipient 20 through the POP server 34 (step 326).

In step 320, if the authentication stamp of the recipient 20 has not exceeded the expiration date, the spam management server 52 checks the 'reuse' field of the authentication stamp and if it is reusable, proceeds to step 325 and proceeds to the next step. If it is impossible to reuse, the process of step 319 is performed (step 324).

As described above, the email management system of the present invention issues a unique authentication stamp for each email address to attach and send both the sender and the receiver's authentication stamps when the mail is sent. All of them are attached and the information contained in the stamp is used to effectively block spam.

Claims (10)

Issue a unique sender authentication stamp for each e-mail address, attach the sender authentication stamp with the sender authentication stamp, and optionally attach the receiving endorsement stamp when sending e-mail, and send and receive the sender authentication stamp for the received e-mail. A spam management server that sorts and processes spam mails among the received emails according to whether the side authentication stamp is attached; And When receiving the request for purchase of the receiving authentication stamp from the spam management server, the receiving authentication stamp is issued to the spam management server requesting the purchase request and the spam mail blocking email is provided with an authentication stamp management server for managing the issued details. Management system. The method of claim 1, wherein the spam management server E-mail management system for preventing spam mail, characterized in that provided for each IP domain, issuing only the authentication stamp of the email address belonging to the domain. The method of claim 1 or 2, wherein the spam management server E-mail management for blocking spam mail, characterized in that for storing the sender authentication stamp attached to the received e-mail when receiving the e-mail, and attaching the stored sender authentication stamp as the receiving end authentication stamp when sending the e-mail to the sender. system. The method of claim 3, wherein the spam management server The sending side authentication stamp is issued and attached at every mail transmission, and the receiving side authentication stamp is attached when the receiving side authentication stamp is stored. The method of claim 4, wherein the spam management server And if the receiving side authentication stamp is not stored, requesting the purchase of the receiving side authentication stamp to the authentication stamp management server according to a sender's selection and receiving the received mail. The method of claim 5, wherein the spam management server And an e-mail management system for blocking e-mail, wherein the e-mail is defined as spam mail when the sender side authentication stamp is not attached when e-mail is received. A first step of attaching a sending authentication stamp, but optionally attaching a receiving authentication stamp to send an email; A second step of checking whether the sender and the receiver authentication stamp are attached when the email is received; And And a third step of screening spam mails according to the verification result of the second step and the contents included in the receiving endorsement stamp. The authentication stamp has a unique information for each email address, the email management method for blocking spam. The method of claim 7, wherein the certification stamp is And an issuer that issued the authentication stamp, an expiration date of the authentication stamp, and whether or not to reuse the stamp. 9. The method of claim 8, wherein in the first step, the receiving authentication stamp is If the receiving authentication stamp is stored in advance, the email management method for blocking spam, characterized in that attached to the transmission. 10. The method of claim 9, wherein the third step is If the sender authentication stamp is not attached or if both the sender and the receiver authentication stamp are attached, but the validity period of the receiver authentication stamp has expired or cannot be reused, defining the received e-mail as spam mail. E-mail management method for preventing spam mail.

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