JP5513437B2 - E-mail erroneous transmission prevention system and method, user terminal device and user profile recording device - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to an erroneous e-mail transmission prevention system and method that can prevent erroneous transmission of an e-mail, and a user terminal device and a user profile recording device that constitute the system.

  In order to prevent erroneous transmission of electronic mail, it is necessary to confirm the transmission destination of the electronic mail again before transmission. FIG. 13 shows a dialog box (Dialog box) for confirming the destination of the e-mail disclosed in Non-Patent Document 1. This dialog box alerts the sender by displaying information such as presence / absence of attached file 130, destination and some attribute information (internal / external etc.) 131, mail security 132, etc. immediately before sending the mail. It is.

  In addition to this, the method of checking the e-mail destination against the past transmission history, the method of checking the content of the e-mail, the method of checking the e-mail destination and the content of the e-mail by a third party, from the address list For example, a method of selecting an e-mail address and determining a transmission destination can be given.

NTT Software http://www.ntts.co.jp/products/ccraftmail http://mozilla.jp/thunderbird/3.0.1/releasenotes/ http://ascii.jp/elem/000/000/496/496144/index-4.html

  In the conventional method for preventing erroneous mail transmission, the sender carefully checks the e-mail address and the like, thereby preventing erroneous mail transmission to an unknown party. However, when there are a large number of communication partners who normally exchange emails, there are a considerable number of similar email addresses and similar user attributes. It becomes difficult to prevent.

  FIG. 1 shows an example of a mail address that is likely to be erroneously transmitted. Same name and surname in the same organization (Fig. 1 (a)), the same surname, the same name of another company (Fig. 1 (b)), etc. E-mail with considerable care to prevent the occurrence of erroneous transmission I need to check my address. In particular, a person with the same name and the same name in the same organization as shown in FIG. 1A cannot be identified simply by looking at the e-mail address. In that case, the organization name is of course useless. In some cases, one person has a plurality of mail addresses (FIG. 1C), and it is difficult to identify the person himself / herself simply by looking at the mail address.

  In addition, for example, even if it is a familiar relationship (a reliable partner), it is desirable to prevent erroneous email transmission. For example, personnel information should not be mistransmitted even within the same organization. There is a need for a mechanism that can more reliably prevent erroneous transmission of e-mail even in such a situation.

  The present invention has been made in view of such problems, and an electronic device having a function of preventing erroneous transmission by displaying a profile of a mail recipient (personal information such as more detailed attribute information) at the time of mail transmission. An object of the present invention is to provide an erroneous mail transmission prevention system and method, a user terminal device, and a user profile recording device.

  The erroneous email prevention system of the present invention comprises a plurality of user terminal devices and a user profile recording device. The user terminal device includes a profile requesting unit, a profile receiving unit, and a mail transmission determining unit. The profile requesting unit transmits an e-mail address to the user profile recording device and requests user profile information including attribute information of a mail receiving user corresponding to the e-mail address. The profile receiving unit receives user profile information and presents it to the sender. The mail transmission determining unit determines whether or not to transmit an e-mail to the e-mail address based on an input signal from the sender after presenting the user profile information. The user profile recording apparatus includes a profile storage unit, a profile search unit, and a profile transmission unit. The profile storage unit records user profile information of mail receiving users corresponding to a plurality of mail addresses. The profile search unit receives the e-mail address transmitted from the user terminal device as an input, searches the profile storage unit for user profile information corresponding to the e-mail address, and outputs it. The profile transmission unit transmits the user profile information searched by the profile search unit to the user terminal device.

  In addition, the user terminal device of the present invention includes a profile requesting unit, a profile receiving unit, and a mail transmission determining unit. The profile request unit requests the user profile recording device for user profile information of the mail receiving user corresponding to each of the plurality of mail addresses. The profile receiving unit receives the user profile information searched by the user profile recording device and presents it to the sender. The mail transmission determining unit determines whether or not to send an e-mail to the e-mail address based on the input signal of the sender after presenting the user profile information to the sender.

  The user profile recording apparatus of the present invention includes a profile storage unit, a profile search unit, and a profile transmission unit. The profile storage unit records user profile information of mail receiving users corresponding to a plurality of mail addresses. The profile search unit searches for and outputs user profile information corresponding to the e-mail address from the profile storage unit, using the e-mail address transmitted from the user terminal device as an input.

  According to the erroneous e-mail transmission prevention system of the present invention, the mail sender can confirm the user profile information of the mail receiving user corresponding to the e-mail address immediately before the e-mail transmission. Therefore, instead of the e-mail address that is difficult to confirm as described above, the e-mail can be confirmed by the user profile information that identifies the e-mail recipient. It can prevent more reliably.

  Further, the user terminal device of the present invention can request the user profile information of the mail recipient corresponding to the e-mail address to be transmitted to the user profile recording device and present the user profile information to the sender. . The user profile recording apparatus of the present invention can transmit user profile information of a mail recipient corresponding to an e-mail address to the user terminal device.

The figure which shows the example of the mail address which is easy to mistransmit. 1 is a diagram showing a system configuration example of an erroneous email transmission prevention system 100 according to the present invention. The figure which shows the operation | movement sequence of the email erroneous transmission prevention system. The figure which shows an example of user profile information. The figure which shows the function structural example of the user terminal device 20. FIG. The figure which shows the operation | movement flow of the user terminal device 20. The figure which shows an example of a warning display. The figure which shows the example of a display which shows the case where it has several transmission destination addresses. The figure which shows the example of a display which shows a some transmission destination. FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating an example of a functional configuration of a user profile recording device 30. The figure which shows the operation | movement flow of the user profile recording device. The figure which shows the operation | movement flow of the similar mail address search means 321. FIG. The figure which shows the example of the dialog box which confirms the transmission destination of the conventional electronic mail.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. The same reference numerals are given to the same components in a plurality of drawings, and the description will not be repeated.

  FIG. 2 shows an example of the system configuration of the erroneous email transmission prevention system 100 of the present invention. The erroneous email transmission prevention system 100 includes a plurality of user terminal devices 20 and 50 connected to the network 10, a user profile recording device 30, and a mail server 40. The network 10 is, for example, the Internet. The user terminal device is, for example, a mobile phone or a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), and has the same basic e-mail transmission / reception function. Although only two devices are shown in FIG. 2, two or more user terminal devices are connected to the network 10.

  The mail server 40 is a device that manages transmission / reception of e-mails through the network 10 and is a conventional one. The user terminal devices 20 and 50 and the user profile recording device 30 are new in the electronic mail erroneous transmission prevention system 100.

  The operation of this system will be described with reference to the operation sequence diagram of the erroneous email transmission prevention system 100 shown in FIG. A description of the operation of the conventional mail server 40 is omitted.

  The user terminal device 20 includes a profile request unit 21, a profile reception unit 22, and a mail transmission determination unit 23. The profile request unit 21 transmits an email address to the user profile recording device 30 and requests user profile information including attribute information of the mail receiving user corresponding to the email address (step S21).

  The profile receiving unit 22 receives the user profile information searched by the user profile recording device 30 and presents it to the sender who operates the user terminal device 20 (step S22). The mail transmission determining unit 23 determines whether or not to transmit an e-mail to the above-described e-mail address based on an input signal from the sender after presenting the user profile information (step S23).

  The user profile recording device 30 includes a profile storage unit 31, a profile search unit 32, and a profile transmission unit 33. The profile storage unit 31 records user profile information of mail receiving users corresponding to a plurality of e-mail addresses. The user profile information may be recorded by the sender or may be recorded collectively by some department such as the company to which the sender belongs. Alternatively, a third party organization may set and manage user profile information.

  FIG. 4 shows an example of user profile information. The user profile information is the user name and attribute information associated with the e-mail address. In the example of FIG. 4, the user profile information includes three e-mail addresses, departments, self-introduction, own image information, and the like.

  The profile search unit 32 receives the e-mail address transmitted from the user terminal device 20 as an input, searches the profile storage unit 31 for user profile information corresponding to the e-mail address, and outputs it to the profile transmission unit 33 (step S32). ). The profile transmission unit 33 transmits the searched user profile information to the user terminal device 20 (step S33).

  The profile receiving unit 22 of the user terminal device 20 presents the user profile information received from the user terminal device 20 to a sender who operates the user terminal device 20. The sender determines from the user profile information whether or not the e-mail address to be transmitted is correct, and if it is correct, inputs an input signal for transmitting the e-mail (transmission in step S23a). If it is not correct, an input signal for stopping the transmission of the e-mail is input (stop of step S23a).

  As described above, only when it is determined that the electronic mail address is correct based on the user profile information, the electronic mail is transmitted to another user terminal device such as the user terminal device 50. The electronic mail is actually transmitted to the user terminal device 50 via the mail server 40, but the processing is omitted in FIG.

  Next, the user terminal device 20 and the user profile recording device 30 constituting the erroneous email transmission prevention system 100 of the present invention will be described more specifically.

[User terminal device]
FIG. 5 shows a functional configuration example of the user terminal device 20. The operation flow is shown in FIG. The user terminal device 20 includes control means 201 including a ROM (Read Only Memory) in which programs and data are stored, a CPU for executing these programs, and a RAM (Random Access Memory) for storing data used by the CPU. The function is realized by controlling the operation procedure and operation timing of each function unit constituting the function block 200. The communication interface 202 communicates with the user profile recording device 30, the user terminal device 50, etc., and is, for example, a mobile phone transmission / reception function. The configurations of these control means and communication interface are also provided in the other devices as well.

  The functional block 200 of the user terminal device 20 includes a profile request unit 21, a profile reception unit 22, a mail transmission determination unit 23, and an address book 24. In the functional block 200, the description of functional units such as a display unit and an input unit included in a general terminal device is omitted.

  The profile request unit 21 transmits the e-mail address (step S201) input by the sender by operating the input unit to the user profile recording device 30 and includes the attribute information of the mail receiving user corresponding to the e-mail address. User profile information is requested (step S21, FIG. 6). In step S201, an input unit (not shown) and the control unit 201 operate to perform processing. At this time, an e-mail address recorded in advance in the address book 24 may be read and transmitted to the user profile recording device 30.

  The profile receiving unit 22 presents the user profile information received from the user profile recording device 30 to the sender via a display unit (not shown) in the functional block 200 (step S22). At this time, image information related to the mail receiving user included in the user profile information may be displayed to the sender. For example, the image information can grasp the mail receiving user more intuitively than the attribute information such as affiliation. The image information may be a portrait or portrait of the mail receiving user, or image information of an object that symbolically represents the mail receiving user. As a symbolic representation of the mail receiving user, for example, if the sender and the receiver are in a close relationship, a photograph of a car owned by the user or a photograph of a family member may be used.

  At this time, if the user profile information includes similar email address presence / absence information indicating the presence / absence of an email address similar to the email address, the warning means 220 included in the profile receiving unit 22 You may warn that there exists a similar mail address (step S221b). Details of the similar mail address presence / absence information will be described later.

  FIG. 7 shows a display example of a warning performed by the warning means 220. If a similar email address exists when the sender inputs the email address “foo@kaisya.com” on the email creation screen 70 of the email software, a warning screen 71 is displayed in a pop-up to warn that. The portrait photo 71a is image information included in the user profile information corresponding to the e-mail address “foo@kaisya.com”. If it can be confirmed by the portrait photograph 71a that the mail receiving user has no mistake, the sender clicks the send button 71b to send an e-mail. If it is incorrect, the confirmation button 71c is clicked to confirm the user profile information corresponding to another e-mail address. Alternatively, the e-mail is discarded by clicking the discard button 71d.

  In addition to the pop-up screen for warning (71 in FIG. 7), when the mail receiving user has a plurality of e-mail addresses as shown in FIG. 4, the plurality of e-mail addresses are displayed at a time. Anyway. It can be known from the user profile information shown in FIG. 4 that the mail receiving user has a plurality of e-mail addresses.

  FIG. 8 shows an example of a pop-up screen 81 representing a mail receiving user having a plurality of e-mail addresses. In the pop-up screen 81, the mail receiving user with the e-mail address “foo@kaisya.com” entered by the sender has two other e-mails “bar@dokomo.ne.jp” and “hoo@xmail.com”. Indicates that you have an email address. By using this pop-up screen, the sender can easily and reliably find a more appropriate address.

  In addition, as a function to prevent erroneous transmission of e-mail, a portrait picture and e-mail address of a mail receiving user corresponding to the e-mail address can be displayed on a pop-up screen even during the input of the e-mail address. good. FIG. 9 shows an example in that case. Portrait pictures and e-mail addresses of a plurality of mail receiving users including “saito” being entered are displayed in the address field of the mail creation screen 90 of the e-mail software. The sender can select the mail receiving user on the pop-up screen 91 even when the e-mail address is being input.

[User profile recording device]
FIG. 10 shows a functional configuration example of the user profile recording device 30. The operation flow is shown in FIG. The user profile recording device 30 includes control means 301 including a ROM (Read Only Memory) in which programs and data are stored, a CPU for executing these programs, and a RAM (Random Access Memory) for storing data used by the CPU. However, it is the same as the user terminal device 20 in that the function is realized by controlling the operation procedure and operation timing of each functional unit constituting the functional block 300.

  The functional block 300 of the user profile recording device 30 includes a profile storage unit 31, a profile search unit 32, and a profile transmission unit 33. The profile storage unit 31 records user profile information of mail receiving users corresponding to a plurality of e-mail addresses. The user profile information may be created by a sender operating the user terminal device 20 accessing the user profile recording device 30 and recording individual e-mail addresses and the user profile information. Or, for example, the personnel department of the company where the sender is working creates a photo book in which portrait photographs of all employees are associated with e-mail addresses, and records the photo book in the profile storage unit 31. Also good.

  The profile search unit 32 receives the e-mail address transmitted from the user terminal device 20 as an input (step S301), searches the profile storage unit 31 for profile information of the mail receiving user corresponding to the e-mail address, and transmits the profile transmission unit 33. (Step S32).

  The profile search unit 32 includes similar mail address search means 321. The similar mail address search unit 321 searches the profile storage unit 31 for an email address similar to the email address transmitted from the user terminal device 20.

  FIG. 12 shows an operation flow of the similar mail address search means 321. The similar mail address search means 321 takes out one electronic mail address from the profile storage unit 31 (step S321a). Then, it is evaluated whether, for example, 30% from the top of the user name of the e-mail address transmitted from the user terminal device 20 and the extracted e-mail address are the same character string.

  If the character string of the user name is 30% or more and the same character string (Yes in step S321b), the electronic mail address is extracted as a similar mail address (step S321c). If the mail name does not match the character string of less than 30% from the beginning of the user name (No in step S321b), the electronic mail address is discarded and another electronic mail address is taken out from the profile storage unit 31 (step S321a).

The processing from step S321a to step S321c is performed for all e-mail addresses recorded in the profile storage unit 31 (No in step S321d). as a result,
It is possible to extract an e-mail address in which the e-mail address transmitted from the user terminal device 20 matches the 30% character string from the beginning of the user name.

  30% is an arbitrary value set to a value of 90%, for example, when similar mail addresses are strictly extracted. When the similar mail address is extracted in this way, the profile transmission unit 33 sets the similar mail address presence / absence information to “present”, and transmits the user profile information attached with the extracted similar mail address to the user terminal device 20. (Step S33). When the user terminal device 20 receives the user profile information, the user terminal device 20 displays a pop-up screen 71 as shown in FIG. 7, for example, to alert the sender.

  As described above, according to the erroneous e-mail transmission prevention system 100 of the present invention, the mail destination can be confirmed by the user profile information immediately before the e-mail is transmitted. In addition, by including image information in the user profile information so that the mail receiving user can be intuitively grasped by the image, the electronic Dale address of the transmission destination can be reliably searched even from a large number of email addresses. I can do it. Therefore, the erroneous email transmission prevention system 100 according to the present invention makes it possible to transmit emails more easily and more reliably than the conventional method of confirming the transmission destination based on the email address and some attribute information (organization name). The effect which makes it possible to prevent is produced.

  The user profile information has been described as an example in which all of the user profile information is presented to the sender in the user terminal device 20, but according to the user terminal device, the disclosure range information specifying the disclosure range is attached to the user profile information. That is, you may make it restrict | limit the disclosure range of user profile information according to the sender who operates a user terminal device. For example, the range of information disclosure may be limited depending on the difference between managers and general employees.

  In the above-described embodiment, the user profile recording device 30 and the mail server 40 are described as separate devices. However, these functions may be integrated into one device (server).

  When the processing means in each device described above is realized by a computer, the processing contents of the functions that each device should have are described by a program. Then, by executing this program on the computer, the processing means in each apparatus is realized on the computer.

  The program describing the processing contents can be recorded on a computer-readable recording medium. As the computer-readable recording medium, for example, any recording medium such as a magnetic recording device, an optical disk, a magneto-optical recording medium, and a semiconductor memory may be used. Specifically, for example, as a magnetic recording device, a hard disk device, a flexible disk, a magnetic tape or the like, and as an optical disk, a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc), a DVD-RAM (Random Access Memory), a CD-ROM (Compact Disc Read Only) Memory), CD-R (Recordable) / RW (ReWritable), etc., magneto-optical recording media, MO (Magneto Optical disc), etc., semiconductor memory, EEP-ROM (Electronically Erasable and Programmable-Read Only Memory), etc. Can be used.

  This program is distributed by selling, transferring, or lending a portable recording medium such as a DVD or CD-ROM in which the program is recorded. Further, the program may be distributed by storing the program in a recording device of a server computer and transferring the program from the server computer to another computer via a network.

  Each means may be configured by executing a predetermined program on a computer, or at least a part of these processing contents may be realized by hardware.

Claims (6)

An e-mail erroneous transmission prevention system comprising a plurality of user terminal devices and a user profile recording device,
The user terminal device is
Attribute information of a mail receiving user corresponding to the email address transmitted to the user profile recording device, similar email address presence / absence information indicating the presence / absence of a similar email address of the email address, and the similar email A profile requesting unit for requesting user profile information including an address ;
Provides suggestions for the sender to receive the user profile information, and profile receiving unit that performs a warning to the sender if the similarity mail address exists in the user profile information,
Based on input signals from said sender after presenting the user profile information and a mail transmission determination unit that determines whether to send an e-mail to the e-mail address,
The user profile recording device is
A profile storage unit that records attribute information of mail receiving users corresponding to a plurality of mail addresses;
Find the attribute information of the mail receiving user that corresponds to the electronic mail address as an input a transmitted e-mail address from the user terminal from the profile storage unit, the top and the transmitted e-mail address from the user terminal a profile retrieving unit for a mail address corresponding with a predetermined percentage of the extract from the profile storage unit, and outputs the email address the extracted with the similar email addresses viewed from,
The attribute information of the mail receiving user searched by the profile search unit, the similar mail address presence / absence information, and the similar mail address when the similar mail address exists are transmitted to the user terminal device as the user profile information. A profile transmission unit
A system for preventing erroneous email transmission. In the e-mail erroneous transmission prevention system according to claim 1,
The system for preventing erroneous transmission of electronic mail, wherein the user profile information includes image information relating to the mail receiving user. The attribute information of the mail receiving user corresponding to the e-mail address to send an e-mail address in the User chromatography The profile recording device, a similar mail address information that indicates the presence or absence of similar mail address of the e-mail address, the similar A profile request unit that requests user profile information including an email address ;
Provides suggestions for the sender to receive the user profile information, and profile receiving unit that performs a warning to the sender if the similarity mail address exists in the user profile information,
User terminal having a mail transmission determination unit that determines whether to send an e-mail to the e-mail addresses based on an input signal from said sender after presenting the user profile information. A profile storage unit that records attribute information of mail receiving users corresponding to a plurality of mail addresses;
Find the attribute information of the mail receiving user that corresponds to the electronic mail address as an input the sent e-mail address from User chromatography The terminal device from the profile storage unit, and e-mail address sent from the user terminal a profile retrieving section when viewed from the top email address that matches a predetermined ratio extracted from the profile storage unit, and outputs the email address the extracted similar email addresses,
The attribute information of the mail receiving user searched by the profile search unit, the similar mail address presence / absence information, and the similar mail address when there is the similar mail address are transmitted as user profile information to the user terminal device. A user profile recording apparatus comprising a profile transmission unit. A plurality of user terminals and the user profile email wrong transmission prevention method electrostatic recording equipment is performed,
The user terminal device is
Attribute information of a mail receiving user corresponding to the email address transmitted to the user profile recording device, similar email address presence / absence information indicating the presence / absence of a similar email address of the email address, and the similar email A profile request process requesting user profile information including an address ;
Provides suggestions for the sender to receive the user profile information, and profile reception process of performing a warning to the sender if the similarity mail address exists in the user profile information,
Run a mail transmission determination process of determining whether to send an e-mail to the e-mail addresses based on an input signal from said sender after presenting the user profile information,
The user profile recording device is
A profile accumulation process for recording attribute information of mail receiving users corresponding to a plurality of mail addresses,
Find the attribute information of the mail receiving user that corresponds to the electronic mail address as an input a transmitted e-mail address from the user terminal from the profile storage unit, the top and the transmitted e-mail address from the user terminal a profile retrieving process of the email address that matches a predetermined ratio extracted from the profile storage unit, and outputs the email address the extracted with the similar email addresses viewed from,
The attribute information of the mail receiving user searched by the profile search unit, the similar mail address presence / absence information, and the similar mail address when the similar mail address exists are transmitted to the user terminal device as the user profile information. Execute the profile transmission process
A method of preventing erroneous email transmission. In the method of preventing erroneous email transmission according to claim 5 ,
The method of preventing erroneous transmission of electronic mail, wherein the user profile information includes image information relating to the mail receiving user.