International Business Machines Corporation

Kenji Hirota

Tomonori Sugiura

Hidekuni Ueda

Masami Tada

[Object] To inspect emails without having to restrict the use of an email encryption function or the attachment of a file for which a password has been set. [Solving Means] An email client includes an operation reception unitfor receiving an operation performed by a user and a processing unitfor performing a process according to this operation on an email. The email client also includes a detection unitfor detecting that the operation reception unithas received a specific operation and an inspection unitfor, if a specific operation is detected, inspecting the email and a file to be attached to the email before the processing unitperforms a process according to the specific operation. If a password has been set for the file to be attached to the email, a password acquisition unitacquires the password. A confirmation unitinquires of a user about whether the process according to the operation received by the operation reception unitshould be performed, according to an inspection result.

System, method, and program for filtering emails

An email, which includes a header and historical information, is created. The header comprises a destination email address, which comprises a name of an addressed recipient of the email and a domain name of the destination email address. The historical information in the email comprises an approved address for a previously exchanged email with the addressed recipient. The first approved address is compared to a corresponding portion of the first destination email address. In response to the corresponding portion of the first destination email address being different from the first approved address as stored in the storage unit, a warning is outputted. The warning comprises both the approved address, and an unapproved address list that comprises the first destination email address.

Checking destination email addresses against historical address information

A system, a server, a method, and a computer program are described for relaying an electronic mail without a leak of secret information included in a quoted electronic mail to an unintended recipient without impairing the usability of the electronic mail system. The server receives an electronic mail that is newly created by one of the clients with quotation from one or a plurality of electronic mails received in the past. The server determines, for each quoted electronic mail quoted in the received electronic mail, whether a destination designated in the received electronic mail is included in an originator and a destination set in each quoted electronic mail. The server edits the content of each quoted electronic mail that is determined not to include the destination designated in the received electronic mail. The server transfers the electronic mail including the edited quoted electronic mail to the designated destination. The server stores edition information for returning the edited quoted electronic mail to a state before the editing in association with information that identifies the received electronic mail.

System, server, method, and computer program for relaying electronic mail

An email is created that includes one or more destination email addresses, plus historical information regarding previously exchanged emails. Before sending this email, each of the destination email addresses is checked against the email addresses in the historical information and, if a destination email address (or the domain name of that destination address) is not found in the historical information, then a warning is displayed to alert the user to the fact that this historical information may be sent to an unintended recipient. In response to this warning, which may include a list of unapproved destination email address, the user may approve a previously unapproved destination email address, change the unapproved destination email address to one that has been previously approved, or enter a new distribution email to be substituted for the unapproved one. When creating the email, the user may also specify other approved email addresses.

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Yamato, Japan

Kenji Hirota