TECHNIQUE FOR PROTECTING PERSONAL INFORMATION BY CIPHERING ELECTRONIC MAIL ADDRESS WHEN SENDING AND RECEIVING ELECTRONIC MAIL TO AND FROM ARBITRARY PARTY

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide environment wherein when electronic mail addresses of individuals should be secret like a communication site in the Internet environment, a document can be sent to a transmission destination without requiring mutual electronic mail addresses which are sent and received. SOLUTION: (a) An electronic mail server has electronic mail addresses registered by unspecified accessing persons and issues serial numbers. (b) A cipher is generated from two serial numbers and a ciphered electronic mail address to the electronic mail server is generated on the basis of it. (c) The electronic mail server having received an electronic mail calculates the transmission destination address as the ciphered electronic mail address back to a cipher to calculate two serial numbers. (d) The electronic mail server acquires two electronic mail addresses from the two serial numbers and transmits the body of the received electronic mail to the two electronic mail addresses. (e) The electronic mail server erases the transmission source address of the electronic mail to be sent. COPYRIGHT: (C)2003,JPO