Automatic and secure system for remote access to electronic mail and the internet

The present invention relates generally to remote access systems for enabling users to contact their home systems when traveling or otherwise away from their home systems. More particularly, the invention concerns an automatic and secure system for providing a remote user with temporary access to the user's home system in a familiar operating environment, and a method of using the same. A system and method for providing a remote user with secure, temporary access to electronic mail and/or the Internet. The invented system includes one or more remote terminals, each including an input device and a display, and a system server for communicating with the terminals. The server is capable of displaying prompts on each of the displays and reading user inputs on each of the input devices. Furthermore, the server is operatively connected with the user's home system, typically via an electronic network. The system further includes a program executing on the system server for prompting one or more users located at the one or more remote terminals to enter inputs and for automatically configuring a configuration file for each remote user. Each configuration file contains information responsive to a corresponding one of the user's inputs, and each of the files is usable by the system server to operatively connect the corresponding user with that user's home system via the electronic network, based at least in part on the user's individual inputs. The system server executes the configuration file in such a manner as to provide each user with customized remote access to the user's home system in a secure operating environment dictated at least in part by the user's network client choices. A method of using the system is also described, as well as an embodiment of the system in which the system server and one or more remote terminals are the same computing device.