JP2001016423A - Facsimile equipment - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To specify a transmitter and to surely prevent the leakage of a secret document. SOLUTION: On a transmission side, a secret key is generated in a password control part in the case of an important original (S2). The key is ciphered, the FIF bit 'important original' of NSS is turned on by an important original control part and the original is transmitted (S4). On a reception side, it is recognized, memory reception is executed, a telephone number taken out from the name of a calling source by the request of a user is automatically called and the calling source is referred to (S12). Then, the important original is restored and outputted by the secret key received from the calling source (S20).

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a facsimile apparatus, and more particularly, to a facsimile apparatus characterized by secret communication technology.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a facsimile apparatus for transmitting and receiving signals between a transmitting terminal and a receiving terminal via a public telephone line network, in order to maintain communication confidentiality, communication of transmission / reception data has been conventionally performed using encryption during facsimile communication. Many techniques have been proposed to prevent leakage inside.

For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 5-344363 discloses an encryption / decryption process in which transmission data is scrambled and encrypted, and the received encrypted data is descrambled and decrypted into plaintext data. A technique has been proposed which has been simplified.

[0004]

Although the prior art mentions a method of sending a secret key and the matching of keys between the two terminals, it is a problem of the facsimile apparatus.
It did not improve the point that "the sender is not guaranteed (specified)". That is, unless the closed connection communication is performed only between two terminals, or unless the other party's telephone number is notified by the caller ID notification, is the sentence truly transmitted from the source? I do not know if it is.

For example, even in the case of transmission from another place belonging to the same closed connection group, or even in the case where communication is performed only between two terminals, the closed connection ID is unauthorized by a malicious third party. It can be considered when used in Further, if the transmission source information is falsely transmitted, the transmission source of the received original document is not guaranteed, which may lead to a serious situation depending on the content of the original document.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is an object of the present invention to provide a facsimile apparatus capable of specifying a sender and reliably preventing leakage of a confidential document.

[0007]

In order to achieve the above object, according to the first aspect of the present invention, the transmitting terminal has a function of adding a signal indicating that the document is an important document when transmitting the important document. The receiving terminal has a function of storing received information in a memory and outputting a fixed image separately describing that an important document has been received.

[0008] In order to achieve the above object, a second aspect is provided.
According to the invention described in the facsimile apparatus of the first aspect, the transmitting side terminal further transmits an original ID when transmitting an important original.
And a function of transmitting the data.

In order to achieve the above object, a third aspect of the present invention is provided.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the facsimile apparatus according to the second aspect, the transmitting terminal has a function of encrypting the original with a secret key not possessed by the receiving side when transmitting the important original.

[0010] In order to achieve the above object, the present invention relates to claim 4.
According to the invention described in the facsimile apparatus according to the third aspect, when the receiving terminal receives an important document, the receiving terminal stores the telephone number extracted from the source name together with the document ID, and further displays the phone number in a form that can be selected by the user. And a function of making a call to the transmitting terminal by a user's selection and inquiring about an important document.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the above object is achieved.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the facsimile apparatus according to the fourth aspect, the transmitting terminal having received the inquiry about the important document has a function of transmitting the secret key used at that time to the receiving terminal according to the received document ID. It is a feature.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an electronic apparatus comprising:
According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, in the facsimile apparatus according to the fifth aspect, the receiving terminal having received the secret key has a function of decrypting and outputting an important document with the secret key.

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a computer system comprising:
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the facsimile apparatus according to the fourth aspect, when the receiving terminal does not notify the caller name, or when it is recognized that the telephone number is not described in the caller name, the receiving terminal Is stored and used in place of a telephone number.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the above object is achieved.
According to the present invention, in the facsimile apparatus according to the seventh aspect, the receiving terminal has a function of deleting a document ID and a corresponding file when a deletion request is made by a user's instruction. Things.

According to the first and second aspects of the invention, when an important document is transmitted, the transmission side notifies the reception side of the transmission (for example, the facsimile information field FIF of the non-standard function setting signal NSS). By assigning bits, the receiving side does not directly output an important document, but outputs a fixed sentence notifying the user of the reception.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, since the important original is encrypted by generating the latest secret key which does not exist on the receiving side, the stored file is taken out from the facsimile apparatus and restored by a third party. Is impossible.

According to the fourth aspect of the invention, by storing the telephone number of the destination and the document ID when the important document is received and displaying the destination, the user can make an inquiry to the source of the important document. That is, when the user selects the other party, a call is automatically made and an inquiry is made to the other party.

According to the invention described in claim 5, it becomes possible to deliver the secret key obtained by encrypting the image information used at the time of the previous transmission to the receiving side. Further, since this secret key is meaningless except for the corresponding manuscript, even if a malicious secret key acquirer is present, there is no influence on the confidentiality.

According to the sixth aspect of the present invention, the original can be output for the first time by decrypting with the secret key received from the transmission source. Therefore, the original is output after the source of the original is guaranteed. You.

According to the invention described in claim 7, even when the source information is insufficient, the user can infer the source from the reception time.

According to the invention of claim 8, when the source information is insufficient and it is judged that the analogy is not possible for the user, the user deletes the received file as an unknown source document. As a result, the unidentified document is processed.

[0022]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a facsimile apparatus showing an embodiment of the present invention. The facsimile apparatus includes a CPU 1, a ROM 2, a RAM 3, a scanner 4, a plotter 5, an operation display control unit 6, a CCU (communication control unit) 7, a modem 8, an SAF memory 9, an encoding / decoding unit 10, an NCU (network control). Section) 11, important document control section 1
3. It has an encryption control unit 14. Each of these means is a bus 1
2 are connected to each other.

The CPU 1 controls each part of the apparatus according to the program in the ROM 2 to execute the processing of the present invention.
The ROM 2 stores the processing program of the present invention and the like. A work area is formed in the RAM 3 to store various data necessary for controlling the apparatus.

The scanner 4 reads an original. Plotter 5
Performs copying and printing of a received document. Operation display control unit 6
Inputs an operation from the user and transmits information to the user. The CCU 7 exchanges a facsimile control signal with a facsimile machine of the other party and executes a facsimile communication procedure.

The modem 8 modulates a transmission signal and demodulates a reception signal. The SAF memory 9 stores an image. The encoding / decoding unit 10 encodes the image information according to a predetermined encoding method, and decodes the encoded image information.
The NCU 11 controls a communication line.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of the overall operation.
In the transmission-side facsimile apparatus (calling side), when the user determines that the document is an important document, the user sets the fact and instructs document storage (S1).
ES (Data Encryption Standa)
A secret key is created by the rd) method (S2), and a document ID is set to encrypt the document (S3).

When the operation shifts to the transmission operation, the important document control section 13 turns on the FIF bit "important document" in the facsimile information field of the non-standard function setting signal NSS, adds a document ID, and transmits the document (S4). .

On the other hand, in the receiving-side facsimile apparatus (receiving side), when the important document control unit 13 recognizes the FIF bit "important document", the document ID is simultaneously stored (recorded) and the memory is received. (S5). After the communication is completed (calling side S6, receiving side S7), the telephone number is extracted from the simultaneously received caller name (S8), and this is stored together with the document ID and displayed on the display unit in the form of a list that can be selected by the user. (S9). At the same time, standard image information indicating that "important document has been received" is output (S10).

The user looks at the outputted paper indicating that "important document has been received" and selects image information to be taken out from the important document list on the display unit (S11). Make a call to the phone number (S1
2) The non-standard function command NSC with the "important document inquiry" FIF bit turned on together with the document ID is notified to the transmitting facsimile machine (S13).

The transmitting facsimile apparatus receiving the request,
The process shifts to polling transmission, and the important document control unit 13 searches for a secret key corresponding to the document ID (S14), and performs polling transmission to the destination using this as image information (S1).
5).

The receiving facsimile apparatus receives the secret key as image information (S16), and after the communication is completed (calling side S17, receiving side S18), uses the secret key to decrypt the image information file of the document ID. (S19), and print out (S20).

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of the operation in the case where the information required for the source name is insufficient. If the important document control unit 13 cannot retrieve the telephone number from the source name or does not notify the source name (S21), the reception time is stored together with the document ID (S22). A list of originals is created and displayed (S23). Further, it outputs the image information indicating that "the important document has been received" (S24). The user infers the source from the reception time information.

However, if the user does not recognize the file, the user instructs the received file to be deleted as an unknown source file (S25). In response to this, the facsimile apparatus deletes both the document ID and the image information file (S2).
6).

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a protocol for transmitting an important document, and FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a protocol for confirming an important document. In the figure, CED is a called station identification signal, NS
F indicates a non-standard function identification signal, TCF indicates a training check signal, and CFR indicates a reception preparation confirmation signal.

[0035]

According to the first and second aspects of the present invention, when an important document is transmitted, the transmitting side notifies the receiving side of the fact that the important document is transmitted. In this case, a fixed sentence notifying the user of the reception is output without directly outputting the original, so that the user can be prevented from receiving an erroneous important manuscript by mistake.

According to the third aspect of the present invention, since the important original is encrypted by generating the latest secret key which does not exist on the receiving side, the stored file is taken out from the facsimile apparatus by a third party and restored. It becomes impossible to do. Furthermore, since encryption is performed using a secret key for each document, the secrecy of the document can be increased.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, by storing the telephone number of the destination and the document ID when the important document is received and displaying the destination, the user can make an inquiry to the source of the important document. Become. That is, when the user selects the other party, it is possible to automatically call and make an inquiry to the other party.

According to the invention described in claim 5, it becomes possible to deliver the secret key obtained by encrypting the image information used at the time of previous transmission to the receiving side. In addition, since this secret key is meaningless except for the corresponding manuscript, even if there is a malicious secret key acquirer, the confidentiality is not affected at all and the reliability of confidentiality maintenance can be improved. it can.

According to the sixth aspect of the invention, the original can be output for the first time by decrypting with the secret key received from the transmission source. It can be performed.

According to the seventh aspect of the present invention, even when the source information is insufficient, the source can be inferred by the user from the reception time.

According to the eighth aspect of the present invention, when it is determined that the source information is insufficient and it is impossible for the user to analogize, the user sets the received file as an unknown source document and sets the received file as an unknown document. By deleting the document, an unidentified document can be processed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a facsimile apparatus showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of an overall operation.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of an operation in a case where information required for a sender name is insufficient.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a protocol for transmitting an important document.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a protocol for performing important document confirmation.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 CPU 2 ROM 3 RAM 4 Scanner 5 Plotter 6 Operation display control part 7 CCU 8 Modem 9 SAF 10 Encoding / decoding part 11 NCU 12 Bus 13 Important document control part 14 Encryption control part

Claims (8)

[Claims] The transmitting terminal has a function of adding a signal indicating that the document is an important document when transmitting the important document, and the receiving terminal stores the received information in a memory and separately stores the important information. A facsimile apparatus having a function of outputting a fixed image describing that a document has been received. 2. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the transmitting terminal has a function of adding a document ID when transmitting an important document and transmitting the important document. 3. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the transmitting terminal has a function of encrypting the original with a secret key not possessed by the receiving side when transmitting the important original. 4. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the receiving terminal stores the telephone number extracted from the source name together with the original ID when receiving the important original, and further displays the telephone number in a form that can be selected by the user. A facsimile apparatus having a function of calling a transmitting terminal by a user's selection and inquiring about an important document. 5. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the transmitting terminal having received the inquiry about the important document has a function of transmitting the secret key used at that time to the receiving terminal according to the received document ID. Facsimile machine characterized. 6. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the receiving terminal having received the secret key has a function of decoding and outputting an important document with the secret key. 7. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the receiving terminal does not receive the caller name, or when it is recognized that no telephone number is described in the caller name, the receiving time is determined. Facsimile apparatus having a function of storing and using a telephone number instead of a telephone number. 8. The facsimile apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the receiving terminal has a function of deleting a document ID and a corresponding file when a deletion request is made by a user's instruction. Facsimile machine.