Filtering incoming e-mail
First Claim
1. An access controller for a mail client in-box, said access controller being cooperable with a mail client for sending messages across a network to any of a plurality of clients and receiving messages from any of said clients across said network, said access controller including:
- means instantiable to generate a token indicative of the number of times one of said clients can access said mail client in-box, for transmission to the one of said clients; and
authenticating means instantiable to validate any token included in a message from the one of said clients to allow or deny access to said mail client in-box, in accordance with whether or not the number of times the one of said clients can access said mail client in-box has yet been exhausted.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method and apparatus, in particular, for filtering mail to mitigate the problems of SPAM mail or unwanted access across a network is disclosed. The invention provides an access controller for a data store, operable within for example a mail client. The controller includes a token generating mechanism for generating tokens indicative of the number of times a client can access the data store; and an authenticating mechanism for validating any token included in a message from a client to allow or deny access to said data store.
268 Citations
16 Claims
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1. An access controller for a mail client in-box, said access controller being cooperable with a mail client for sending messages across a network to any of a plurality of clients and receiving messages from any of said clients across said network, said access controller including:
means instantiable to generate a token indicative of the number of times one of said clients can access said mail client in-box, for transmission to the one of said clients; and
authenticating means instantiable to validate any token included in a message from the one of said clients to allow or deny access to said mail client in-box, in accordance with whether or not the number of times the one of said clients can access said mail client in-box has yet been exhausted.- View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
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11. A mail client for sending messages across a network to any of a plurality of clients and receiving messages from any of said clients across said network, said mail client comprising:
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an in-box into which incoming messages are stored and an address book including a plurality of client address objects, each object including a token attribute, said mail client being adapted to set said token attribute for a first of said clients when a message including a token is received from said first client; and
an access controller including means for generating a token, indicative of the number of times said first client can access said in-box, for transmission to said mail client, and authenticating means for validating any token included in a message from said first client to allow or deny access to said in-box, in accordance with whether or not the number of times said first client can access said in-box has yet been exhausted, wherein said token generating means is adapted to generate tokens of types indicative of the number of times said first client is allowed to access to said in-box. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. In a networked computing environment having an access controller for a mail client in-box, said access controller being cooperable with a mail client for sending messages across a network to a plurality of clients and receiving messages from said clients across said network, a method for controlling access to the mail client in-box, comprising the steps of:
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generating a token indicative of the number of times a client can access said mail client in-box for transmission to said client; and
authenticating any token included in a message from a client to allow or deny access to said mail client in-box, in accordance with whether or not the number of times a client can access said mail client in-box has yet been exhausted.
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Specification