1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to methods and equipment for transmitting electronic mail (e-mail) messages to or from a mobile terminal. More specifically, the present invention relates to a connectivity function for transmitting e-mail messages to and from a mobile terminal.
2. Description of the Related Art
U.S. Pat. No. 6,701,378 to Barry Gilhuly et al. discloses a system and method for pushing information, such as e-mail messages, from a host system to a mobile data communication device (mobile terminal). The technique permits e-mail processing at a mobile terminal in addition to a more stationary computer, referred to as a host system in the Gilhuly patent. Specifically, a redirector program operating at the host system enables a user to continuously redirect certain user-selected data items from the host system to the user's mobile data communication device upon detecting that one or more user-defined triggering events has occurred. The redirector program operates in connection with event-generating applications and repackaging systems at the host system to configure and detect a particular user-defined event, and then to repackage the user-selected data items in an electronic wrapper prior to pushing the data items to the mobile device. The mobile data communication device may originate new messages or reply messages to previously received information, such messages being transmitted to a wireless redirector host system, which then transmits a copy of the messages to both the intended recipient and a first electronic mail account associated with the mobile data communication device.
The above-described prior art technique suffers from certain limitations. For example, the host system, such as an office computer, and the mobile terminal require separate e-mail accounts. Some e-mail systems support a forward-type file for forwarding e-mail messages from a first e-mail account to a second e-mail account, but some systems do not support it. It is difficult to set up e-mail systems that do not support such forwarding techniques.
Furthermore, the Gilhuly patent does not address issues that relate to manipulating e-mail messages at the second e-mail account (at the mobile terminal). For instance, it is difficult or impossible to use the terminal to arrange incoming e-mail messages into different folders at the host system. Also, if the terminal user deletes an incoming e-mail message at the terminal, a copy of the deleted message is not present in a “deleted items” folder at the host system, which typically is the case in e-mail systems. Likewise, when the terminal sends an e-mail message, a copy of the message is not added to the host system's “sent items” folder. A further related problem is that e-mail messages that the user has read at the terminal may appear as unread messages at the host system.
Yet another problem is that configuring an e-mail client software at the mobile terminal is difficult because of user interface restrictions in typical mobile terminals.
Embodiments of the present invention provide for methods and systems of connectivity for forwarding an e-mail message from an e-mail server to a mobile terminal having an e-mail address under the e-mail server. An e-mail address may be associated with a permanent identifier and encryption information of the mobile terminal. After receipt of an e-mail message addressed using the e-mail address from the e-mail server, the e-mail message may be encrypted using the stored encryption information. The mobile terminal may be identified using the association between the e-mail address and the permanent identifier of the mobile terminal. The e-mail message may then be provided to a messaging centre for forwarding to the identified mobile terminal. The mobile terminal can decrypt and/or unpack the message using the encryption information.
Various embodiments of the present invention include methods of connectivity for forwarding an e-mail message from an e-mail server to a mobile terminal having an e-mail address under the e-mail server. Such methods may include storing the e-mail address, an associated permanent identifier of the mobile terminal, and associated encryption information generated by the mobile terminal. Methods may further include receiving the e-mail message associated with the e-mail address and sent by the e-mail server, encrypting the e-mail message using the stored encryption information, and transmitting the encrypted e-mail message to a messaging centre for forwarding to the mobile terminal.
Some embodiments of the present invention further include a system of connectivity for forwarding an e-mail message from an e-mail server to a mobile terminal having an e-mail address under the e-mail server. Such systems may include a memory for storing the e-mail address, an associated permanent identifier of the mobile terminal, and associated encryption information generated by the mobile terminal, an encryption engine configured to encrypt the e-mail message using the stored encryption information, a processor configured to identify the mobile terminal based on the e-mail address of the e-mail message and the stored association with the permanent identifier of the mobile terminal, and a communications interface configured to transmit the encrypted e-mail message to a messaging centre for forwarding to the identified mobile terminal. In some embodiments, such systems may further include a packing filter,
Some embodiments may further include a computer-readable storage media upon which is embodied programs including instructions for performing methods of connectivity for forwarding an e-mail message from an e-mail server to a mobile terminal having an e-mail address under the e-mail server.
In the following the invention will be described in greater detail by means of preferred embodiments with reference to the attached drawings, in which
Reference numeral 106 denotes a data network, such as an IP (Internet Protocol) network, which may be the common Internet or its closed subnetworks, commonly called intranets or extranets. Reference numeral 108 denotes an e-mail server and its associated database. The database stores an e-mail account, addressable by means of an e-mail address, that appears as a mailbox to the owner of the e-mail account. In order to communicate with mobile terminals 102, the data network 106 is connected, via a gateway 112 to an access network 114. The access network comprises a set of base stations 116 to provide wireless coverage over a wireless interface 118 to the mobile terminals 102.
Reference numeral 110 denotes a messaging centre that is largely responsible for providing the above-mentioned transparency between the host system 100 and the mobile terminal 102. The system architecture also comprises a connectivity function, whose task is to push e-mail messages to the mobile terminal. In the embodiment shown in
The mobile terminal 102 may be a pocket or laptop computer with a radio interface, a smart cellular telephone, or the like. Depending on implementation, the host system 100, if present, may have different roles. In some implementations the host system 100 is optional and may be a conventional office computer that merely acts as the mobile terminal user's principal computer and e-mail terminal. In other implementations the host system may act as a platform for a single user's connectivity function, in addition to being an office computer. In yet other implementations the host system 100 may comprise the connectivity function for several users. Thus it is a server instead of a normal office computer.
We assume here that the access network 114 is able to establish and maintain a tunnel 120 between the messaging centre 110 and the mobile terminal 102. For instance, the tunnel may be set up using GPRS Tunnelling Protocol (GTP) or its later derivatives, or any other suitable tunnelling protocol.
In a real system, there are naturally a large number of mobile terminals 102 and tunnels 120. In order to keep track of which e-mail account and which tunnel belongs to which mobile terminal, the messaging centre 110 maintains an association 122 for each mobile terminal supported by it. Each association 122 joins three fields, namely an e-mail address 122A assigned to the mobile terminal or its user, encryption information 122C and a temporary wireless identity 122D of the mobile terminal in the access network. The embodiment shown in
After the software installation, the next task is to create a secure binding between the connectivity function and the mobile terminal 102. The idea is to ensure that, in addition to the host system 100, only the mobile terminal 102 used in the binding process can be used to access and manipulate e-mail addressed to the mobile terminal's e-mail address. The binding operation faces two types of security risks. First, the communication used during binding must be secured against eavesdropping or other types of hacking. Second, the only the user of the bound terminal 102 may access e-mail addressed to the e-mail address. The eavesdropping problem is not trivial in a phase in which no trust exists between the mobile terminal 102 and the rest of the system. Yet another problem is that the e-mail server 108 and the messaging centre 110 typically have user interfaces that are only accessible to dedicated support persons.
The service activation code is closely related to an encryption key to be used in future communications between the connectivity function in the messaging centre 110 and the mobile terminal 102. The service activation code and the encryption key may be identical, or one may be a subset of the other, or the encryption key may be derived from the service activation code by means of some, preferably unpublished, algorithm. The fact that the service activation code and the encryption key are closely related to each other ensures that the terminal used in the authentication process is the terminal used to access the e-mail service afterwards.
Thus the idea of conveying the service activation code to the messaging centre 110 via the host system 100 solves both the security-related and user interface-related problems mentioned above. If there is no host system 100 that can authenticate the mobile terminal and its user. Instead, the user may enter the provisioning data to the connectivity function via some suitable connection. The provisioning data entered by the user may be checked by sending a trial e-mail message and attempting to read it. If the check succeeds, it is regarded as the authentication. Yet another way is to convey the service activation code to a dedicated support person who performs the authentication (eg by recognizing the person's face or voice) and enters the service activation code into the connectivity function in the messaging centre 110. The messaging centre/connectivity function 110 now stores an association (item 122 in
In step 3-12 the messaging centre 110 detects and retrieves the incoming e-mail from the e-mail server 108. For instance, the messaging centre 110 may regularly poll the e-mail server 108 or it may register itself as a listener to the e-mail server. In step 3-13 the messaging centre 110 encrypts, and optionally packs, the e-mail message or parts of it. For instance, the messaging centre 110 may omit the destination address of the e-mail message because it is self-evident that the e-mail message is addressed to the user of the host system 100, who is also the user of the mobile terminal 102. The messaging centre 110 may also omit all attachments or large attachments, up to some threshold size, from the e-mail message to be conveyed to the mobile terminal. The encryption process uses the mobile terminal's service activation code 122C, or its derivative, as the encryption key. In step 3-14 the messaging centre 110 transmits the encrypted and packed e-mail to the mobile terminal that decrypts and unpacks it in step 3-15. The messaging centre 110 knows the correct encryption key (service activation code) 122C and the tunnel identifier 122D on the basis of the association triplet 122.
In step 3-16 the mobile terminal 102 sends the messaging centre 110 an automatic control message indicating that the user has read the e-mail message. In response to the control message, the messaging centre 110 signals the e-mail server 108 to mark the e-mail message as read in step 3-17, which act the e-mail server performs in step 3-18. The control message comprises some identification of the e-mail message but not its contents, whereby it loads the radio interface only lightly. A benefit of the control message is that the user, when beginning to user the host system 100, immediately sees which messages he/she has already read and does not have to read them twice.
Next in this scenario, the user decides that the e-mail message needs further attention when he/she is at the host system 100. The user may initiate another control message 3-22 that causes the previously read message to be marked as unread at the e-mail server in step 3-22.
The next phase, steps 3-30 through 3-34, relates to e-mail message generation at the mobile terminal 102. We assume here, that the e-mail message to be generated is a reply message to the incoming message described above (steps 3-10 to 3-17), but the operation is very similar if the message to be generated is an original (non-reply) message. In step 3-30 the mobile terminal user generates a reply message. Since it is a reply message, its recipient is automatically the sender of the incoming message, and the subject field comprises the original subject with a prefix of “RE:” or something similar. If the message is not a reply message, the user will have to fill in the recipient and subject fields. In step 3-31 the client software at the mobile terminal 102 encrypts, and optionally packs, the outgoing e-mail message and transmits it via the tunnel to the messaging centre 110. The messaging centre 110 does not immediately know the sender of the e-mail message or the required decryption key. But the messaging centre 110 does know the identifier of the tunnel 120, and it employs the association triplet 122 to retrieve the decryption key 122C and the mobile terminal user's e-mail address 122A. The latter is not included in the e-mail message transmitted over the wireless interface 118 in order to load the wireless interface as little as possible. In step 3-32, the messaging centre 110 employs the decryption key 122C to decrypt the e-mail message. It also inserts the mobile terminal user's e-mail address 122A, which is the same as the host system's e-mail address because they share the same e-mail account. In step 3-33 the messaging centre 110 signals the e-mail server 108 to send a conventional reply message. In step 3-34 the e-mail server 108 stores a copy of the message in its “sent items” folder. Because the messaging centre 110 signals the e-mail server 108 to send a conventional reply message, the recipient of the message has no way of knowing that the user actually used the mobile terminal to initiate the message, and the desired transparency is achieved. A benefit of the transparency is that when the external terminal 104 sends a further reply, its user does not need to decide whether to send the reply to the host system or to the mobile terminal.
The final phase, steps 3-41 to 3-43, relate to deletion of an e-mail message. In response to the mobile terminal user's deletion command, the mobile terminal 102 sends a control message in step 3-41 to the messaging centre 110. In step 3-42 it signals the e-mail server 108 to delete the message, and in step 3-43 the message is moved to the “deleted items” folder, again achieving complete transparency between the host system and the mobile terminal.
As a further example of control messages, the user of the mobile terminal 102 may wish to explicitly move an e-mail message to a particular folder. In this case the signalling is analogous to steps 3-41 to 3-43, except that the message is not deleted but moved to a different folder. Only the control message has to be sent via the wireless interface, not the actual e-mail message.
The messaging centre 110 comprises an encryption and packing logic 422 that encrypts, and optionally packs (compresses), most of the fields of the e-mail message 400. However, the destination address field 402 is not processed because the mobile terminal will generate it internally. The mobile terminal comprises a decryption and unpacking logic 424 whose operation is inverse to the encryption and packing logic 422.
It is also advantageous to implement a filtering logic 430 that filters out attachments that exceed a threshold size, which is preferably user-settable. This means that the user is able to set an upper limit for attachments that will be sent to the mobile terminal. Omitting attachments saves resources in the wireless interface and the mobile terminal. Instead of filtering long attachments, or in addition to it, the filtering logic 430 may be configured to cut out portions of an e-mail message body that exceeds a threshold size. Reference numeral 410 denotes the e-mail message as received and processed by the mobile terminal. Instead of size-based filtering, or in addition to it, the filtering logic may employ type-based filtering that filters out attachment types that the mobile terminal is not able to process. For instance, if the mobile terminal does not have a suitable codec for certain types of video clips, it is pointless to send such video clips to the mobile terminal.
The information flows in
In the embodiment shown in
A further change caused by the separation (at least logical and, optionally, physical separation) of the connectivity function 600 from the messaging centre 110 is the fact that in step 2-4 of
As shown on the bottom row of
It is readily apparent to a person skilled in the art that, as the technology advances, the inventive concept can be implemented in various ways. The invention and its embodiments are not limited to the examples described above but may vary within the scope of the claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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20045451 | Nov 2004 | FI | national |
This application is a divisional and claims the priority benefit of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/282,950 filed Nov. 21, 2005, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,643,818 which claims the priority benefit of U.S. provisional patent application No. 60/650,975 filed Feb. 9, 2005 and the priority benefit of Finnish patent application No. 20045451 filed Nov. 22, 2004, the disclosures of the aforementioned applications being incorporated herein by reference.
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