The present invention relates to an access controller and method for controlling access to a data store. In particular, the invention relates to a method operable in a mail client and a mail client for filtering incoming e-mail.
When an e-mail message is sent, a receiver can discover the sender""s e-mail address from the information attached to the e-mail message. Thus, the receiver may subsequently send as many mails as the receiver wishes to the sender. The receiver may also inform someone else of the sender""s e-mail address and third parties may also do the same. Normally this wouldn""t be a problem but there is an increasing amount of unsolicited and useless xe2x80x98Spamxe2x80x99 mail which can choke in-boxes (in-folders) and make it difficult for a receiver to discern real or important e-mail from junk-mail.
Accordingly, the present invention provides an access controller for a data store, said access controller being cooperable with means instantiable to send messages across a network to a plurality of clients and means instantiable to receive messages from said clients across said network, said access controller including: means instantiable to generate a token indicative of the number of times a client can access said data store; and authenticating means instantiable to validate any token included in a message from a client to allow or deny access to said data store and a method for controlling access to a data store comprising the steps of: generating a token indicative of the number of times a client can access said data store; and validating any token included in a message from a client to allow or deny access to said data store.
The invention enables the sender to control the ability of 3rd parties to successfully send e-mail or to enable the classification of real e-mail from unsolicited possibly junk-mail.