ELECTRONIC MAIL CLIENT AND SERVER WHICH SEND AND RECEIVE ELECTRONIC MAIL WITH NO SPECIFIED DESTINATION AND ORIGINATOR, AND ELECTRONIC MAIL SYSTEM BUILT UP BY CONNECTING THESE DEVICES

摘要

An electronic mail system providing a unique form of communication distinguished from those of conventional electronic media by distributing anonymous mails is disclosed. The electronic mail system comprises a mail server S and a plurality of mail clients C connected thereto, each arranged in the Internet INET. The client C converts the text and/or graphic data input by a user into image data in the BMP format to compose an anonymous mail containing the image data. The anonymous mail is transferred to and stored in a mailbox 30 in the server S. The client C logged in to the server S receives a mail selected at random from among those stored in the mailbox 30. Receipt of the mail is indicated to the user by display of a bottle arrived at a seashore on a monitor. Determination whether or not arrival of the mail should be indicated is made repeatedly at predetermined time intervals.