Data receiving with security feature

Claim 2

A data receiving apparatus comprising: a receiver for receiving a mail data set; memory for storing the mail data set received by the receiver; and a display for displaying the mail data set stored in the memory, the data receiving apparatus further comprising: a designator for designating at least one sender in advance whose mail data set is desired to be kept secret, said designator being operable to determine whether a sender of a mail data set corresponds to any of said at least one sender, and, if so, designating the mail data set as coming from one of said at least one sender; and a display controller for causing the display not to display the mail data set coming from a sender designated by the designator, and to display only mail data sets from a sender other than the at least one sender designated by the designator.

Claim 3

The data receiving apparatus of claim 1, further comprising: personal data storage for storing a personal data set on at least one person for identifying the at least one person, wherein the designator determines whether or not the mail data set from a person designated by the personal data set is to be made secret.

Claim 4

The data receiving apparatus of claim 2, further comprising: a sender decider for deciding whether or not the sender of the mail data set received by the receiver is one of the senders identified by the personal data set stored in the personal data storage and one of the senders designated by the designator; and a flag adder for adding a display flag to the mail data set in response to a decision result of the sender decider, wherein the display flag has a first value, when the sender of the mail data set is one of the identified sender and is designated, and has a second value when the sender of the mail data set is not any of those who are individually identified by the personal data sets or when the sender of the mail data set is not specified, and wherein the display controller reads only the mail data set for which the display flag has said second value, from the memory, and sends the mail data set to the display.

Claim 5

The data receiving apparatus of claim 1, further comprising: password storage for storing a predetermined password; password inputter for inputting the password; and password comparator for comparing the password inputted by the password inputter and the password stored in the password storage, wherein the display controller responds to a comparison result of the password comparator and causes the display to display only the mail data set from the other sender when the two password do not match, and causes the display to display all data of the mail data set when the two password do match.

Claim 6

The data receiving apparatus of claim 1, wherein the display controller causes the display to display the number of all the mail data sets stored in the memory.

Claim 7

A data receiving apparatus comprising: a receiver for receiving a mail data set; memory for storing the mail data set received by the receiver; and a display for displaying the mail data set stored in the memory, the data receiving apparatus further comprising: a designator for designating a list of senders in advance for which mail data sets from any sender on the list of senders are to be kept secret, wherein said designator is operable to determine whether a sender of a mail data set corresponds to any sender on said list of senders, and, if so, designating the mail data set as coming from a sender on the list of senders; and a display controller for encrypting the mail data set from a sender designated by the designator, and causing the display to display the mail data set.

Claim 8

A data receiving apparatus comprising: a receiver for receiving a mail data set; memory for storing the mail data set received by the receiver; and a display for displaying the mail data set stored in the memory, the data receiving apparatus further comprising: a designator for designating a list of senders in advance for which mail data sets from any sender on the list of senders are to be kept secret, wherein said designator is operable to determine whether a sender of a mail data set corresponds to any sender on said list of senders, and, if so, designating the mail data set as coming from a sender on the list of senders; and a display controller for encrypting the mail data set from a sender designated by the designator, and causing the display to display the mail data set.

Claim 9

The data receiving apparatus of claim 6, further comprising: personal data storage for storing identification personal data set for one or more persons, wherein the designator determines whether or not the mail data sets from persons identified by the personal data sets are to be made secret according to the personal data sets.

Claim 10

The data receiving apparatus of claim 6, wherein the display controller inverts values of all bits which comprise the mail data set from the sender designated by the designator and sends the inverted values to the display.