保密电子邮件传递过程中的法律关系研究

电子邮件作为一种新的通信方式已经被越来越多的人接受和使用。由于一般电子邮件使用的是SMTP(简单邮件传输协议)和POP3协议(邮局协议),而这两种协议实行的是网络传输,基本上没有什么安全技术来保证通信秘密。因此,人们开始借鉴邮政挂号信函的传递方式,运用密码技术和简单公钥机制(SPKM)对现行的电子邮件通信进行改革,以实现通信的保密性,并为可能的纠纷保留证据。基于SPKM的挂号保密电子邮件通信就是这种改进的产物。与一般电子邮件的传递不同的是,这种保密电子邮件的传递不仅需要邮件服务器的提供者的参与,而且还需要认证中心CA等有关主体的参与。因此,正确界定有关各方当事人之间的法律关系是这种保密电子邮件正常传递的必要条件。 

Legal Relations in the Transmitting of the Secret E-mails

More and more people begin to use E-mails for communications. While the general E-mails are basically neither safe nor secret due to the using of SMTP and POP3 as their transferring protocols. In order to keep the E-mail secret during its transferring, man begins to use the principle of posts registered mails and cipher technology and the SPKM to reform the general E-mail communications. The secret E-mail using the SPKM is a kind of the above reforms. Because of many parties participating in its transferring, the legal relations are much more complicated than the general E-mail. It's a prerequisite for its mormal transferring to correctly define the legal relationship between the related parties. This article tries to study the legal relations between the related parties.