JP2002352029A - Information acquisition system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To prevent information from being wrongfully copied by the third person in the case that a user doesn't need to be charged for information acquisition because being the original owner of the information. SOLUTION: In an information acquisition system which authenticates authentication information for information acquisition to output information meeting a request from an information acquisition device from an information storage device to the information acquisition device, the frequency with which the same information is acquired with the same authentication information is monitored, and the user is informed when this frequency exceeds a prescribed value.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information acquisition system for retrieving desired information from an information storage device through an information network such as the Internet and acquiring the desired information to an information acquisition device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As an information acquisition system for retrieving desired information from an information storage device through an information network such as the Internet and acquiring the information to an information acquisition device, for example, retrieval and download of cooking recipe information from an information server (information storage device). There are cooking appliances that accumulate and store. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-21375. Since cooking recipes are charged, they are charged at the time of download.

[0003] Cooking recipe information includes menu information on cooking menus, information on ingredients required for the menu, information on how to cook the ingredients, information on how to use the microwave for cooking. Control program information such as whether or not such a heating sequence (sequence of heating power and heating time) is optimal is included.

[0004] Information of a control program for a microwave oven is stored in an internal memory of the microwave oven and is used in the microwave oven. When the storage capacity of the internal memory is exceeded, the information already stored is deleted. If the information once deleted becomes necessary, it may be downloaded and acquired again from the information server. In such a case,
Since the information is originally owned by the user, no new charge is required for information acquisition.

The identification code of the user or the identification code of the microwave oven is used to determine whether the information is originally owned by the user. In the information server, information downloaded in the past is recorded for each identification code, and when acquiring information, it is determined whether the information is originally owned by using these identification codes (authentication information). I do.

[0006] It is also conceivable that a microwave oven user himself creates cooking recipe information, uploads it to an information server, and publishes it to others for a fee. Due to the limitation of the storage capacity of the internal memory, etc., the user sometimes downloads the cooking recipe information uploaded by himself. In such a case, since the information is originally owned by the user, a new charge is not required for information acquisition.

Although the above description has been made with reference to cooking recipe information and a microwave oven, the present invention is not limited to this as long as it has similar circumstances.

[0008]

In the above conventional method,
Unauthorized copying of cooking recipe information may occur.
The information server records the information downloaded in the past for each identification code, and uses these identification codes (authentication information) at the time of information acquisition to determine whether the information was originally owned by the user. Therefore, if the authentication information is intentionally provided to a third party and the information is acquired using the authentication information, no charge is generated. It means that it is free for a third party despite obtaining new information.

[0009] The present invention solves the above-mentioned conventional problems. If the information is originally owned by the user and a new charge is not required for information acquisition, illegal copying by a third party occurs. It is to prevent that.

[0010]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to solve the above-mentioned conventional problems, the present invention authenticates authentication information for acquiring information, and transmits information corresponding to a request from the information acquisition device from the information storage device. An information acquisition system for outputting to an acquisition device, wherein the number of times of acquisition of the same information by the same authentication information is monitored and notified when the number exceeds a predetermined value. Then, it is monitored that the same information is frequently acquired with the same authentication information, and when it is determined that the frequency is abnormal, a notification is made, so that an illegal copy by a third party can be found early.

[0011]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information acquisition apparatus for authenticating authentication information for acquiring information and outputting information in response to a request from the information acquisition apparatus from the information storage apparatus to the information acquisition apparatus. The system monitors the number of times of acquisition of the same information by the same authentication information and notifies when the number of times of acquisition exceeds a predetermined value. Then, it is monitored that the same information is frequently acquired with the same authentication information, and when it is determined that the frequency is abnormal, a notification is issued.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect, index data indicating the content of the information is divided into content data which is the content itself of the information, and the monitoring target of the number of times of obtaining the information is at least the content. It is about data. Since it is monitored that the same information is frequently acquired with the same authentication information at least for the content data, it is possible to early detect that the contents of the information itself are illegally copied by a third party.

According to a third aspect of the present invention, in the first aspect, the content data, which is the content of the information itself, and the additional data indicating a method of utilizing the information are divided, and the monitoring target of the information acquisition frequency is at least the aforementioned. It relates to additional data. And since at least the additional information is monitored for frequently acquiring the same information with the same authentication information, those who have acquired content data in the past and understand how to use it are excluded from monitoring. However, even if the authentication information is the same, content data is newly acquired, and a person who does not know how to use the content data can be mainly monitored.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, in the second or third aspect, the index data relates to a cooking menu, and the content data relates to a control content of a cooking appliance used when executing the cooking menu. Yes, the additional data relates to the cooking method of the cooking menu. When re-acquiring information on the control content of the cooking appliance that has been deleted due to the upper limit of the storage memory capacity, it is monitored that the same information is frequently acquired with the same authentication information. Since the notification is made when it is determined that there is, an illegal copy by a third party can be found at an early stage.

According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information acquisition system for authenticating authentication information for acquiring information and outputting information corresponding to a request from the information acquisition device from the information storage device to the information acquisition device. Using a recording device that writes information from an information storage device to a recording medium, in the information acquisition device that reads information from the recording medium and acquires information, the number of times of writing to a recording medium having different authentication information or different authentication information is The number of times of reading from the recording medium is monitored and a notification is made when the number of readings exceeds a predetermined value. And since a recording medium is used, the form of information acquisition becomes free,
The number of times of writing or reading of a recording medium having different authentication information is monitored, and when it is determined that the frequency is abnormal, an alert is issued, so that an illegal copy due to lending and borrowing of the recording medium can be found at an early stage.

According to a sixth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a program for causing a computer to function as all or a part of the information acquisition system according to any one of the first to fifth aspects. And since it is a program, a part or all of the information acquisition system of the present invention can be easily realized using a general-purpose computer or server. Further, by recording the program on a recording medium or distributing the program using a communication line, the program can be easily distributed and installed.

[0017]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS.

(Embodiment 1) The configuration of an information acquisition system according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. As shown in FIG. 1, an information storage device 1 that stores desired information to be searched, and an information recording device 2 that records information of a searched result on a recording medium 4
Are connected via the communication network 3.

The communication network 3 is, for example, an information network such as the Internet or an intranet or a business communication system.

The information recording device 2 comprises a first communication means 21 for communicating with the information storage device 1 via the communication network 3,
A first read / write unit 22 for writing information on the recording medium 4 and reading authentication information (details will be described later) recorded on the recording medium 4 is provided. Although not shown in the figure, the apparatus includes an operation unit operated by a user, a display unit for displaying a list of contents of information to be obtained, a control unit for controlling the overall functions of the information recording apparatus 2, a storage unit for temporarily storing information, and the like. The information recording device 2 is, for example, a telephone, a personal computer, a TV, or the like. Although not shown in this figure, there are a plurality of information recording devices.
The authentication information recorded on the recording medium 4 is used to identify each information recording device. Details of the authentication information will be described later.

The information storage device 1 comprises a second communication means 11 for communicating with the information recording device 2 via the communication network 3;
A second authentication unit 12 for exchanging authentication information for information acquisition with the information recording device 2 for authentication, and a storage unit 1 for storing information and outputting information according to a request from the information recording device 2
3. An information transmission history recording unit 14 for recording an index (for example, a title or a registration number) of information transmitted from the storage unit 13 to the information recording device for each authentication information, and monitoring the number of times of transmission of the same information by the same authentication information And a notifying unit 16 for notifying when the number of information transmissions exceeds a predetermined value. The information storage device 1 is, for example, a server.

The information obtained from the information storage device 1 is, for example, information relating to cooking, and includes information on cooking menus (names of dishes, ingredients, nutritional balance) and control of cooking appliances used when executing the menus. It is assumed that the information includes information on contents (heating pattern of microwave oven) and a cooking method of the cooking menu (how to cook). The information on the cooking menu is called index data, the information on the control contents of the cooking appliance is called content data, and the way of cooking is called additional data.

An operation flowchart of the information acquisition system of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

First, the recording medium 4 is inserted into the information recording device 2. The information recording device 2 reads the authentication information recorded on the recording medium 4 by the first read / write means 22 (S1). The authentication information is identification information unique to each recording medium.
The authentication information is recorded or read using an encryption function that makes the authentication information invisible to others. Internet or S for encryption
A method used for a D card or the like may be used.

Subsequently, the read authentication information is exchanged with the information storage device 1 from the first communication means 21 via the communication network 3, and the second authentication means 12 authenticates the recording medium (S2). That is, the recording medium to which the information is to be transmitted from the information storage device 1 is authenticated. If the authentication number is not a valid one (S3), the process ends abnormally (S4).

If the authentication is confirmed, the information acquired from the storage means 13 of the information storage device 1 and transmitted to the information recording device 2 is determined and transmitted (S5). The authentication information of the destination recording medium 4 and the index of the information to be transmitted are recorded in the information transmission history recording means 14 (S6).

Here, the type of the transmission information is determined (S
7). If the transmission information includes content data or additional data, the information transmission frequency monitoring means 15 determines whether the frequency of transmission exceeds a predetermined value (S8). If only the index data, the frequency of transmission is not determined. The determination of the frequency is, for example, how many times the same information has been transmitted to a recording medium having the same authentication information within the past month. For example, 1
If it has been transmitted zero or more times, it is determined that the frequency is abnormal, and the notification means 16 notifies (S9). That is, it is unlikely that obtaining the same information many times in a short period of time free of charge is a task performed by the same person. Alternatively, the record may be left and billed later.

As described above, when information is transmitted from the information storage device 1 to the recording medium 4, it is monitored that the same information is frequently acquired with the same authentication information, and it is determined that the frequency is abnormal. Since the notification is made occasionally, an illegal copy due to lending and borrowing of the recording medium can be found at an early stage.

Then, the data is divided into index data indicating the content of the information and content data which is the content of the information itself, and the monitoring target of the number of times of transmission of the information frequently obtains the same information with at least the same authentication information for the content data. Monitoring that the information is copied illegally by a third party at an early stage. In addition, since the monitoring target of the number of times of information transmission monitors at least the same information with the same authentication information for at least additional data, the content data has been obtained in the past, so it is necessary to understand how to use it at that time. It is possible to exclude a person who is the subject, obtain new content data despite having the same authentication information, and mainly monitor a person who does not know how to use the content data.

Next, the configuration of the information acquisition device 5 for reading information recorded on the recording medium 4 will be described with reference to FIG. Third read / write means 51 for reading the acquired information recorded on the recording medium 4, third authentication means 52 for reading and authenticating the authentication information for acquiring the information from the recording medium 4, and storage means 53 for storing the read information An information acquisition history recording unit 54 for recording an index of information acquired from the recording medium 4 for each authentication information; an information acquisition frequency monitoring unit 55 for monitoring the number of times of reading of a recording medium having different authentication information; A notification unit 56 for notifying when it is determined to exist, and a device control unit 57 for controlling the device based on the acquired information are provided. The device control unit 57 may control the information acquisition device 5 by device, or may transmit the acquired information to another device to perform remote control.

Here, an operation flowchart of the information acquisition system of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

First, the recording medium 4 is inserted into the information acquisition device 5. The information acquisition device 2 reads the authentication information recorded on the recording medium 4 by the third reading / writing means 51 (S11).
The authentication information is identification information unique to each recording medium.

Subsequently, the read authentication information is authenticated by the third authentication means 52 (S12). That is, it authenticates from which recording medium the information acquisition device 5 reads. If the authentication number is not a valid one (S13), the process ends abnormally (S14).

If the authentication is confirmed, the information to be acquired by the information acquisition device 5 is read (S15), and the authentication information of the recording medium 4 to be read and the index of the information to be read are recorded in the information acquisition history recording means 54 (S16). ).

Here, the type of the read information is determined (S1).
7). If the read information contains content data or additional data, the information acquisition frequency monitoring means 55 determines whether the frequency of reading exceeds a predetermined value (S18). If it is only the index data, the reading frequency is not determined. The determination of the frequency is, for example, how many times reading has been performed from a recording medium having different authentication information within the past month. For example, 10
If it has been read more than once, it is determined that the frequency is abnormal, and the notification means 56 notifies (S19). That is,
To read many times from different storage media for free in a short period of time warns that the storage media may be owned by multiple people. Alternatively, the record is kept and billing is made later.

As described above, when reading information from the recording medium 4 into the information acquiring apparatus 5, it is monitored that information is frequently acquired with different authentication information, and when the frequency is determined to be abnormal, Since the notification is made, an illegal copy due to the lending and borrowing of the recording medium can be found at an early stage.

Then, the data is divided into index data indicating the content of the information and content data which is the content itself of the information, and the monitoring target of the number of times of obtaining the information is to frequently obtain the information with at least different authentication information for the content data. , It can be found at an early stage that the information itself is illegally copied by a third party. In addition, since the monitoring target of the number of times of information acquisition monitors at least frequent acquisition of information with the same authentication information with respect to the additional data, the content data has been acquired in the past, so it is necessary to understand how to use it at that time. It is possible to remove a person from the target, obtain new content data despite having the same authentication information, and mainly monitor a person who does not know how to use the data.

In this embodiment, an example is described in which a recording medium is interposed between the information storage device and the information acquisition device. However, the information storage device and the information acquisition device are directly connected via a communication line to acquire information. It may be in shape. In this case, the authentication information is manually input to the information acquisition device, or the authentication information is input using a recording medium on which the authentication information is recorded.

Here, the description has been made of the cooking recipe information and the microwave oven as the acquired data, but the present invention is not limited to this as long as the data has the same circumstances. For example, in downloading music, the information of a performer may be used as index data, the music information that causes a music player to output music may be used as content data, and the information of a song name or lyrics may be used as additional data.

In FIG. 2, regarding the cooking recipe information and the microwave oven, the number of times of acquiring the same information by the same authentication information may be monitored and notified when the number exceeds a predetermined value. It has nothing to do with illegal copying, but eating on the same menu every day is not good for your health.

A program that functions as all or a part of the information acquisition system of the present embodiment. And since it is a program, a part or all of the information acquisition system of the present invention can be easily realized using a general-purpose computer or server. Further, by recording the program on a recording medium or distributing the program using a communication line, the program can be easily distributed and installed.

[0042]

As described above, according to the information acquisition system of the present invention, the number of times of acquisition of the same information by the same authentication information is monitored and notified when the number exceeds a predetermined value. Acquisition of information using information can be found at an early stage. When a recording medium is used as a means for transferring information from the information storage device to the information acquisition device,
The number of times of writing the same information to the recording medium or the number of readings from the recording medium by the same authentication information is monitored and notified when the number exceeds a predetermined value. It is possible to achieve both convenience and security that an unauthorized copy by a third party can be detected at an early stage.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram of an information storage device and an information recording device according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an operation flowchart of the information storage device and the information recording device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram of an information acquisition device according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an operation flowchart of the information acquisition apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 information storage device 2 information recording device 3 communication network 4 recording medium 5 information acquisition unit 12 first authentication unit 14 information transmission history recording unit 15 information transmission count monitoring unit 52 third authentication unit 53 information acquisition count monitoring unit 55 information Acquisition history recording means

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification symbol FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) G06F 12/14 320 G06F 12/14 320E 17/30 110 17/30 110F 120 120B 170 170Z // F24C 7 / 02 301 F24C 7/02 301J 301Z 340 340D 340Z (72) Inventor Teruo Yamamoto 1006 Odakadoma, Kadoma, Osaka Prefecture Inside Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (72) Toshihiko Yasui 1006 Odakadoma, Kadoma, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. Incorporated (72) Inventor Toshitaka Shine 1006 Kadoma, Kadoma, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.F-term (reference) ND03 ND14 ND20 ND23 ND34 PQ05 PQ27 PQ32 PR04 UU40

Claims (6)

[Claims] An information acquisition system for authenticating authentication information for information acquisition and outputting information in response to a request from the information acquisition device from an information storage device to the information acquisition device, wherein the same authentication information is used for the same information. An information acquisition system that monitors the number of times information is acquired and notifies when the number exceeds a predetermined value. 2. The information acquisition device according to claim 1, wherein the data acquisition device divides the content data into index data indicating the content of the information and content data which is the content of the information itself, and monitors the number of times of information acquisition at least with respect to the content data. system. 3. The information acquisition apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the information acquisition apparatus divides the content data into content data, which is the content of the information itself, and additional data relating to a method of utilizing the information, and monitors the number of times of information acquisition at least with respect to the additional data. system. 4. The index data relates to a cooking menu, the content data relates to a control content of a cooking appliance used when executing the cooking menu, and the additional data relates to a cooking method of the cooking menu. The information acquisition system according to claim 2 or 3. 5. An information acquisition system for authenticating authentication information for acquiring information and outputting information in response to a request from the information acquisition device from the information storage device to the information acquisition device. In the information acquisition device, which uses a recording device that writes to a recording medium and reads information from the recording medium to acquire information, the number of times of writing to a recording medium having different authentication information or the number of times of reading from a recording medium having different authentication information An information acquisition system that monitors information and notifies when the value exceeds a predetermined value. 6. A program for causing a computer to function as all or a part of the information acquisition system according to any one of claims 1 to 5.