JP5221586B2 - Information provision system - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a data processing technique, and more particularly to a technique for providing information related to a user to the outside.

  With the spread of the Internet and broadband services, various financial services and EC (Electronic Commerce) are provided to users online. Some service providing devices that provide such an online service request user information in order to provide the service. Patent Document 1 below proposes an attribute information disclosure technique that confirms whether or not a user is allowed to provide user information to a service providing apparatus and provides the user information permitted to be provided to the service providing apparatus.

JP 2009-199573 A

  Distributed processing techniques such as cloud computing have been proposed, and a series of processes relating to provision of user information may be executed in a distributed manner by a plurality of devices. The inventor considered that the idea of efficiently providing user information to the outside in such a distributed processing system and a specific method thereof have not been sufficiently proposed so far.

  The present invention has been made on the basis of the above-mentioned problem recognition of the present inventor, and its main object is to provide a technique for efficiently providing user information to the outside in a distributed processing system.

  In order to solve the above problem, an information providing system according to an aspect of the present invention includes a plurality of information providing apparatuses that provide user information indicating user attributes. Each of the plurality of information providing devices includes a request accepting unit that accepts at least a part of an acquisition request from one or more items included in the user information from the external device, and request item information indicating the requested item. When request item information set in other information providing devices and request item information set in other information providing devices is received from the user terminal, user information of items indicated by the request item information is provided to the external device. The permission / rejection confirmation unit that confirms permission / rejection to the user terminal, the permission item notification unit that notifies the permission item information indicating the item permitted to be provided to the external device via the user terminal, and other information providing devices are set. A user information providing unit that provides user information of an item indicated by the permitted item information to the external device when the permitted item information is received from the external device.

  It should be noted that any combination of the above-described constituent elements and a representation of the present invention converted between an apparatus, a method, a system, a program, a recording medium storing the program, and the like are also effective as an aspect of the present invention.

  According to the present invention, user information can be efficiently provided to the outside in a distributed processing system.

It is a figure which shows schematic structure of the information provision system of embodiment. It is a sequence diagram which shows the conventional 1st method of providing user information. It is a sequence diagram which shows the conventional 2nd method of providing user information. It is a block diagram which shows the function structure of the information provision apparatus 104 of FIG. It is a figure which shows an example of the correspondence relationship hold | maintained at a correspondence relationship holding part. It is a figure which shows an example of an information provision request | requirement. It is a figure which shows the structure of conversion compression data. It is a figure which shows an example of a confirmation screen. It is a sequence diagram which shows the provision process of the user information in embodiment.

  FIG. 1 shows a schematic configuration of an information providing system according to an embodiment. The service providing apparatus 300 is a server apparatus that provides a predetermined service in response to a request from the user terminal 200 operated by a user. In this embodiment, it is assumed that the web server provides the user terminal 200 with a web page including information desired by the user. The user terminal 200 is an information processing terminal equipped with a web browser and capable of displaying a web page, and may be a PC or a mobile phone terminal, for example.

  When providing the web page to the user terminal 200, the service providing apparatus 300 requests the provision of information about user attributes (hereinafter also referred to as “user information”) as a condition. In other words, the user terminal 200 needs to provide user information to the service providing apparatus 300 in order to enjoy the service from the service providing apparatus 300. This user information includes various items of information such as name, age, address, gender, occupation, annual income, account number, and credit card number.

  In the present embodiment, the user information is held in the information providing system 100. The user terminal 200 and the service providing apparatus 300 allow the information providing system 100 to provide the user information to the service providing apparatus 300 by appropriately accessing the information providing system 100. Specifically, the service providing apparatus 300 requests the information providing system 100 to provide user information, and the user terminal 200 needs to permit the information providing system 100 to provide user information.

  The information providing system 100 includes a user information DB 102, a first information providing apparatus 104a, a second information providing apparatus 104b,. The user information DB 102 is a back-end database server that includes a storage in which user information is stored and manages user information in an integrated manner. On the other hand, the first information providing apparatus 104a and the second information providing apparatus 104b are front-end information processing apparatuses that accept user information provision requests from the outside, and load-balance a plurality of requests related to provision of user information. To process. Although not shown in FIG. 1, the information providing system 100 may appropriately include a load distribution device that distributes a plurality of external requests.

  From the outside of the information providing system 100 (for example, the user terminal 200 or the service providing apparatus 300), the request is transmitted to a single entity without being aware of the apparatus that actually processes the request related to the provision of user information. For example, a request is transmitted by designating a common address (URL or the like). Each of the plurality of requests to the information providing system 100 is processed by one of the plurality of information providing apparatuses 104. That is, in the information providing system 100, the provision of user information is realized by distributed processing based on cloud computing. 1 are connected to each other by a communication network including known communication means such as LAN / WAN / Internet.

  Next, before describing the characteristic configuration of the present invention, a conventional method for providing user information from the information providing apparatus 104 to the service providing apparatus 300 will be described.

  FIG. 2 is a sequence diagram showing a first conventional method for providing user information. When the user terminal 200 requests the service providing apparatus 300 to provide a service (S10), the service providing apparatus 300 requests the user terminal 200 to provide user information (S12). The user terminal 200 requests the information providing apparatus 104 to provide user information (S14). Based on the request data, the information providing apparatus 104 sets data of a screen (hereinafter also referred to as “confirmation screen”) for confirming whether or not to provide user information (S16). Then, the data of the confirmation screen is transmitted to the user terminal 200 and displayed (S18). Based on the user's operation on the confirmation screen, the user terminal 200 transmits data indicating approval of the provision of user information to the information providing apparatus 104 (S20). The information providing apparatus 104 transmits user information to the user terminal 200 (S22), and the user terminal 200 transmits the acquired user information to the service providing apparatus 300 (S24). Thereafter, a service is provided from the service providing apparatus 300 to the user terminal 200, and for example, a web page desired by the user is transmitted from the service providing apparatus 300 to the user terminal 200.

  In this first method, data for requesting user information is carried around between apparatuses. This data is transmitted, for example, as a URL parameter in an HTTP (GET) request. By the way, the item types (for example, name, age, gender, address, e-mail address,...) Of user information requested by the service providing apparatus 300 from the user terminal 200 may be many, and in this case, the information is transmitted in S14. The size of the requested data becomes large. Generally, a web browser has a limit on the amount of data to be transmitted (for example, the maximum size is limited to 2 KB), so it may be difficult to transmit request data via the web browser. . In general, it is desirable that the network traffic is low, and it is desirable that the data size to be relayed is small in the user terminal 200 in which the amount of hardware resources is likely to be limited as compared with the server device. From this point of view, it can be said that there is room for improvement in the first method.

  FIG. 3 is a sequence diagram showing a second conventional method for providing user information. In the second method, user information is requested from the service providing apparatus 300 to the information providing apparatus 104 in advance, and only pointer information that can uniquely identify the request is carried between the apparatuses. This pointer information is also referred to as “Artifact” or “Response Artifact”. This reduces the amount of data to be handled in the user terminal 200 and solves the problem of the first method. This will be specifically described below.

  The user terminal 200 requests the service providing apparatus 300 to provide a service (S30). The service providing apparatus 300 requests the information providing apparatus 104 to provide user information (S32). The information providing apparatus 104 stores the request data in the local storage (S34). Information indicating that the request data has been received, and the information providing apparatus 104 transmits pointer information (hereinafter also referred to as “request reception information”) that uniquely points to the request data to the service providing apparatus 300 (S36). ). This request acceptance information is information indicating the storage location of request data in the local storage of the information providing apparatus 104, for example. The service providing apparatus 300 transfers the request reception information to the user terminal 200 (S38), and the user terminal 200 transmits the request reception information to the information providing apparatus 104 (S40). The information providing apparatus 104 identifies the original request data based on the request acceptance information, and sets confirmation screen data from the request data (S42).

  Subsequently, the information providing apparatus 104 transmits the data of the confirmation screen to the user terminal 200 for display (S44), and the user terminal 200 transmits data indicating that the provision of user information is permitted to the information providing apparatus 104 (S46). ). The information providing apparatus 104 is information indicating that the provision of user information is permitted, and transmits pointer information uniquely pointing to the original request data (hereinafter also referred to as “provision permission information”) to the user terminal 200. (S48). This provision permission information is, for example, a part of the request acceptance information that has been modified (a specific item value or bit value has been changed to a value indicating provision permission information). The user terminal 200 transfers the provision permission information to the service provision apparatus 300 (S50), and the service provision apparatus 300 transmits the provision permission information to the information provision apparatus 104 (S52). The information providing apparatus 104 identifies the original request data based on the provision permission information, acquires the requested user information from a predetermined storage device (for example, the user information DB 102) (S54), and transmits it to the service providing apparatus 300. (S56).

  As described above, since the data carried between devices in the second method becomes pointer information of the request data, the data amount is reduced, but a new problem occurs in the second method. That is, when an external request is distributed and processed by a plurality of information providing apparatuses 104 as in the information providing system 100, the information providing apparatus 104 that accepts request data from the service providing apparatus 300 and sets request acceptance information. And the information providing apparatus 104 that receives the request reception information from the user terminal 200 may be different. For example, when the service providing apparatus 300 is installed in country A and the user terminal 200 is installed in country B, the request from the service providing apparatus 300 is processed by the information providing apparatus 104 installed in country A. A request from the user terminal 200 may be processed by the information providing apparatus 104 installed in the country B. In this case, since the original request data is not held in the information providing apparatus 104 that has received the request from the user terminal 200, the original request data cannot be reproduced from the request reception information. As a result, the user information providing process Will not be able to continue.

  Although it is conceivable to perform replication between local storages of a plurality of information providing apparatuses 104, since replication requires a certain amount of time, replication may not be in time. When processing is delayed until the completion of replication, the time required from receiving a request to providing information increases, and the service level decreases, such as a decrease in throughput.

  Therefore, in the present embodiment, there is a second method in which the reception information having a smaller size is carried around between apparatuses rather than the data requesting the provision of user information (hereinafter also referred to as “information provision request”). A technique is proposed in which the above-mentioned disadvantages of the second method are improved while maintaining the technical idea. Specifically, a technique is proposed in which any information providing apparatus 104 can reproduce the original information provision request from the received information.

  FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of the information providing apparatus 104 in FIG. Each block shown in the block diagram of the present specification can be realized in terms of hardware by an element such as a CPU of a computer or a mechanical device, and in terms of software, it can be realized by a computer program or the like. The functional block realized by those cooperation is drawn. Therefore, those skilled in the art will understand that these functional blocks can be realized in various forms by a combination of hardware and software. For example, each functional block may be stored in a recording medium as a computer program, installed in a hard disk of the information providing apparatus 104, read appropriately in the main memory of the information providing apparatus 104, and executed by the processor.

  The information providing apparatus 104 includes a correspondence relationship holding unit 10 and a data processing unit 20 that executes various data processing. The data processing unit 20 includes a reception processing unit 30 that executes processing related to reception of an information provision request, a confirmation processing unit 40 that executes processing related to confirmation of whether or not to provide user information, and related to provision of user information. And a providing processing unit 50 for executing the processing. The reception processing unit 30 includes a request reception unit 32, a request item setting unit 34, and a request item notification unit 36. The confirmation processing unit 40 includes a request item reception unit 42, a permission / rejection confirmation unit 44, a permission item setting unit 46, and a permission item notification unit 48. The provision processing unit 50 includes a permission item reception unit 52, a user information acquisition unit 54, and a user information provision unit 56. Although not shown in FIG. 4, the information providing apparatus 104 further includes a communication control unit that transmits and receives various data to be processed by the data processing unit 20 to and from an external device via a communication network.

  The correspondence relationship holding unit 10 is a storage area that holds a correspondence relationship between data included in the information provision request and other data. This correspondence relationship is referred to when mapping the information provision request to other data. FIG. 5 shows an example of the correspondence relationship held in the correspondence relationship holding unit 10. In the item name field of the figure, names of a plurality of items included in the user information are set. This name is a character string in a format set in the information provision request, and is set in a URL format, for example. In the item number field, an item number for uniquely identifying each item (in other words, the ID of each item) is set. A display name for displaying each item on the confirmation screen is set in the display name field. Note that the display name “hidden” is not displayed on the confirmation screen.

  Returning to FIG. 4, the request receiving unit 32 receives the information providing request transmitted from the service providing apparatus 300. FIG. 6 shows an example of an information provision request. The request item 60 in FIG. 6 indicates that the OpenID Attribute Exchange (attribute exchange) version is “1.1”. The request item 62 is for requesting the user's nickname, and “mark” is set as a default value. The request item 64 requests the user's mail address, and the request item 66 requests the user's language.

  Returning to FIG. 4, the request item setting unit 34 refers to the correspondence relationship of the correspondence relationship holding unit 10, and is data obtained by compressing the information provision request, and the content of the information provision request can be reproduced at a later time ( Hereinafter, it is also referred to as “conversion compressed data”.

  FIG. 7 shows the structure of the converted compressed data. In the converted compressed data 70, the request item information 72 and the parameter information 74 are concatenated with “:” as a delimiter character. The requested item information 72 is information indicating which item is requested among a plurality of items included in the user information, and is a character string indicating the item number of the requested item. The parameter information 74 includes one or more parameters 76 set for one or more items of user information. The parameter 76 is data set on the service providing apparatus 300 side and added to the information provision request, and is typically a character string to be confirmed by the user. For example, “1.1” of the request item 60 in FIG. 4 and “mark” in the request item 62 are applicable. As shown in FIG. 7, in the parameter information 74, one or more parameters 76 are concatenated with “,” as a delimiter character. The delimiter characters “:” and “,” are merely examples, and other characters (sequences) and bit sequences may of course be used. For example, any character other than the communication protocol applied to the transmission / reception of the converted compressed data or the character whose use is restricted by the protocol of the message in which the converted compressed data is set may be used.

  A method for setting the request item information 72 by the request item setting unit 34 will be described. First, for a bit string in binary notation with the number of items included in user information as a bit length, the bit corresponding to the item number specified in the information provision request is “1”, and the item number not specified (that is, not requested) A bit string in which the bit corresponding to is set to “0” is set. Here, the number of items included in the user information is, in other words, the number of items of user information held in the correspondence holding unit 10, and is assumed to be 10 bits in the present embodiment. The bit corresponding to the item number corresponds to the number of bits of the item number as it is, for example, the item number “1” is the first digit (LSB), the item number 2 is the second digit,. Corresponds to the 10th digit (MSB). Therefore, in the case of the information provision request in FIG. 6, the bit string “0100000011” is set.

  Next, the request item information 72 is a character string (n-ary character string) in which the value of the bit string set above is expressed with the predetermined value n as a radix. The radix n is preferably as large as possible within the range of the number of characters that can be distinguished in a predetermined character code. This is because as the radix n is larger, the value of the bit string can be expressed with a smaller number of digits, and the data size of the request item information 72 can be reduced. In other words, the compression efficiency is increased.

  For example, when the request item information 72 is expressed using an 8-bit character code, for example, (a part of) a shift JIS code, n = 256 may be set. Moreover, when using an ASCII code, n = 16 (0-9, AF), n = 62 (0-9, az, AZ), n = 96 (ASCII printable character), It may be set to any one of n = 128 (ASCII control character and ASCII printable character). Moreover, the arbitrary number which satisfy | fills n <= 128 may be sufficient. In the present embodiment, n = 62. The previous bit string “0100000111” is expressed as “4f” as the request item information 72.

  A method for setting the parameter information 74 by the request item setting unit 34 will be described. The request item setting unit 34 sets a value (for example, a set value or a default value in the service providing apparatus 300) set in association with the item of user information in the information provision request as a parameter 76 in association with the item number. Then, the parameter 76 is connected to form parameter information 74. In the present embodiment, the parameter information 74 set from the information provision request in FIG. 6 is “1 = 1.1, 2 = mark”. Therefore, the converted compressed data 70 finally set from the information provision request in FIG. 6 is “4f: 1 = 1.1, 2 = mark”. In this case, the information provision request is 256 characters, while the converted compressed data 70 is 13 characters, and the data size is compressed to about 1/18.

  Returning to FIG. 4, the request item notification unit 36 transmits the converted compressed data set in the request item setting unit 34 to the service providing apparatus 300. The converted compressed data corresponds to the request reception information in the second method of FIG. 3, and the service providing apparatus 300 transmits the converted compressed data received from the information providing apparatus 104 to the user terminal 200.

  The request item receiving unit 42 receives the converted compressed data transmitted from the user terminal 200. The permission confirmation unit 44 reproduces the content of the original information provision request from the converted compressed data. Specifically, one or more items requested to be provided are specified from the conversion compressed data request item information 72, and the parameter value set for each item is specified from the parameter information 74 of the conversion compression data. For example, the bit string “0100000111” is identified from the request item information 72 “4f” of the converted compressed data “4f: 1 = 1.1, 2 = mark”, and it is determined that the item numbers 1 to 3 and 9 are requested. Further, from parameter information 74 “1 = 1.1, 2 = mark”, it is determined that “1.1” is set as the parameter of item number 1 and “mark” is set as the parameter of item number 2.

  The permission / rejection confirmation unit 44 refers to the correspondence relationship of the correspondence relationship holding unit 10, identifies the display name of the requested item number, and confirms that the user information item corresponding to the item number is requested on the confirmation screen. Set as data. In addition, set values and default values set as parameters are also set as confirmation screen data. Note that the item whose display name is “non-display” is not set in the data of the confirmation screen.

  FIG. 8 shows an example of the confirmation screen. A confirmation screen 80 shown in FIG. 5 shows a confirmation screen set based on the converted compressed data “4f: 1 = 1.1, 2 = mark”. The check box 82 is a check box for the user to give a check to an item for which provision is permitted. For example, when the user refuses to provide an e-mail address, the user does not check the check box of the e-mail address (uncheck the check box). The input field 84 is a field for inputting a changed nickname (here, “Taro”) when changing “mark” set as a default value by the service providing apparatus 300. When the send button 86 is pressed, the web browser of the user terminal 200 displays the check status of the check box 82 on the confirmation screen 80 (that is, whether or not user information is provided) and the data input to the input field 84 as an information providing device. 104.

  Returning to FIG. 4, the permission item setting unit 46 sets the converted compressed data in the format shown in FIG. 7 based on the provision permission / refusal status notified from the user terminal 200. The permitted item setting unit 46 sets a bit corresponding to an item number for which provision is permitted to “1”, and sets a bit corresponding to an item number for which provision has been refused or provision is not requested to be “0”. Set. Then, the request item information 72 is a character string expressing the value of the bit string with the predetermined value n as a radix. For example, as shown in FIG. 8, when the provision of the mail address is rejected, the bit string is “0100000011”, and therefore the request item information 72 when n = 62 is “4b”.

  The permission item setting unit 46 sets parameter information 74 for the parameters of the items displayed on the confirmation screen 80 based on the input contents to the confirmation screen 80. On the other hand, parameters of items not displayed on the confirmation screen 80 are inherited as they are. For example, parameter information 74 not displayed on the confirmation screen 80 among the parameter information 74 of the converted compressed data received by the request item receiving unit 42 may be set as it is as the parameter information 74 of the converted compressed data based on the provision permission / denial status. Good. When the nickname is changed as shown in FIG. 8, the parameter information 74 is set as “1 = 1.1, 2 = Taro”. Therefore, the converted compressed data finally set from the provision permission / inhibition status of FIG. 8 is “4b: 1 = 1.1, 2 = Taro”.

  The permission item notification unit 48 transmits the converted compressed data set by the permission item setting unit 46 to the user terminal 200. The converted compressed data corresponds to the provision permission information in the second method of FIG. 3, and the user terminal 200 transmits the converted compressed data received from the information providing apparatus 104 to the service providing apparatus 300.

  The permission item receiving unit 52 receives the converted compressed data transmitted from the service providing apparatus 300. The user information acquisition unit 54 executes the analysis processing of the converted compressed data in the same manner as the permission confirmation unit 44 and reproduces the contents of the original provision permission / denial status from the converted compressed data. Specifically, one or more items permitted to be provided are specified by converting the value of the request item information 72 of the converted compressed data into binary notation. Further, the parameter value set for each item is specified from the parameter information 74 of the converted compressed data. The user information acquisition unit 54 refers to the correspondence held in the correspondence holding unit 10, identifies the item name of the item number permitted to be provided, and obtains user information corresponding to the item name from the user information DB 102. get.

  For example, when the request item information 72 is “4b” in 62 notation, since the binary notation is “0100000011”, the version, nickname, and language used for attribute exchange are acquired from the user information DB 102. For items for which data is specified in the parameter information 74 (for example, nicknames input on the confirmation screen 80 in FIG. 8), the specified content in the parameter information 74 has priority over the information stored in the user information DB 102. Then, the service providing apparatus 300 may be notified. In other words, the user information in the user information DB 102 may be replaced with a parameter setting value.

  The user information providing unit 56 transmits the user information acquired by the user information acquiring unit 54 to the service providing apparatus 300. In accordance with this, the parameter value of each item set in the converted compressed data is transmitted to the service providing apparatus 300. The user information provision unit 56 may transmit data in the same or corresponding format as the information provision request in FIG. 6, for example, data in a format in which user information and parameter values are set as “value” like the request item 62.

  The operation of the above configuration will be described below. Hereinafter, the service providing apparatus 300 accesses the first information providing apparatus 104a, and the user terminal 200 accesses the second information providing apparatus 104b. However, it goes without saying that provision of user information may be realized by various combinations of the plurality of information providing apparatuses 104. For example, a reception information processing unit 30 of a third information providing device (not shown), a confirmation processing unit 40 of the first information providing device 104a, and a provision processing unit 50 of the second information providing device 104b provide one information. A series of information providing processes triggered by requests may be executed in a distributed manner.

  FIG. 9 is a sequence diagram illustrating a user information providing process according to the embodiment. The user terminal 200 requests the service providing apparatus 300 to provide a service (S60). The service providing apparatus 300 requests the first information providing apparatus 104a to provide user information (S62). The request receiving unit 32 of the first information providing apparatus 104a receives the request (information providing request), and the request item setting unit 34 sets request status compressed data that is compressed data obtained by converting the information providing request (S64). ). Then, the request item notifying unit 36 transmits the request status compressed data to the service providing apparatus 300 (S66). The service providing apparatus 300 transfers the request situation compressed data to the user terminal 200 (S68), and the user terminal 200 transmits the request situation compressed data to the second information providing apparatus 104b (S70).

  Subsequently, the request item accepting unit 42 of the second information providing apparatus 104b accepts the request situation compressed data, and the permission / refusal confirmation unit 44 sets confirmation screen data based on the request situation compressed data (S72). Is transmitted to the user terminal 200 to display a confirmation screen (S74). The user terminal 200 notifies the second information providing apparatus 104b of a provision permission / denial status indicating whether or not provision of user information is permitted (S76). The permission item setting unit 46 of the second information providing apparatus 104b accepts the provision permission / denial status, sets permission / denial status compression data that is compressed data obtained by converting the provision permission / prohibition status (S78), and the permission item notification unit 48 sets the permission status. The compressed data is transmitted to the user terminal 200 (S80). The user terminal 200 transfers the permission / prohibition status compressed data to the service providing apparatus 300 (S82), and the service providing apparatus 300 transmits the permission / prohibition status compressed data to the first information providing apparatus 104a (S84).

  Subsequently, the permission item accepting unit 52 of the first information providing apparatus 104a accepts permission / denial situation compressed data, and the user information obtaining unit 54 obtains user information from the user information DB 102 based on the permission / prohibition situation compressed data (S86). . The user information providing unit 56 of the first information providing apparatus 104a transmits the user information and the parameter value set by the user to the service providing apparatus 300 (S88). Thereafter, based on the user information provided from the first information providing apparatus 104a, the service providing apparatus 300 determines whether or not the service can be provided, and the service provision to the user terminal 200 is appropriately executed.

  According to the information providing system 100 of the present embodiment, the converted compressed data (requested state compressed data, permission / prohibition state compressed data) obtained by compressing the original information provision request and the provisional permission / prohibition state is carried between apparatuses. Thereby, even when the number of items of user information to be provided is large, the amount of data to be handled by an application such as a web browser is reduced, and it is possible to avoid exceeding the limit of the amount of handled data in the application. Network traffic can also be reduced. That is, it is possible to solve the problem caused by the above-described conventional first method.

  I will add some comments on the original information provision request and the compression of provision permission / denial status. By representing the requested item or the item permitted to be provided by the item number instead of the item name itself, the size of the converted compressed data can be reduced. Moreover, the size of the converted compressed data can be further reduced by expressing the number of items as a bit string (binary character string) having a bit length. Furthermore, the size of the converted compressed data can be further reduced by converting to a larger n-ary character string.

  Further, according to the information providing system 100, the content of the original information provision request can be specified from the request status compressed data, and the content of the original provision permission / denial status can be specified from the permission status compressed data. As a result, it is not necessary to store the original information provision request and provision permission / denial status, and it is not necessary to refer to the stored information later, and a series of processes necessary for providing user information is distributed in a plurality of information providing apparatuses 104. Executed. That is, it is possible to solve the problem caused by the above-described conventional second method.

  In the information providing system 100, provision of user information is realized in accordance with the mechanism of the conventional second method. That is, for the service providing apparatus 300 and the user terminal 200 that are external apparatuses of the information providing system 100, only the data carried around is changed, and the operation may be performed in the same manner as the conventional second method. In other words, the external device that accesses the information providing system 100 is not forced to have a special configuration, and the problem caused by the conventional second method can be solved.

  I will add to the distributed execution of processes required to provide user information. In the conventional second method, it is necessary to save the information provision request, so that it becomes a stateful processing mode, and there is a problem that distributed execution is restricted. On the other hand, in the proposal method according to the present embodiment, it is not necessary to store an information provision request or provision permission / denial status, and any of the plurality of information provision apparatuses 104 can execute the same process. In other words, it is a stateless processing mode, and there are no restrictions on distributed execution. Thereby, a series of processes required for providing user information can be more efficiently distributed and executed.

  Further, according to the information providing system 100, not only the item name set in advance in the correspondence relationship of the correspondence relationship holding unit 10, but also the parameter set in the service providing device 300 and the parameter set in the user terminal 200 are Set to conversion compressed data and carry around between devices. Thereby, not only the user information prescribed | regulated previously but arbitrary parameter values can be mutually notified between the service provision apparatus 300 and the user terminal 200. FIG.

  The present invention has been described based on the embodiments. This embodiment is an exemplification, and it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various modifications can be made to combinations of the respective constituent elements and processing processes, and such modifications are also within the scope of the present invention. is there. A modification is shown below.

  In the above embodiment, the parameter information 74 corresponding to any item of the user information is set in the converted compressed data 70. In the modification, arbitrary information that is information included in the information provision request from the service providing apparatus 300 and does not correspond to any item of the user information may be set in the converted compressed data 70. And this arbitrary information may be displayed on the confirmation screen as it is. Similarly, any information that is input on the confirmation screen and does not correspond to any item of the user information may be set in the converted compressed data 70 or may be provided to the service providing apparatus 300 as it is. For example, the arbitrary information may be set in the format of “: arbitrary character string” after the parameter information 74 in the converted compressed data 70. According to this modification, not only user information defined in advance but also arbitrary information can be mutually notified between the service providing apparatus 300 and the user terminal 200.

  Although not specifically mentioned in the above-described embodiment, the request item setting unit 34 uses the common key information (character string or the like) predetermined among the plurality of information providing apparatuses 104 to convert and compress the compressed data 70 (request The situation compression data) may be encrypted. The permission / rejection confirmation unit 44 decrypts the encrypted request status compressed data using the common key information and sets a confirmation screen. Similarly, the permission item setting unit 46 may encrypt the converted compressed data 70 (permission / rejection situation compressed data) using the common key information. The user information acquisition unit 54 decrypts the encrypted permission / denial situation compressed data using the common key information, and acquires user information. As an encryption algorithm in this case, a public key algorithm such as DES or AES is adopted because the disclosure range of key information is limited to a plurality of information providing apparatuses 104 and processing time is preferably short. May be.

  According to this modification, it is possible to prevent the leakage of user information even when a malicious third party obtains the converted compressed data. The part of the requested item information 72 in the converted compressed data 70 is coded, and unless the item number and the radix n of each item of the user information are leaked, the original data is restored (that is, the requested item). Identification is difficult. Therefore, in order to shorten the time required for encryption and decryption, only the parameter information 74 may be encrypted.

  Although not particularly mentioned in the above-described embodiment, processing that uses each of a plurality of information provision requests as a trigger may be executed in parallel between the plurality of information provision apparatuses 104. In this case, in the single information providing apparatus 104, processing related to different information provision requests may be executed in parallel by each of the reception processing unit 30, the confirmation processing unit 40, and the provision processing unit 50. According to this modification, a series of processes relating to provision of user information can be distributed more efficiently by making use of the stateless processing mode that is a feature of the embodiment. Furthermore, the throughput of the user information providing process can be improved by effectively utilizing the system resources of the information providing system 100.

  Any combination of the above-described embodiments and modifications is also useful as an embodiment of the present invention. The new embodiment generated by the combination has the effects of the combined embodiment and the modified examples.

  It should also be understood by those skilled in the art that the functions to be fulfilled by the constituent elements described in the claims are realized by the individual constituent elements shown in the embodiments and the modification examples or by their cooperation.

  10 Correspondence Relationship Holding Unit, 32 Request Accepting Unit, 34 Request Item Setting Unit, 36 Request Item Notifying Unit, 42 Request Item Accepting Unit, 44 Permit / Reject Checking Unit, 46 Permitted Item Setting Unit, 48 Permitted Item Notifying Unit, 52 Permitted Item Accepting Part, 54 user information acquisition part, 56 user information provision part, 100 information provision system, 102 user information DB, 104 information provision apparatus, 200 user terminal, 300 service provision apparatus.

Claims (6)

A plurality of information providing devices for providing user information indicating user attributes;
Each of the plurality of information providing devices includes:
A request accepting unit for accepting at least a part of an acquisition request from one or more items included in the user information;
A request item notification unit that notifies request item information indicating a requested item to a user terminal via the external device;
When request item information set in another information providing device is received from the user terminal, a permission / rejection confirmation unit that confirms whether or not the user information is provided to the external device for the user information of the item indicated by the request item information When,
A permission item notification unit that notifies permission item information indicating an item permitted to be provided to the external device via the user terminal;
A user information providing unit that provides user information of an item indicated by the permitted item information to the external device when the permitted item information set in the other information providing device is received from the external device. Information provision system. Each of the plurality of information providing devices further includes a correspondence holding unit that holds the same correspondence in which each of the one or more items is associated with an item number for uniquely identifying each item,
The request item notification unit notifies information indicating an item number of the requested item as the request item information,
The permission / rejection confirmation unit confirms permission / prohibition of provision of user information corresponding to the item number indicated by the request item information,
The permission item notification unit notifies information indicating an item number corresponding to user information permitted to be provided as the permission item information,
The information providing system according to claim 1, wherein the user information providing unit provides user information corresponding to an item number indicated by the permission item information to the external device. The request item notifying unit has a bit length of the number of items of user information, and information indicating a bit string of a bit string having a bit at a position indicated by the item number of the requested item different from other bits. Notification as the request item information,
The permission / refusal confirmation unit confirms permission / prohibition of provision of user information corresponding to a position where the different value is set in the bit string indicated by the request item information,
The permission item notifying unit has a bit length of the number of items of user information, and a bit string of a bit string having a value different from other bits as a bit at a position indicated by an item number of the user information permitted to be provided. Information to indicate as the permission item information,
The information providing system according to claim 2, wherein the user information providing unit provides the external device with user information corresponding to a position where the different value is set in the bit string indicated by the permission item information.   The request item notifying unit notifies a character string representing the bit length value as the request item information with a value as large as possible within the range of the number of characters that can be distinguished in a predetermined character code. The information providing system according to claim 3, wherein: The request item notification unit is information received from the external device, and notifies additional information to be confirmed in the user terminal in association with the request item information.
5. The information providing system according to claim 1, wherein the permission confirmation unit presents the additional information to the user terminal when confirming whether the provision of user information is permitted. The request item notification unit encrypts at least the additional information of the request item information and the additional information with a common key among the plurality of information providing devices,
6. The information providing system according to claim 5, wherein the permission / refusal confirmation unit confirms whether or not to provide user information after decrypting the encrypted data with the common key.

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