JPH0739226B2 - Information recording medium and device using the same - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a technique for preventing alteration or forgery of an information recording medium such as a so-called prepaid card, and more specifically, an information recording medium for which alteration or forgery is prevented. And a device using the same.

[Conventional technology]

Most of the prepaid cards used at present are magnetically encoded. Price information is encoded in the magnetic material of the inner layer with a high Curie point temperature.To prevent fraud, by coating the outer layer with a magnetic material with a high magnetic permeability and a low Curie point temperature, It is configured to prevent access by a general magnetic head.

In this regard, for example, the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 58-43077 can be referred to.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention]

In the prepaid card configured as described above, if the temperature of the outer layer magnetic body is raised to the Curie point temperature or higher, the inner layer magnetic body can be accessed and illegal writing due to alteration can be performed.

As described above, the prepaid card fraud prevention method currently in practical use is a mere hardware method, and therefore has a problem that it can be forged or forged by anyone having some knowledge. Is.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems in the related art and to prevent fraud by an ordinary criminal instead of merely a hardware-based fraud prevention method. An object of the present invention is to provide an information recording medium that cannot be used and an apparatus using the same.

[Means for Solving the Problems]

In order to achieve the above object, the information recording medium (prepaid card 1) of the present invention is (a) each information recording medium of a portion (data track 2) in which an encoded result (encoded data 3) of information such as an amount of money is written. Bad spots 4 are provided in irregular places that differ from one to another, and the encoding result including the bad spot information unique to the bad spot 4 is used as the unique information of the information recording medium (prepaid card 1) to write the information. (Data track 2)
Is written in.

Further, (b) an information recording medium using device (ticket vending machine or the like) of the present invention is a device using an information recording medium (prepaid card 1) in which encoded information is recorded, and each information recording medium ( The pre-paid card 1) is generated and recorded by encoding information including identification information (bad spot information) of a portion (bad spot 4) in which information cannot be recorded, which is given in advance at an irregular location. The information recording medium (prepaid card 1) is characterized in that it has means (control circuit 35) for judging whether the information recording medium (prepaid card 1) is illegitimate or not based on information peculiar to the information recording medium.

(C) The information recording medium using device (ticket vending machine or the like) described in (b) above is a means (prepaid card) for adding a new bad spot 4 each time the information recording medium (prepaid card 1) is used. It is characterized by having a card reader / writer 32).

[Action]

In the information recording medium according to the present invention, at the time of manufacturing or issuance, a so-called bad spot in which information cannot be written is created in the information encoding portion of the information recording medium, and at the time of issuance, data including this bad spot information is recorded. Encode. This encoding is performed using an encryption method using a random number table or the like. As a result, unauthorized use due to duplication or the like is impossible unless the bad spot is located at the same place.

Further, in the device using the above information recording medium,
It is provided with a function of decoding the above-mentioned encoding information, calculating the remaining amount information after use, encoding it again in a form including the bad spot information, and writing.

If different bad spots are created in each of the above information recording media, since the information to be encoded includes bad spot information, different information is recorded even in the same type (initially same value) information recording medium. Will be written. Therefore, even if a criminal reads the information data bit array (not just the data content but a mere bit array) of a new information recording medium by some method and tries to write it on the information recording medium with a small balance at hand. Since the bad spot information is different, the new information obtained earlier is useless. That is, forgery / alteration is impossible without knowing the processing method of the bad spot information. With this, even if
Even if the unused (unissued) information recording medium is illegally leaked, there is an effect that it is not used.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an outline of an information data writing portion of a prepaid card which is the information recording medium showing an embodiment of the present invention. Data writing is generally magnetic, but the present invention is not limited to this.

A data track 2 is provided on the prepaid card 1, and encoded data 3 is written therein. Reference numeral 5 is a direction mark for designating the insertion direction of the card. A bad spot 4 is formed in at least one place on the data track 2. The bad spot 4 is, for example, a laser trimming or other mechanical method that scratches the data track 2 and disables data writing. It suffices that the bad spot 4 has a size of about several bits, and it may be one bit.

FIG. 2 shows a flow chart of the issuing operation when the above-mentioned bad spot 4 is built in when the prepaid card 1 is issued. In this example, a bad spot is created by the method such as laser trimming described above when the card is issued (step 11), and the test data is written / read (step 1).
2) to confirm the position, size, etc. of the bad spot, then read the information of the bad spot (step
13), encrypt with other amount information etc. (Step 1
Four). The encryption method generally uses the above-mentioned random number table, but a polynomial calculation method or the like can also be used. Also, if the encryption method is used as it is in a general software program, it may be decrypted by some method, but this encrypted part is an internal circuit internal process that cannot be read from the outside. By doing so, fraud prevention can be made more reliable. The information encrypted as described above is encoded in the prepaid card 1 (step 15),
publish.

Next, the operation of using the prepaid card issued by the above method will be described with reference to FIG.

First, since the read information of the prepaid card 1 is encrypted, it is decrypted and developed into data to be actually used (step 21). Based on this data, it is determined whether or not the device using the prepaid card can be used (step 2
2). If the use is permitted, the balance is cleared after the use of the device is completed (step 23). Next, in order to show that the balance has decreased, a step 24 of adding a bad spot 4 to the same prepaid card 1 is provided.
Following step 24, the test data is written and read (step 25) as in the operation at the time of issuance, and then the information on both the new and old bad spots is read (step 2
6) Finally, encrypt with other amount information and the like (step 27). The encrypted new balance and new bad spot information are encoded in the prepaid card 1 (step 28), and all the operations are completed.

According to the above embodiment, the prepaid card can be used as an information recording medium that cannot be used illegally by a normal criminal. There is also an effect that a device using this can be realized.

In the above operation, the steps from the addition of a new bad spot in step 24 to the detection of a new bad spot in step 26 can be omitted. However,
In terms of fraud prevention effect, it is more effective when not omitted.

The addition of the new bad spot described above can also be used to prevent misuse of a prepaid card that has been used up.

FIG. 4 shows a schematic configuration of the above-mentioned prepaid card using device. This configuration example is a ticket vending machine using a prepaid card. In the figure, 31 is a user operation unit, 32 is a prepaid card reading / writing machine, 33 is a prepaid card insertion slot, 34 is a ticket issuing machine, and 35 is a control circuit for controlling the whole. The operation of this device is that the contents of the prepaid card inserted from the prepaid card insertion slot 33 are read by the reading / writing machine 32 according to the destination specified by the user on the operation section 31, and the contents are read, and then the ticket issuing machine Tickets will be issued from 34. The control circuit 35 controls each of these functional blocks,
The above-mentioned reading / writing machine 32 performs reading / reading of contents / clearing of balance, addition of bad spots, re-encoding, etc. of the prepaid card according to the flow chart shown in FIG. In addition to the control of each of the functional blocks described above, the control circuit 35 may share the internal signal processing of the reader / writer 32 if the capacity is sufficient.

Here, the aforementioned bad spot information will be described.
As the bad spot information, information such as the position and width of the bad spot, the data sector having the bad spot, or the like is used alone or in combination. Further, as a prepaid card encoding method, various methods as shown in FIG. 5 can be considered. FIG. 5A shows a bad spot area 41.
And a general data area 42 containing the encoded data 3 is included. The fifth (b) is a method in which the general data areas 42 and 42 'are provided before and after the bad spot area 41, and FIG. 5 (c) is a bad spot. A truck dedicated to area 41,
A method of providing the data separately from the general data area 42 is shown.

〔The invention's effect〕

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, at the time of issuance, an information writing portion of an information recording medium in which information such as an amount of money is encoded is placed in a bad spot at a different irregular place of each information recording medium. Due to the provision, unauthorized use such as duplication is impossible except when there is a bad spot at exactly the same place. In particular, if a new bat spot is added when the balance decreases, even if there is a bad spot at the exact same place, it is possible to duplicate the same value and it is economical. Has no profit.

Further, by providing a plurality of bad spots on the valuable information recording medium, the establishment of fraud prevention can be further improved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an outline of an information data writing portion of a prepaid card which is the information recording medium showing an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a flow chart of an issuing operation when a bad spot is created at the time of issuing a prepaid card. 3, FIG. 3 is an operation flowchart in the prepaid card using apparatus, FIG. 4 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a configuration example of the prepaid card using apparatus, and FIG. 5 is a diagram showing various prepaid card encoding methods. 1: Prepaid card, 2: Data track, 3: Encoded data, 4: Bad spot, 5: Direction mark, 41: Bad spot area, 42, 42 ': General data area.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification code Internal reference number FI Technical display location G06K 19/10 G07F 7/12 G07F 7/08 C

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. An information recording medium in which information such as an amount of money is encoded and written, and a portion in which information cannot be written in an irregular portion different in each information recording medium in a portion in which the encoded result is written. (Bad spot) is provided, and an encoding result including unique information (bad spot information) of each bad spot is written in the information writing portion as unique information of the information recording medium. recoding media. 2. An apparatus using an information recording medium on which encoded information is recorded, wherein a portion (bad spot) where recording of information previously given to an irregular location different for each information recording medium is impossible (bad spot) ) Identification information (bad spot information), the information recording medium is generated and recorded by encoding the information and is unique to the information recording medium. Information recording medium using device. 3. The information recording medium using apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising means for adding a new bad spot each time the information recording medium is used.