JPH11283125A - Pos system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To improve the convenience of an electronic journal while guaranteeing its reliability and maintainability. SOLUTION: Each POS terminal 1 is provided with an electronic journal preparing means 3 for preparing the electronic journal recording transaction information, certificate data preparing means 5 for generating certificate data enciphered by a prescribed method from the transaction information for each transaction and recording them as one part of the electronic journal and electronic journal distributing means 4 for transmitting the electronic journal to a store controller 10. Besides, the store controller 10 is provided with an electronic journal collecting means 11 for receiving the electronic journal and an electronic journal checking means 14 for comparing the certificate data with the transaction information. When the data on the electronic journal are revised, the revise can be known from the non-coincidence with the certificate data. Since the transaction information itself is not enciphered, on the other hand, in the case of reading the electronic journal, its convenience is improved.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a POS system including a plurality of POS terminals and a store controller, and more particularly to authentication of an electronic journal recording merchandise transaction information in a POS system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a POS system, as an alternative to a conventional paper journal that records the contents of commodity transactions,
The use of electronic journals that digitize the contents of commodity transactions is allowed. As with other electronic information, electronic journals are extremely easy to perform operations such as data search, rearrangement, and extraction, and their effective use is expected.

On the other hand, each data including the sales amount on the electronic journal is stored on a rewritable recording medium and can be easily changed, so that there is a possibility that the data is falsified by a user of the POS system. An electronic journal, like a conventional paper journal, functions as evidence for certifying the contents of a commodity transaction, so it is necessary to protect against such tampering of data and guarantee the reliability of the data.

[0004] For this reason, in a conventional POS system, it is common practice to encrypt, transmit, and store all information in an electronic journal. The encryption makes it impossible for a POS system user who does not know the key for decrypting the data to falsify the data on the electronic journal.

[0005]

However, in the conventional system, since the encryption is performed for all the information in the electronic journal, it takes time to encrypt the data, and the transaction in the POS system can be smoothly performed. Problems such as the inability to perform it, and the need to decrypt the encrypted information when searching electronic journals, etc., which takes time and hinders its convenience. was there.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned conventional problems, and has an electronic journal authentication function which guarantees the reliability and maintainability of an electronic journal without impairing its convenience. It is intended to provide a POS system.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a POS system comprising a POS terminal and a store controller. In the present invention, the POS terminal includes an electronic journal creating means for creating an electronic journal recording merchandise transaction information, and generates authentication data for each transaction by a predetermined method from information on each transaction in the electronic journal. An authentication journal generating unit for generating an authentication journal by adding data to the electronic journal in association with each transaction, and an authentication journal distribution unit for transmitting the authentication journal to the store controller. The store controller compares the authentication data with information on a corresponding transaction on the electronic journal, and compares the authentication data with information on a corresponding transaction on the electronic journal, the authentication journal collecting unit receiving the authentication journal transmitted from the POS terminal. Electronic journal checking means for notifying the case.

Here, the electronic journal inspection means includes:
The authentication data may be decrypted in a procedure reverse to the encryption procedure in the authentication data creation means, and compared with the corresponding actual data on the electronic journal, or may be subjected to encryption on the electronic journal. The actual data may be encrypted by an encryption method in the authentication data creation means, and this may be compared with the encrypted authentication data on the POS terminal side.

In this case, it is preferable that the authentication data is generated from a total transaction amount of each transaction in the electronic journal.

If the data on the electronic journal has been tampered with, the authentication data does not match the actual data on the electronic journal, and it becomes clear that the data has been tampered with. On the other hand, when browsing the electronic journal, it is not necessary to encrypt or decrypt the information itself in the electronic journal, so that the convenience of the information is improved.

[0011] The present invention also provides a configuration in which an error detection code for transmitting the electronic journal is generated from information about each transaction in the electronic journal, and the error detection code is encrypted to generate the authentication data. can do. The use of the error detection code for generating the authentication data facilitates the generation of the authentication data.

The present invention further relates to an electronic journal authentication method in a POS system including a POS terminal and a store controller. That is, in the electronic journal authentication method of the present invention, in the POS terminal, a step of creating an electronic journal in which merchandise transaction information is recorded, and authentication data for each transaction in a predetermined method from information on each transaction in the electronic journal. Generating the authentication journal by associating the authentication data with each transaction and adding the authentication data to the electronic journal; transmitting the authentication journal to the store controller; and Receiving the transmitted authentication journal, decrypting the authentication data, and comparing it with information on a corresponding transaction on the electronic journal; and, if the two data do not match, And a step of notifying the user.

[0013]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS One embodiment of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a configuration block diagram of a POS system according to an embodiment of the present invention. In the embodiment, the POS system of the present invention includes a plurality of POs.
It comprises an S terminal 1 and one store controller 10.

The POS terminal 1 has a sales registration function 2, an electronic journal creation function 3, an electronic journal delivery function 4, and an authentication data creation function 5 for generating and delivering an electronic journal. The sales registration function 2 collects necessary product information (product name, unit price, etc.) from a product ID read by a barcode reader such as a scanner, and stores the POS as sales information.
This is a function to register on the terminal. The electronic journal creation function 3 creates an electronic journal based on the sales information registered by the sales registration function 2. In the electronic journal, in addition to the product name, unit price, total amount, payment method (such as cash or credit card), transaction date and time, operator ID, operation status of the POS terminal 1 and the like for each transaction, which will be described later. The authentication data is recorded. The electronic journal distribution function 4 stores the electronic journal created by the electronic journal creation function 3 in the store controller 10.
Send to The transmission of the electronic journal is performed in response to a request from the store controller 10.

The authentication data creation function 5 creates authentication data based on the sales information, and is created for each sales information on the electronic journal. The authentication data is generated by an encryption key 6 built in the POS terminal 1 based on predetermined data in each sales information. The encryption key 6 is a program that converts predetermined data of sales information into authentication data by using a predetermined algorithm kept secret from the user of the POS system. As the predetermined data on the sales information to be converted, a total sales amount, a transaction number (a serial number assigned to a sales unit), or the like can be used. Further, a checksum or other error detection code generated based on the sales information may be used as the target data. The encryption key 6 built in the POS terminal 1 includes a substitution method, a transposition method, and D
An arbitrary encryption algorithm such as an ES method or a public key method can be adopted.

On the other hand, the store controller 10 includes an electronic journal collection function 11, an electronic journal storage function 12,
An electronic journal browsing function 13 and an electronic journal inspection function 14 are provided. The electronic journal collection function 11
The electronic journal transmitted from each of the POS terminals 1 is received and temporarily stored in a memory (for example, a semiconductor memory or a magnetic memory) of the store controller 10. The electronic journal storage function 12 is a mechanism for permanently storing the received electronic journal in the store controller. The electronic journal stored in the temporary storage memory is appropriately stored in a storage medium such as an optical disk. Save on 15 Electronic journal viewing function 13
Is a function for browsing the electronic journal stored on the storage medium 15 by the electronic journal storage function 12. With the electronic journal browsing function 13,
Only arbitrary sales information can be extracted and displayed, rearranged, and the statistics thereof can be obtained. here,
Each data of the electronic journal is not subjected to processing such as encryption, and therefore, when processed by the browsing function 13, a procedure such as decryption is not required, and the data processing can be performed at high speed. .

The electronic journal check function 14 checks whether any sales information stored in the storage medium 15 on the electronic journal has been tampered with. That is, the authentication data added to the target sales information is decrypted by using the built-in decryption key 16, and this is compared with actual transaction data. If the two data do not match, it is determined that the sales information has been tampered with and this is notified. The decryption key 16 decrypts the authentication data according to the algorithm of the encryption key 6 built in the POS terminal 1. It is preferable that the operation of the electronic journal inspection function 14 is configured so that the user of the POS system cannot use the operation (for example, the user needs to input a password).

However, the electronic journal inspection function 14 has the same decryption key 16 as the encryption key 6 built in the POS terminal 1, and stores the sales information on the electronic journal from which the authentication data was generated as described above. The authentication data may be encrypted to generate authentication data in the same manner as in the authentication data creation function 5 and compared with the authentication data added to the electronic journal, that is, the authentication data created on the POS terminal side.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart for creating an electronic journal in the POS terminal 1. After initializing the memory area on the POS terminal used to create the electronic journal (S201), the terminal is put into a standby state until sales registration is performed by the operator (S202). When the registration of sales by the operator is started, sales data read by a reading device such as a barcode reader is accepted (S203), and the sales data is arranged on a memory as electronic journal data (S204). Then, until receiving a command from the operator to inform the end of the transaction,
S202 to S204 are repeated to create an electronic journal in one transaction (S205).

When the operator issues a transaction end command, the sales registration function 2 calculates the total sales amount including the subtotal and the consumption tax. The result is passed as sales registration data in S203, and is accumulated as electronic journal data in S204. After this processing, the authentication data creation function 5 creates authentication data based on a part of the data in the electronic journal such as the total amount of sales, and adds this to the electronic journal (S206). Finally, a separator symbol (eg, “＾
L "), and stores the created electronic journal data in a buffer for distribution (S207). By repeating the above process, an electronic journal including a plurality of transaction information is accumulated in the distribution buffer. In response to an electronic journal transmission request from the store controller 10, the electronic journal distribution function 4 transmits the electronic journal data in the distribution buffer to the store controller 10.

FIG. 3 is a printout of an example of electronic journal data. In the figure, the last digit string of each transaction separated by the dividing line is the authentication data 30. The authentication data 30 is based on the transaction number of each transaction and the total sales amount ("TOTAL").
This is the encrypted data created by the authentication data creation function 5 of the S terminal 1. The authentication data 30 is sent to the store controller 10 as a part of the electronic journal data, and is subjected to inspection by the electronic journal inspection function 14. In this example, the electronic journal inspection function 14 encrypts the transaction number 31 and the total sales amount 32 of the target transaction in the same manner as the encryption in the POS terminal 1 and compares it with the authentication data 30. If they do not match, it is determined that the transaction data has been falsified.

FIG. 4 is a view for explaining one method of encrypting the authentication data 30 shown in FIG. As shown in the figure, the authentication data 30 is composed of a ten-digit number,
The upper three digits of the upper five digits and the upper three digits of the lower five digits are generated by the two random numbers of the digits (random number 1 and random number 2). The lower two digits (part A in the figure) of the upper five digits are
Last two digits of random number 1 ("66" in the example) multiplied by the transaction number of the transaction ("53" in the example)
A digit ("98" in the example) is assigned. Here, when the lower one digit becomes “0”, a shift to a higher order is performed so as to be a number other than “0”.

The last two digits of the lower five digits (B in the figure)
) Assigns the last two digits of the value obtained by multiplying the last two digits of the random number 2 (“66” in the example) by the total sales amount of the transaction (“1995” in the example). Here, when the last digit becomes “0”, a shift to a higher order is performed so that a number other than “0” is arranged in the A section (“67” in the example).

As described above, one embodiment of the present invention has been described with reference to the drawings. However, the present invention is not limited to the matters described in the above embodiment, and the claims and the detailed description of the invention, and The range in which those skilled in the art can make changes and applications based on well-known techniques is included. In the above embodiment, in order to generate authentication data, the transaction data of the transaction and the total sales amount were used as the original data. However, other data on the electronic journal, such as subtotal, consumption tax, unit price of the first transaction item, The authentication data may be generated using, as original data, an error detection code such as a checksum, a check sum, a date, a time, and a combination thereof. Also, as the encryption method, an arbitrary encryption algorithm such as a substitution method, a transposition method, a DES method or a public key method as a mixed method thereof, or a combination thereof can be adopted.

[0025]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to easily determine whether the transaction information on the electronic journal has been tampered with the authentication data added for each transaction of the electronic journal. . On the other hand, in the present invention, since the transaction information itself of the electronic journal is stored as it is in the store controller, processing such as data decryption is not required at the time of browsing or searching, and the convenience is impaired. There is no.

In particular, in the present invention, since the authentication data is generated from the total transaction amount of each transaction in the electronic journal, it is possible to easily inspect the most likely tampering with the sales amount. .

According to the third aspect of the present invention, by generating the authentication data by encrypting the error detection code, there is no need to generate or prepare other data to generate the authentication data. There is an advantage.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration block diagram of a POS system according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart for creating an electronic journal in a POS terminal.

FIG. 3 is a printout of an example of electronic journal data.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating one method of encrypting authentication data.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 POS terminal 2 Sales registration function 3 Electronic journal creation function 4 Electronic journal distribution function 5 Authentication data creation function 6 Encryption key 10 Store controller 11 Electronic journal collection function 12 Electronic journal storage function 13 Electronic journal browsing function 14 Electronic journal inspection function 15 Storage Recording medium 16 decryption key 30 authentication data 31 transaction number 32 total sales amount

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A POS system comprising a POS terminal and a store controller, wherein the POS terminal includes an electronic journal creating means for creating an electronic journal recording merchandise transaction information, and a predetermined information based on information on each transaction in the electronic journal. Generating authentication data for each transaction, adding the authentication data to the electronic journal in association with each transaction to generate an authentication journal, and transmitting the authentication journal to the store controller. An authentication journal distributing unit, wherein the store controller includes an authentication journal collecting unit that receives an authentication journal transmitted from each of the POS terminals; and an authentication journal collecting unit that stores the authentication data and information about a corresponding transaction on the electronic journal. Perform a comparison and if both data do not match, A POS system comprising: an electronic journal checker for notifying the user of the POS. 2. The POS system according to claim 1, wherein the authentication data is generated from a total transaction amount of each transaction in the electronic journal. 3. An error detection code for transmitting the electronic journal is generated from information on each transaction in the electronic journal, and the authentication data is generated by encrypting the error detection code. Claim 1 or 2
A POS system as described. 4. A method for authenticating an electronic journal in a POS system comprising a POS terminal and a store controller, wherein the POS terminal creates an electronic journal in which merchandise transaction information is recorded; Generating authentication data for each transaction from the information in a predetermined manner, and adding the authentication data to the electronic journal in association with each transaction to generate an authentication journal; and transmitting the authentication journal to the store controller. Receiving the authentication journal transmitted from each of the POS terminals at the store controller; decrypting the authentication data and comparing the decrypted authentication data with information on a corresponding transaction on the electronic journal; As a result of the comparison, if both data do not match Authentication method for an electronic journal in POS systems for the step of notifying the Le, comprising the.