摘要 |
The present invention utilizes a technique based on a domain name system to provide additional information about a user to a service connected to a communication network. User information is stored and encoded into a domain name that is generated and interpreted dynamically. In an embodiment of the present invention, a specialized domain name server is placed at or near a point of presence and has access to private user information on the users who connect through the particular point of presence. Services can utilize a standard domain name query, requesting a domain name given a user's network address, to obtain a name constructed by the specialized server. The name can contain different pieces of information regarding the user encoded cryptographically by different keys to permit only selected disclosure of user information. The present invention provides a way of readily supplying selected user information to a service in a manner that can be authenticated and that is transparent to the user while, at the same time, protecting the privacy of the user.
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