Slashdot Mirror
ENUM Protocol in Australia?
Master Kai writes "Looks like Australia's thinking about implementing ENUM, an internet protocol that will convert a simple phone number into a URI. The benefits are obvious, use one number to contact you on any communications medium. Your website, fixed phone, fax, mobile (cell) and email address. But at what cost to our privacy? I know that personally I prefer to give out my email address, because I can change it at the click of a button. And what about spam? Not only would spamers have your email address, but your contact numbers too. Eeeep!
Anyway. It looks good nonetheless. Check out the news article , and for the Australian Communications Authority Discussion Paper. "
"Sure you can. It's www.555-6789.com"
*Later*
"Yowzer, that mama was hot,hot,hot... Hang on... 555 (dawning on him) GODDAMMIT!!!"
Gmanske.
John, is that you? I've been trying to call, but your number doesn't work anymore...
I have received a few SMS spams in recent weeks. Apparently 'someone I know secretly fancies me', and wants me to call a 1902 number. They obviously fancy me enough to take 4.95 a minute from me, but not enough to meet me in person and let me stuff it down the front of their pants.
Ho! Haha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!
At it's heart this is a product of the Telstra cultural malignancy whereby they actually believe that eight plus digit numbers define the pinnacle of usability.
I really should write a book on the sad quarter century of Telstra struggling and failing to turn online information into an income stream without ever coming to terms with the fundamental dynamics of the information age, so I shouldn't try to squeeze too many details into a SlashDot post before I run the facts past a libel lawyer.
As Australia's public telecomms carrier, Telstra's world view continues to blinker policy debate, even more so since our reactionary federal governement installed the even more reactionary Senator Richard Alston on top of the information and communications policy bureacracy, basically as an offshoot of his dabblings with the arts.
How amusing that Telstra has been thrown a lifeline by the rise of mobile (cellular) phone usage. They still don't have a clue that the biggest plus for mobile phones is that they enable you to stop addressing people by their numbers.
But it's still far and away the best place to live, even if the numbers don't always add up.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
Personally, I think they should match it to your license plate number. That way, you can call people who are driving horribly and then email them about how badly they were driving via your PDA. We could turn road rage into its own medium.
So if you don't have a phone number because you're one of the few people on the planet that doesn't have a phone, would you be unknown to the Australian government?
This space for rent.
If I wanted to pick a single identifier (which, like many others who have commented, I don't), I wouldn't want it to be a 10 digit number. Maybe I should start giving out my IP address instead of my named web site address, too. You don't see people rushing out to register domain names like 2139812309.com because they suck compared to even a ridiculous name like slashdot.org. I thought we were past using meaningless numbers for electronic addresses. Am I the only one who thinks they are doing this backwards? - Russ
actually, numbers are great. they are terse, they work on any keyboard in the world (including telephone keyboards), and they are language-independent. and when you think about it, phone numbers really aren't much less mnemonic than the local-part of a typical big-ISP email address.
of course, nobody's suggesting that we use numbers instead of email addresses or URLs, but addresses that consist of nothing but digits are in fact quite useful.
and anyway, enum is only half of the picture - there's also a proposal for mapping URLs to other information from the rescap working group. The basic idea is that an identifier should not be inherently tied to one single kind of resource - given either a phone number or a URL (and the latter includes email addresses), you should be able to find out additional information about that resource if the owner of that number/URL wants to provide it. phone number to web page? easy.
email address to phone number? sure, if I want to provide it. or maybe you have my voice # and want to send me email. again, no problem.