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U.S. Endorses ENUM
esarjeant writes "It looks like the the U.S. has endorsed ENUM (also known as E.164.arpa). This means you get a single number for phone and Internet, look for demos at Spring VON (San Jose, April 1-3) and VISIONng will be engaging in US trials. Essentially this means you get a new TLD of e164.arpa with your phone number in front of it." The addresses look pretty long and unwieldy, but supposedly consumer devices will make it easier to use.
or was that fiber to the curb? Doesn't this make it all that much easier to track people down?
First 10 digit dialing, now this? Seems we could base somthing off of just the number its self, although that seems to be the way the idea is going.
It looks like were getting ever closer to the point where I have to enter a username and password to make a phone call. Seriously folks, the phone is the simplest computer interface in the world, don't ruin it. I don't want email on my phone, and caller id on my tv, I want tv on my tv and other people on my phone!
So, if I post to usenet, google archives this, and any idiot in the world has my phone number.
no thanks
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
I choose to have my phone number unlisted and unpublished. Does this mean I will have to disclose my phone number if I'm using an e.164-enabled device? Or will I just have to sit this one out on the sidelines, confident that it will die the quick death so common with flash-in-the-pan technology?
Personally, I don't want to be ubiquitously accessible. I don't want my internet and telephone services magically tied together. This sounds like a scheme that will benefit vendors, providers, and marketers more than it will benefit consumers.
I prefer callto:// URI:s any day.
Trusted Computing FAQ | Free Dawit Isaak!
Hmm. Not .arpa.us then? Is the idea that all numbers across the globe fit into .arpa, or is this an example of an inappropriate TLD?
Cheers,
Ian
(NOTE: I realise what I am about to propose will never happen.)
The DNS system should be reversed - in other words, this site should be http://org.slashdot
Justification: The ideal would be for the domain to move from the least specific to the most specific. Consider the current system: First, you have the protocol - the most general part of the URL. Then, you have the domain, moving from the most specific to the most general. Then, you have the URI (directory and filename), which moves from the most general to the most specific.
Now, consider if DNS were to be reversed. You would move from the most general (the protocol), then the TLD, then the organization, then the machine, the directories, the file name, and any CGI args.
The ENUM system would be more in line with telephony - you would have the country code, then the area code, exchange, and finally number, just like the current system, rather than having to reverse the number.
You could still have the completion feature you have now - if you type tel://555.1212 the system could automatically apply the default country code and area code, it would just prepend rather than append.
(Oh, BTW: on ENUM, they should have allowed each logical grouping of the telephone to be one subdomain - in other words, county code.area code.exchange.number, rather than c.o.u.n.t.r.y.c.o.d.e etc.)
www.eFax.com are spammers
but what about Nigeria?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
So if we can't switch to IPv6 this is supposed to happen? But how are they planning on those two interacting? I imagine that they won't have ENUM for devices or IPv6 for people but won't this make it a little more complicated. You sending the one email but it being routed to eight different devices doesn't necessarily make things easier
It is a brief article, so it brought up a lot of questions for me:
So this is supposed to connect *all* our phone lines with *all* our e-mail addresses and *all* our domains? Or is it that everyone suddenly has these new e-mail accounts and websites which each of us needs to manage and check because the government or other superpowers might decide to leave us notice there instead of, say, on my voicemail machine or sending me a form letter?
How do the e-mail addresses fit into it again?
And so now when my phone company tells me it will take 1 week to move my phone when I move, are my e-mail and domain out for that time, too, or are they required to provide an outside-accessible secured e-mail server and access so I can update my website? How about if I move out of their broadband service area? How about if I change my ISP to cable or satellite? Or if I move into another phone service's area? Does the phone company host my e-mail and website, or my ISP?
And do we get to choose our phone numbers, or do they magically decide at one point in history that *that's* the phone number you keep for the rest of your life? Or do you keep the number for your lifespan?
When they have to extend the phone numbers to 11 digits or more, are they going to revise all old numbers so they start with additional 1's or 9's or something (thinking mostly about the DNS)?
"could be routed to a telephone, an e-mail inbox or a fax machine, depending on the application."
Who decides these routings? Or are we all going to be required to have a magical box to connect us to the outside world? Or are we all issued passwords so we can remotely configure our preferences (yeah, like 99% of the country is going to want to do that, let alone keep their passwords).
Which organization is going to coordinate all of this? Government? Public? Private? Verisign?
We are talking about doing this for everyone, right? Who's going to do the tech support?
8-PP
I still got calls for the person who last had my phone number for years after it was switched to me. Now I can get personal emails for the prior "owner" of my phone number and not even have the chance to tell them I'm not Kim before they go on about what happened to them last night.
Leaving that and telemarketers having everyone's email address immediately and automatically aside, I am confused as to the utility of this. I would much rather have permanent transferable alphabetic EMail address, which I do have on pobox.com, than my telephone number.
I don't see things in black and white; I see the gray. Heck, I actually see in color, which makes things more difficult