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.

Comments

Settle down, man, it's better than you think.

[DarklordJonnyDigital]

Y'know, this isn't going to be as bad as you think it is.

Sure, it's been argued that this means anyone can find out your phone number from your IP, your IP from your phone number or something similar, and telemarket the living daylights out of you. Not true. Unsolicited telemarketing spam, as you've no doubt been reading on Slashdot, is likely to soon become illegal in all states and most of Europe - at least, that's what I see happening. The closer the internet comes to the phone system, the more quickly we'll see spam being made equally illegal.

As well as encouraging people and corporations to get the broadband into peoples' homes - and I see just about every home "having the internet" within the decade - this system could provide a way of linking a physical location or house number with an internet address, making it easier for legitimate marketers to get along with consumers. I'm already seeing banner ad servers that see from my hostname the I'm in the UK and serve me advertising for UK ISPs - expanding on this concept, we might some day find all banner ads like Slashdot's - serving us only advertising that interests us (Megatokyo shirts, web servers, ThinkGeek) and less online casinos, spyware and fake Windows dialog boxes!

Re:Settle down, man, it's better than you think.

[isaac]

Sure, it's been argued that this means anyone can find out your phone number from your IP, your IP from your phone number or something similar, and telemarket the living daylights out of you. Not true. Unsolicited telemarketing spam, as you've no doubt been reading on Slashdot, is likely to soon become illegal in all states and most of Europe - at least, that's what I see happening. The closer the internet comes to the phone system, the more quickly we'll see spam being made equally illegal.

Oh! Well, I feel so much better then, seeing as how NOBODY ever does anything illegal. After all, I'm sure all those unsolicited emails in my inbox are for perfectly legal and legitimate businesses! And look what a good job the junk-fax laws have done - I've never gotten a fax spam!

</SARCASM>

Make something possible and it will happen. Create a marketing opportunity, and it will be exploited. Nature abhors a vacuum.

-Isaac

Illegal or not, it will still happen daily

[dphoenix]

There are many states that have clear restrictions and laws regarding e-mail spam, but this is never tracked down or dealt with. Specifics like no forged headers, no using anonymous remailers, and so on. But it's tough to track down, and spammers are very crafty, and thus little gets done - at all. Connecting the two (phone, internet) will only worsen the problem. Perhaps, senators would be more interested in legislation and enforcement if they have a 9 year old daughter being offered penis enlargement during dinner-time.

This means that

[kinnell]

Spammers will be able to compile email lists from the telephone directory, promting everyone to go ex-directory, and rendering the phone book obsolete

A symbiosis will be encouraged between email spam and phone spam

Telephone numbers will be available all over the internet, even if they are ex-directory

Changing your phone/fax number will require changing your email address, and vice versa

Moving to a different region will require a change of email address, thus rendering an obvious advantage of email irrelevant

Of course there are advantages as well, but I'm feeling cynical today. Is it just me, or does this plan seem a little naive? A bit like ten years ago, when the internet was going to solve all the problems of the world overnight, and make everyone suddenly nicer.