Slashdot Mirror
Dragging Telephone Numbers Into the Internet Age
azoblue writes with this teaser from Ars Technica, presenting a tempting suggestion for online consolidation: "E-mail, IM, Facebook, phones—what if all of these ways to reach you over a network could be condensed into a single, unique number? The ENUM proposal aims to do just that, by giving everyone a single phone number that maps to all of their identifiers. Here's how it works, and why it isn't already widely used."
Jenny, I got your number
I'm gonna make you mine
Jenny, I got your number
86.75.30.9
John
Great, then spammers only need one number to send you all sorts of spam in all kinds of different ways. And even better, they can try random numbers!
All I can think of is SPAM. I understand the idea and sometimes I think it'd be a great tool (especially if you move ISP's etc, everything would move with you kind of like redirecting your real mail when you move house but with less hassle) but I consider my privacy (what little we have left in this world) way more important than having a single identifier.
A single IP6 address could be enough for all those things.
Isn't Google Voice already doing this? It seems to be for me.
Why would I want a "number" for that? That's why DNS was invented, so we could move forward from using numbers to identify things and use proper identifiers instead. This is a step backwards in many ways.
Who has access to search through all the mappings that are created? Why stop at just a single phone number, why not have a single identity number and map everything (phone numbers, bank accounts, paychecks, etc.) to that single number. Who would then even need a name, just write your identity number on a sticky note and put it on your forehead, or embed a RFID chip in you at birth.
Like a social security number or tax id?
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Tattooed on our foreheads
rewriting history since 2109
Why would you want to keep the telephone number?
The telephone number is a good example of a situation where the technical factor prevailed over the human factor. Numbers are abstract and difficult to remember for most people. And since its invention we have needed to use lists to associate these numbers to things we actually can remember, such as names.
I think it will go completely the other way, and that in 50 years people will never have heard of phone numbers. The identifier will be the email address, and if I want to call someone I select that address and press "call", and a VOIP connection will be made. If I want to IM or mail, I press other buttons.
The email address is easy to remember, it has build-in identification of the purpose you want to use it for (private, business, ...), can already be used for several types of communication (mail, jabber) and is completely transparent to location
This is making many of the mistakes X.400 did, albeit on a smaller scale.
People want tokens that are easy to remember. Email addresses like "myname@example.com" are much more memorable than "C=US/OU=Example/FN=My/LN=Name" or "+1 234 456 6789". If someone's using this service, they're using an internet-capable device, so they can enter an alphanumeric address and don't need to remain compatible with Strowger's switch.
But I'm not quite sure why I would want to tie all my shiny new contact mechanisms to a 19th century relic controlled by the telcoms, entities which are sclerotic at best and downright evil at worst.
ENUM seems like the sort of thing that would happen if you got a bunch of fairly sharp techies together and told them that it was an axiomatic, foundational, truth that telephone numbers must remain relevant and central to communication. Within those constraints, they seem to have come up with a good solution. Those constraints, though, seem irrelevant. The internet, and its design philosophies, is simply better.
You mean like the .tel domain?
would you use the phone number as a universally unique id?
One user might have several phone numbers, while the one phone number might have several users.
Additionally, the phone number is not portable across national borders. You can not bring your Norwegian phone number and use it with an american registrar.
Additionally users might be forced at regular basis to change their phone numbers. Me for one, had to change my phone number when I changed employer.
Database designers have known this for ages. Always assign a new unique id to any row in a table. Ids that seem unique and stable might change. Even social security numbers might change.
Oh.. Who would want all their contact info to be collected in one global system available for all?
ENUM is a temporary workaround to make SIPURI and TelURI compatible. Once everyone start using sipuri, enum will phaseout. joe@airtel.com is easier to remember than +918764233906
I do not want a single number, because I do not have a single identity.
I do not want my work to call me on my personal phone, so they don't have that number. But my job naturally requires some amount of phone work, so they all have *that* number. Makes sense, right?
"Good news, everyone!"
that corporations, governments, and scammers, can use to track us.
Best Slashdot Co
Easy to remember numbers or email addresses or anything else are obsolete. Everyone uses an address book built into the phone or other device and never has to remember anything other than your name or what ever they filed it under. People almost never exchange email addresses or phone numbers. You send someone as email so they have your address. They add your phone number from caller id to their address book.
One ring to rule them all!
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Pfft, phone numbers. That's so 19th century. They really should come up with something a lot more modern. Ahhh yes, I can see it now:
"Oh my number? Sure, no problem. Do you have a pen? Here we go: f3a9d4c1-0bff-4792-bf3b-09513ef61af8. It forwards to my home, though, so don't call too late. You can also use it to text me, or IM me. Looking forward to hearing from you!"
How the hell did this thread go so long without a Prisoner reference?
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
The ENUM proposal is essentially asking for DNS lookup as a public service run by government or other regulatory bodies. First of all, as you said, why don't we just use names? And second, I'm not sure we want public DNS run by government or regulatory bodies. We already have community-run free DNS service such as http://freedns.afraid.org/ or commercial free service like http://www.dyndns.com/ or http://www.zoneedit.com/. If you're worried that free services would go away, a lot of domain name registries are also offering DNS service at nominal fee, and they would be less likely to vanish. Several people can share the cost of a domain.
All people need to do is to find creative uses of domain names. I think this is the hard part.
I once had a signature.
So, instead of having a separate email, IM, facebook, phone number, etc we have one unique number? Great so if we forget our unique number we are totally screwed rather than just a little bit screwed. No thanks, if this is the future I'll just stay in the digital stone age.
Cannot find REALITY.SYS. Universe halted.
Who could forget the PITA it was to transcribe someones compuserve number, so that they can send a email later?
Hell I forgot my Compuserve number...
It almost reminds me of the old telegraph days (My office used telegraph to send message to ships). I had a telegraph number and an answer back.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
I prefer a mobile with just 10 data entry keys.
The user-friendliness of having to select something from a 150 entry drop-down or having to press every key (a different) multiple times is vastly overrated.
Great stuff. I've been waiting for years.
We should rather use DNS for phone numbers, and then allow something like:
phone:cowboyneal@slashdot.org
Similar to “mailto:”.
Or one of
^(phone|voip):(//)?(cowboyneal@slashdot\.org|slashdot\.org/~cowboyneal/?)$
By the way: Why are URLs (URIs) so inconsistent?
I guess the voip and @ version is the cleanest one. But I’m not sure about the point of the “//”.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I'm the author of the piece. Most comments in my opinion make the mistake of saying: I want this or that to be my identifier. Or I don't want a universal identifier.
The reality is: there are two identifiers that are on most business cards. Phone numbers and e-mail adresses. Both could be used in a much more advanced way. No matter which way you look at it the telephone number won't go away. ENUM would enable you to use it in multiple ways.
Use Adsense for Charity
1. Join an adult affiliate network and choose a website for promotion
2.
for (enum=0;enum=OVER9000;enum++)
{
SendMessageToEnum(enum,"Hi! Check out my new website: www.chickswithdicks.com");
}
3. ???
4. PROFIT!
Apple has "Mac vs PC", Microsoft has "Laptop Hunters", Linux has recession
I like moving and losing a few "friends" who aren't really my friend. I suspect a few of them are happy when I relocate as well.
I have google voice and much of this is possible already. Fortunately, I don't use the other google contact stuff at all, so feel free to spam away. The IM and email addresses that I really use are not for public consumption or easy guessing, thank you very much.
If you've ever been bothered by bill collectors (who had the wrong number), image what this would be like if they got your 1-contact and began harassing you in error. No thanks.
If you've ever been bothered by overseas phone callers try to solicit purchases or charity or whatever, there's no legal way to stop that either. No thanks.
I don't need even more ways for people I don't know to contact me. What this idea thought up by a teenager?
Independent George
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxuYdzs4SS8
What we really want though is not "one number", but "one use numbers", the same as Gishpuppy email addresses. That way you can leave your number with the girl in the bar, and when she decides that you were some annoying nerd and gets her brother to write it up in the men's loo you can just cancel it.
I would really not want to have one number misused that would also give my email address, skype, google chat and website to everyone!
Hey! This way we can encode our IM nicks into numbers, so we don't need to remember the difficult number.
Why, in this day and age, are we talking about NUMBERS? Do we address websites via IP address? No, we have DNS.
Why isn't there a DNS for phones? I pick a name, perhaps even something as simple and unique as MY EMAIL ADDRESS, and then anyone who knows my email address can contact me. Or, just like DNS, I can set up any number of unique names for various things (my-recruiters@gmail;) that point to some sort of numeric based phone.
You could even call it Phone Name System.
Thanks,
--
Matt
And you'r not able to search the list using the 10 digit keypad on your phone?
I'm able to call noob only by pressing 666 :P
I can't believe nobody's figured out that ENUM is simply the Mark of the Beast and is going to be burned into chips that will implanted in our brainstems.
ENUM spelled backwards is MUNE and it's on the MUNE that they have the secret military bases where they're going to send those of us that won't use our ENUMs.
The only thing that can save us now is when the prophesied "Woman of the North" comes down from Alaska to use her secret mental powers to organize the Wolverines(!) so we can defeat the forces of ZOG and usher in the return of Jesus and Ronald Wilson Reagan where they will reign together for 1000 years.
Don't you guys read your bibles and World Net Daily? megamerican, where are you when we really need you?
You are welcome on my lawn.
...but you had to dial a very long number. I hope they will offer a better solution.
Seriously, I do see the advantage...of which your universal number could also become your ssn, and tie into your phone number and drivers license, even your passport, then again why stop there, you could have it easily accessible through a chip or a barcode tattoo...
wait a minute, i think i heard of this story before...link here
if jenny is worth writing a song about her phone number, you just know she is a prime cut of female finery
as for the issue of prime twins, oh man, are her twins prime!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I see nothing wrong with keeping email, IM, Facebook and whatever else separate from my phone number. Despite the conventional wisdom of this age, I have no desire to be "constantly connected" and reachable, much less have it all rolled into one convenient number. Besides the "one stop" hacking opportunity alluded to in someone else's comment above, it also strikes me as one more step towards a world of constant surveillance.
How is this insightful. I cannot remember the last time I typed a cellphone number to call someone and selecting someone from a long list with just 10 keys works fine thank you.
A single number to identify people would be just as powerful as a SSN or driver's license number. It would make fraud so much easier. Eventually people would compile databases tying these IDs to SSNs and would distribute those online. Then we would start seeing advisories to keep your single contact number a secret!
On the positive side, perhaps this would help to convince financial institutions that simply knowing someone's SSN and mother's maiden name doesn't prove anything about identity.
I know the blackberry- along with many/most other phones I'm sure- has voice recognition to allow you to assign a name to various phone numbers as you wish. Despite phone numbers having to be unique, this system lets everyone use "home" as the name as their home phone number, and everyone with a friend named Dave can call a different Dave. Not to mention you can use whatever name you would find easy to remember. I would rather use a similar, user-defined naming system on top of a unique number standardized system. Among other things I don't think we need another batch of domain squatters and squabbling over what company gets what common names, so I favor making this numbering system and leaving it at that.
My webcomic
Yeah keep thinking that zippy.
How exactly will emergency phone calls like 911 work?
Yeah see that's the problem. There's alot more going on with phone number than you realize.
Then of course there are the privacy concerns.
Techno-morons need to think and stop masturbating over shiny new gadets!
"Using numbers made it easier to train people to operate the exchanges. (Women were chosen because their voices worked better in exchanges.)"
No Women were used because the messenger boys they replaced were proto-hackers and kept doing nasty tricks to the customers.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
This is already done. It's called an email address.
Import your gmail contacts to find new friends on facebook. this concept is applied many ways.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
A number is very easy to give over the phone. Easier than an e-mail address. This as so many letters sound very similar and so.
In practice I have been giving my fax number over the phone so they could fax me their e-mail address. Works great! Particularly considering I am often working with Chinese and other Asians with sometimes very poor spoken command of English. Numbers then go remarkably easy.
Why would you want to keep the telephone number?
Long term? You don't. But as the world moves to SIP or some other telephony solution that runs on the internet, some people in the world will be stuck for some time on a POTS exchange with a simple phone that can only dial numbers. So what if that exchange didn't have to use the normal international phone network but could use DNS to find a SIP server to route the call to directly over the internet?
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
I prefer to google a phone number and just click "call."
The ______ Agenda
I already have this. Its my email address. Everything I do on the Internet is keyed to an email address.
Email is email, obviously.
XMPP for IM, uses my email address.
Facebook I don't use, I actually have a live so I don't have time to sit around and convince others that I have one or to collect friends for the popularity contest.
Phones - If I email you, you'll get my phone number. This won't be an issue for too much longer I don't think, its just going to take everyone finally going to VoIP (cringe)
So uhm, this is a solution searching for a problem I take it?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Why not switch to XPath for personal GUIDs? For example ///[/address]/, etc...and when it's time, prefixing ///... is easy enough.
As far as the Spam issue many have brought up, I don't think security through obscurity is ever going to be adequate protection so worrying about the public registry of IDs seems like a waste of time- the evil marketers will only either derive your ID via brute force or buy the ID from somebody else. Using finer grained sender authentication at the user level (combined with cryptographic certificates for sender identity assurance) would seem to me to be the appropriate solution.
I can't believe nobody has thought of this before!
I'd like my Windows recycling bin to point to the trash can under my desk. And /dev/null to the toilet. And my bank account number to point to Warren Buffet's.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Wow- my post got mangled. Let's try this again: Why not switch to XPath for personal GUIDs? For example /<country>/<city|<region>/[/<address>]<name>, etc...and when it's time, prefixing /<star>/<planet>/... is easy enough.
As far as the Spam issue many have brought up, I don't think security through obscurity is ever going to be adequate protection so worrying about the public registry of IDs seems like a waste of time- the evil marketers will either derive your ID via brute force or buy the ID from somebody else. Using finer grained sender authentication at the user level (combined with cryptographic certificates for sender identity assurance) would seem to me to be the appropriate solution.
0118 999 881 999 119 725........3
I assumed "Dragging Telephone Numbers into the Internet Age" meant something like replacing numbers on phones with some other form of id. Apparently, I was wrong.
A single number to identify people would be just as powerful as a SSN or driver's license number. It would make fraud so much easier.
While you are right in practice, it doesn't need to be so in theory.
On /. you are "CopaceticOpus". That is, in the slashdot universe you have a single number which identifies you. Does that make you more vulnerable to /. fraud?
No, you have a password which you use to prove that you are the person identified by the name CopaceticOpus.
The problem with SSNs is that they don't have a password.
Using a single identifier isn't a danger in itself; it just magnifies the underlying problem of not having a secure way to establish which people the identifiers identify (and which they don't).
Here's how it works, and why it isn't already widely used.
The reason it's not widely used yet, and why it will not be widely used by individuals (a requirement for ENUM to become useful, IMHO), is because when registering an ENUM number costs EUR 45 signup fee + EUR 1.79/month, according to the website of one of the registrars that is currently contracted to sell ENUM numbers in the Netherlands.
He who laughs last, thinks slowest.
It's not like anyone uses them anymore...
...and everyone with a friend named Dave can call a different Dave.
As Dave, I appreciate that.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Why don't they just use our social security numbers as our ENUM?
I'm sure it's already linked to in all gov databases to your phone/address/CC/personal info, it would make things easier and more transparent, right?
(Oh that's right, lets keep the illusion of personal privacy).
in 50 years people will never have heard of phone numbers
Considering that today, we still know of the phonograph, telegraph poles, and telegrams.... human nature and socities memory doesn't change as quickly as you think, even when it comes to outmoded technology.
This one number thing idea is a stalker's wet dream. Hello nurse.
i've thought about this before - i think what one needs is a single PRIVATE number - that never gets given out to anyone - and you have a bunch of private ALIAS/Reference numbers which you yourself point to your private number - then you only give out the aliases - and if one of the aliases gets overloaded, you pull the plug on the alias, create a new alias, and then direct that new alias towards your private number.
10 buttons? How about 1 button. You press it, and say "Call Bill at FooCompany" and it looks up FooCompany and then figures out who Bill is. Speech recognition will eventually be good enough on low-power devices for this.
I'd be about as likely to give out my social security number as to use this system.
In reviewing the comments, I did not notice anyone raising the idea of wanting to (or needing to) change numbers (except one who noted that they like getting a new number when they move so that old acquaintances can be dropped). If the phone number becomes the primary hook on which all other identities are hung, what happens when you want an unlisted number or have need to change numbers? Victims of domestic abuse, some State employees (like corrections officers), and others have reasons to either switch numbers or request an unlisted number. In Minnesota, corrections officers can even request vehicle license plates that are registered to the State so that the inmates can't use their personal license plate numbers as a means to have friends on the outside look up personal information on them (the corrections officers).
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Which is why smart phones with onscreen touch or physical keyboards are all the rage right now... One trivial technical issue is no reason to stick with the current, annoying phone number system.
Maybe names like THX-1138 aren't that far off in the future after all?
This has nothing to with what we use as identifiers. It's a UI issue. It'll take very little effort for your device to simply map a 3-digit code to each person on your list that you can use as their "phone number".
KlaymenDK (713149) wins the gold medal!
The basic concept of identity management espoused in the article is sound, but it mustn't be tied to a person's physical identity. People have varying needs from identities, and must be free to create and destroy them as they see fit. Any system that is used must recognize that. Further, as it would happen anyway, building it in increases the trust of the system. If I know that KlaymenDK might have alter egos then I can act accordingly. That versus being fooled that there is only one identity associated with a physical person which would enable fraud.
What should be attached to an identity? Anything that the user wants, including an escrow account (no direct funding should be attached), access to banking, websites, phones, buildings, etc. But the sensitive ones on that list (again, direct funding, banks, and in some cases building access, etc.) require the identity to be authenticated along with some extra identity that verifies it is the real, unique person. This could be accomplished in various ways, but building it in to a physical device (eg, a mobile phone) with a single password (for encryption-based authentication) and possibly biometric authentication as well.
Tommy Tutone generates a couple of +5 and Steely Dan gets a +1?
For shame.
[UID-HeinzIntel]
I bags PI
That's what you may prefer, but you are the aging generation. If you look at the cell phone market you will quickly realize that smartphones, or even just "texting" dumbphones with full keyboards are becoming very popular. You don't even want to know how many highschool girls walk around with Blackberries. I'm sorry, but you are going to start noticing less and less cellphones without full keyboards.
The email address is easy to remember
My email address 09_f9_11_02_9d_74_e3_5b_d8_41_56_c5_63_56_88_c0@aol.com, because it was easy to remember at the time.
This is what I do with email. Sadly you'll eventually get spam to the private address when someone visits a "scan my email address book for friends" type thing
Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit!
I rarely dial phone numbers anymore. I select a contact name from a drop-down list and push the "send" button.
Did not RTFA, but why not just use OpenID? That way you get one identity across multiple sites, and don't have to remember random numbers. There aren't that many OpenID supporting sites, and when there are a lot have not worked for me (with Google) but when they did work I found the experience to be wonderfully convenient.
I also came to that conclusion. Google voice is a good start. You can use a disposable number that points to a personal number.
I've had the same mobile number for well over a decade. If you knew my phone number in 1999, it hasn't changed. I've lived in a wide range of different places since then, though.
You want it there as well.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
i've thought about this before - i think what one needs is a single PRIVATE number - that never gets given out to anyone - and you have a bunch of private ALIAS/Reference numbers which you yourself point to your private number - then you only give out the aliases - and if one of the aliases gets overloaded, you pull the plug on the alias, create a new alias, and then direct that new alias towards your private number.
I do that in Gmail with plus-addressing. For instance, if I get spam from Simetrical+dontsendhere@gmail.com, I can just block all mail from that address. Haven't had it happen yet, though.
MediaWiki developer, Total War Center sysadmin
NUMBERS, wow, great idea! After that, we'll need some kind of DIRECTORY to figure out what the numbers map to.
Ironically, current telephone architecture is better than current Internet technology (any telephone number, anywhere, can be portable; IPs-- NOT!), and they want to "marry telephone numbers to the Internet"? Why not marry the Internet to telephone numbers instead?
People, numbers are ADDRESSES. They're supposed to imply location, otherwise, why not use a more intuitive identifier, like [your name]? This is a terrible idea.
... register an ENUM with the registrar of my choice? Maybe I'd like one overseas. Can I select the name resolution service that will handle my ENUM? Maybe I'd like one in a legal jurisdiction that won't bend over every time the Feds come calling. Can I implement custom filters, redirection rules and other features on my ENUM resolution server? Maybe I want to direct certain callers to one site and the riff-raff elsewhere?
On the other side of the equation, with all of these capabilities I wonder how long it will be before the ENUM folks implement something like 'domain tasting' and bugger up caller ID, make life easier for shady telemarketers, etc.
Have gnu, will travel.
Like Google Voice
Any plan which depends on a fundamental change in human behavior is doomed from the start.
The problem with ENUM is that the data is stored in DNS. Which means it is harvestable and intended to be cached. I don't _want_ to share my email addresses, Facebook ID, work, cell and home phone numbers and IM addresses with anyone and everyone. That's just stupid.
ENUM is a Bell-Head protocol invented before spam. It was meant to be easily mirrored between carriers, with the standard behaviour of "caller pays".
What we really need is a protocol that will ask _my software_ where the call should be sent. The software is then able to decide based on the originating details if I want to receive the call, and what endpoint/protocol it should be sent to.
That's what I want. Invidividualised call control at the point of address resolution.
VoIP, you say? This me$asge wa dictat@# usi#n9g a VoI#33P connection-on-on-on. Hope%^full^y b%and(*width impro-o-oves by by then.
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
Heck... I've been using a P1 sig for years now.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
They're supposed to imply location, otherwise, why not use a more intuitive identifier, like [your name]? This is a terrible idea.
Because numbers are more unique than names.
In the really, really, REALLY old days of telephony, there were no numbers. You rang up the operator and asked to be connected to the Smith house, and the operator connected your plug to their socket.
Once that stopped scaling, numbers were used because it made looking them up on a plug board a lot faster. When automatic dialing came, that scaled similarly because you could cascade stepper relays to do the dialing.
But nowadays telephone switches have more in common with Cisco routers than they do the old gear. There's no reason that you have to number stuff anymore. The instant messaging folks - particularly jabber - are closer to what we need than the old tired PSTN numbering scheme.
Newsreader: From today, dialling 999 won't get you the emergency services. And that's not the only thing that's changing. Nicer ambulances, faster response times and better-looking drivers mean they're not just "the" emergency services - they're "your" emergency services. So, remember the new number:
[singing number]
Newsreader: 0118 999 881 999 119 725... 3
"i lost my dignity on a slippery wiener"
42
This is a bad idea simply because the choose the wrong identifier. Who wants to remember a number? Email would be a much better identifier because people can choose their own and make it something easy to remember.
or else!
Right now when I want to call someone I select that person's name and press "call". If I want to IM, mail, or text, I press other buttons.
I can't see why you think email address lists will be any different than the situation most people have right now with their cell phones. Years ago when my friends and I started using cell phones we swapped numbers, dumped them into our contacts list and never really worried about them again. I still know by heart all those peoples' home phone numbers from when we were kids but I don't think I could recite half of their current numbers.
That actually exists for emails and is called "Spam Gourmet", where you make up a username that is tied to a real e-mail and which allows you to hand out limited addresses, like slashdotcomment.3.johnrpenner@spamgourmet.com, which will only forward 3 mails to your real address.
> This is what I do with email. Sadly you'll eventually get spam to the private address
> when someone visits a "scan my email address book for friends" type thing..
that's with email - but this isn't email - this is a system where we can set it up such that: private address will not actually be able to recieve from outside sources at all - private address can only recieve from one of user defined aliases - this way private long-term number cant get polluted by random brute-force attacks.
I prefer to give out my exact latitude and longitude, then have my correspondent send a specially GPS-equipped pigeon to me, carrying a flash drive with a copy of his email address stored in a plain text file.
Antitrust, anyone?
I think it will go completely the other way, and that in 50 years people will never have heard of phone numbers. The identifier will be the email address, and if I want to call someone I select that address and press "call", and a VOIP connection will be made. If I want to IM or mail, I press other buttons.
I've had that in place for about a year here. You just need to add an SRV record, of the form:
_sip._udp.example.com
and then have your PBX link the extensions, with, e.g. LDAP.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I'd rather my e-mail, phone, Facebook, etc. remained separate, honestly. When I use my e-mail address to sign up for something, I really don't want them to be able to call me, find me on Facebook, check out my personal website, and find out all sorts of details about me that I'd like to keep private. Plus, spam might be an issue. No thanks.