[LINK] Enum to make the world secure for despots

[Roger Clarke]

The following purports to be an IETF proposal.

Do these rock-brained engineers have any idea what this proposal represents?

Why worry about a national id scheme when you can have an *international* one??


>--The Day Of The Enum Moves One Step Closer--
>
>The idea behind Enum, a proposed global standard, is to unite each person's
>phone number, e-mail address, fax number - in fact, any communications
>address -
>behind a single universal identifier which can be efficiently translated
>centrally for simpler communications.
>
>Enum would simplify the current jumble of numbers, addresses and identifiers
>required for each method of communication. The phone number becomes the single
>number needed in this technical example of the increasing convergence of the
>Internet and the public telephone system.
>
>While the days of universal Enum-enabled business cards are some way off
>yet, US
>telecommunications software provider Telcordia Technologies and Internet
>security firm VeriSign last week announced a trial of an Enum-based directory.
>
>Verisign will host the directory on its domain name system infrastructure
>(Network Solutions is its subsidiary). The system will map and resolve a
>person's telephone number to an e-mail address, mobile number and so on.
>Mapping
>works in much the same way as a Web address is resolved to a particular
>Internet
>protocol (IP) address.
>
>The ultimate aim is to make Enum a global numbering system, and with this in
>mind both companies are inviting other service providers and application
>developers to take part in the trial at the end of this year.
>
>The proposed Enum standard is being assessed by the Internet Engineering Task
>Force (IETF).
>
>Web: http://www.enumworld.com .

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Roger Clarke              http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/

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