[LINK] Enum musings

[Glen Turner]

Roger Clarke wrote:

> My guess is that IETF, even if they acknowledge that there's a policy 
> question, are maintaining the pretence that it's not their problem, but 
> rather falls in the bailiwick of national authorities such as ACA.

Hi Roger,

The IETF does occassionally put its head in the sand, but usually
to the benefit of privacy.  For example, the repeated requests
for interception control protocols have gone that way.

As for the spatial location problem, it's clear an alternative
to LOC records in DNS is required, and there was a spatial
location working group established at the Adelaide 2000 IETF
meeting to deal with that.

   http://www-nrc.nokia.com/ip-location/

That working group folded, because it concentrated on mechanism,
not policy.  But it's policy and its enforcement that turned out
to be the nub of the spatial location issue (as with your background
you might have guessed).

So there's been a recasting of the problem

   Geographic Location/Privacy Working Group
   http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/geopriv-charter.html

It's not at all clear to me that even this WG can succeed.
For example, it's pretty clear that the handset of a person
making a bomb threat should be forced to reveal its location.
But in a world where some governements can't be trusted not
to misuse this facility, should the facility be supplied at
all?

If you're interested, you can join a IETF WG simply by
subscribing to its mailing list (unlike other standards
bodies you don't need to be an IEEE member, a ITU national
delegate, or an approved employee of a organisation which
is a member of a government-recognised national standards
organisation).

You'll also notice the timelines for the WG.  You've then
got to wonder what ENUM is going to use in the interim
(and LOC seems to be the only deployed mechanism).

Richard's point is good -- ENUM is a work in progress.
Far too hyped for where it is at today.  Personally, I
think that's soley because it uses the DNS, which some
companies have used as a road to riches and other
companies wouldn't mind using the opportunity of a new
DNS application to drive down that road.

Cheers,
Glen

-- 
  Glen Turner                                 Network Engineer
  (08) 8303 3936      Australian Academic and Research Network
  glen.turner@aarnet.edu.au          http://www.aarnet.edu.au/
--
  The revolution will not be televised, it will be digitised

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