We know where you live
By Nicole Manktelow
August 3 2002
Icon
It's an initiative designed to assist convergence - that is, the many
devices and channels of communication that are blending.
ENUM is a protocol that can be used to map phones, faxes or other devices
from their particular telephone number to the Internet.
It could give all Australian households a new electronic point of
contact. It could also forge the beginning of a combined communications
system.
And, if adopted by various nations, it could pave the way for a massive
international directory.
Just how ENUM will be implemented, who will run it and if participation
will be mandatory are details to be determined, according to national
numbers body the Australian Communications Authority
(www.aca.gov.au).
The ACA controls Australia's telephone country code +61 and will soon
decide who should be responsible for running the country's ENUM
initiative.
"It's about developing a single electronic address for people,"
says Paul White, the ACA's telecommunications licensing group executive
manager.
"There are no time frames yet," says White, as the project is
in its early stages, but some experts believe it may be a reality within
just three years.
The ENUM protocol was devised by the Internet Engineering Task Force's
(www.ietf.org)
telephone number mapping working group. The group defined a domain name
system (DNS) method for mapping a telephone number to a point of contact
on the Internet.
Using this method, the ACA's phone number +61 3 9963 6800, for example,
would be reversed and become the basis of the address:
0.0.8.6.3.6.9.9.3.1.6.e614.arpa.
The last few segments, "1.6.e614.arpa", utilise the country
code and indicate that the address/number is located in Australia.
Sending an email to such an address could "provide all the contact
details of a person ... It might be a response that is as simple as a
contact register", White says.
"Almost half the households in Australia have Internet access and
most have a phone. That's two electronic contact points. Then there are
mobiles," he adds.
With ENUM, "you would have a single electronic access point or
address".
The concept of a single contact point does, however, conjure familiar
fears for civil libertarians, particularly if the implementation of ENUM
does not give users full control over their details.
"The effect of ENUM would be to establish a single unique contact
number for each individual," says privacy expert
Roger Clark.
"If it was successful, it would represent a unique personal
identifier, with all the threats to privacy and freedoms that this
entails," Clark says.
The ENUM protocol may concentrate on devices, but it is the people using
these phones who will end up connected, eventually.
"It's a device identifier, but devices are personal. And there is
more location information embedded in them all the time," Clark
adds.
"It would be lovely if from the beginning the system would be under
the user's control. But this is never how they are
implemented."
The ACA will publish an ENUM discussion paper on its Web site by the end
of the month. A discussion group will follow, as will trials of various
business models.
The ACA will also "look at technical and consumer safeguards",
White says, in particular the databases that are expected to handle the
contract information for phone users.
nicole@auscape.net.au
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/08/02/1028157836588.html