Single-Number Plan Raises Privacy Fears
Subcommander Bob
bob at black.org
Sun Sep 2 19:13:14 PDT 2001
September 2, 2001
Single-Number Plan Raises Privacy Fears
Technology: System would link telephones, faxes
and Web addresses
while creating giant databases.
By JUBE SHIVER Jr., Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- A controversial technology
under development by the communications
industry that links Internet addresses with phone
numbers has quietly picked up key government
support as concern mounts among critics that the
technology will broadly undermine privacy.
The technology, known as e-number, or ENUM,
would link phone numbers to codes that
computer servers use to route traffic on the Web.
Proponents say the technology would improve
communication for consumers and marketers
alike.
The industry envisions a sophisticated electronic
address book that would be able to direct
messages to virtually any fax machine, computer
or telephone, using a new 11-digit e-number. As
a result, a fax could be sent to someone who
lacked a fax machine but had an e-mail address.
Likewise, cell phone users would only have to
key in 11-digits to send e-mail, not a
cumbersome alphanumeric address.
But privacy advocates fear the system could
undermine online privacy and erode the security
of the public phone system as well. They worry
that the system would destroy a pillar of Internet
privacy: the assumption by users that they enjoy
anonymity in cyberspace.
The government's endorsement of the technology,
disclosed in interviews and
outlined in an Aug. 21 letter distributed to an
industry group, is seen as
critical in pushing it forward.
"The United States does see merit in pursing
discussions regarding
implementation of a coordinated, global [system] . .
. for ENUM," Julian E.
Minard, a State Department advisor to the
International Telecommunication
Advisory Committee, wrote to representatives of AT&T
and other
companies. But Minard cautioned in the letter that
aspects of the technology
advocated by industry "go beyond what is prudent or
necessary."
ENUM is likely to be voluntary, requiring users to
sign up for the service.
But privacy experts say it will not be worth the
time and investment the
industry is making in the technology unless it is
widely used. So they expect
ENUM will be aggressively promoted.
"We believe that ENUM raises serious questions about
privacy and security
that need to be addressed before it's widely
deployed," said Alan Davidson,
associate director of the Center for Democracy and
Technology, a privacy
watchdog group based in Washington. "They are
promoting this as a system
that is going to make it really easy for people to
find you in all kinds of ways.
Well, we want to make sure that consumers can opt
out if they don't want to
be found."
Today, vigilant Web surfers can maintain a high
degree of anonymity because
e-mail and other Web addresses contain little
personal information. What's
more, Web addresses under aliases can easily be
created to cloak the
identity of the sender. As a result, marketers have
been forced to spend
millions of dollars to get Web surfers to
voluntarily give up personal
information.
By contrast, a phone number has a wealth of personal
information associated
with it, including a street address, billing records
and dialing data. Marrying
such information to Web addresses would represent a
leap in private data
warehousing in cyberspace and dramatically increase
the risk of privacy
invasions, experts say.
"Someone could write a program to query the ENUM
database and obtain
every line of your contact information and send spam
to every
communications device you own," said Chris
Hoofnagle, legislative director
of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in
Washington.
Hoofnagle added that industry claims that consumers
would be able to opt
out of the system, or otherwise protect their
private information, are hollow.
"There could be coercion down the road [by
marketers] to push consumers
to use ENUM to store their contact information.
Absent legislation, there is
likely to be abuse."
Since the Federal Communications Commission
regulates the nation's
telephone industry and the Commerce Department
administers key contracts
that allow private firms such as Mountain View,
Calif.-based Verisign Inc. to
register Internet domain names, the government is
likely to play a powerful
role in the outcome of ENUM.
Its backing of further ENUM development is the most
significant support yet
for the technology. It comes as a newly created
industry group, called the
ENUM-Forum, agreed last week to an ambitious
schedule to conclude
work on ENUM by next May.
"This is a big milestone," Gary W. Richenaker, of
Telcordia Technologies
Inc., said of the group's first meeting last Monday.
Richenaker, who chaired
the gathering, said that officials of the State
Department, Federal Trade
Commission and Commerce Department attended.
ENUM would work by combining two massive electronic
databases: North
American telephone numbers now administered by a
Washington company
called NeuStar Inc. and the main database that
routes Internet messages,
which is largely controlled by Verisign.
An ENUM address reverses a standard phone number and
appends
"e164.arpa" to it. For example, the toll-free
directory assistance number
would be converted to
2.1.2.1.5.5.5.0.0.8.1.e164.arpa. ENUM would
recognize both the e164.arpa address and the phone
number as belonging to
directory assistance.
With some software tweaks to the current Internet
system, computers could
be made to route messages to such 11-digit ENUM
addresses in much the
same way they now use up to 12-digits to send e-mail
and display Web
pages.
Although industry engineers recently completed
technical specifications for
ENUM, AT&T, Cisco Systems Inc., SBC Communications
Inc. and more
than 20 members of the ENUM-Forum agreed last week
to work out
additional critical details of the system.
ENUM-Forum players also include AOL Time Warner
Inc., British
Telecommunications plc and NetNumber.com Inc.--a Web
start-up that has
been operating a private, volunteer ENUM system for
nearly a year.
The companies will tackle operational and security
issues, such as who
would be authorized to make service changes. Phones
are ordinarily
associated with street addresses, not individuals,
so businesses and
households with more than one person or phone would
need to determine
who has control over the ENUM associated with the
phones.
The State Department's Minard said his Aug. 21
letter reflected the input of
several government agencies but termed the document
a "draft" that could
change as industry details about ENUM evolve.
Minard declined to elaborate on the misgivings
expressed about ENUM in
the letter. Other sources say ENUM is most strongly
supported by the
Commerce Department, while the FCC and State
Department remain wary
of the potential political fallout from embracing
the technology.
The industry, too, is divided over how much the
government should be
involved. The heavily regulated telephone industry
supports a broader
government role than do Internet companies such as
Verisign and AOL Time
Warner.
Stacy M. Cheney, an attorney for the Commerce
Department, said the
government has not decided whether to play any
regulatory role. But he said
officials support "continuing discussions" on ENUM
and would send
representatives to a Sept. 12 meeting of an
International Telecommunication
Union panel to discuss the technology.
Industry officials liken ENUM's potential effect to
the introduction of
touch-tone dialing in 1963. That advance paved the
way for a host of
modern phone features, including the ability to bank
by phone and navigate
voicemail menus.
ENUM "could be a huge boon to Internet telephony and
basic
communications convergence," said Aristotle Balogh,
vice president of
technology at Verisign.
ENUM, however, may never be embraced by businesses
or consumers
because of the privacy concerns. The technology will
also require support
from Internet service providers, software
developers, phone carriers and
others.
Still, ENUM is expected to gain momentum with the
government's support.
It could also get a big boost from efforts by
Microsoft Corp. and AOL Time
Warner to make new versions of their software
support ENUM technology.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-090102privacy.story
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