# Roger Clarke on ENUM

- Author: Joichi Ito
- Date: 2002-11-26T22:16:41Z


Roger Clarke, one of my favorite privacy experts and the person I learned the notion of separation of "entities" and "identities" has written a paper about the problems with ENUM. I wrote about ENUM when Australia announced their initiative. I am on a mission to make sure that Japan doesn't try to link ENUM with the national ID...Roger ClarkeFrom: Roger Clarke
Subject: Glitterati:  ENUM: Case Study in Social Irresponsibility 

I've just finished a paper on a proposed Internet scheme that will have extremely serious implications if it's implemented:

    ENUM - A Case Study in Social Irresponsibility
    http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/DV/enumISOC02.html

As always, constructively negative feedback much appreciated.

                               Abstract

ENUM is meant to provide a means of mapping from telephone numbers to IP-addresses: "today, many addresses; with ENUM, only one", as its proponents express it.

Any such capability would be extremely dangerous, providing governments, corporations, and even individuals, with the ability to locate and to track other people, both in network space, and in physical space. The beneficiaries would be the powerful who seek to manipulate the behaviour of others. It would do immense social, sociological and democratic harm.

The astounding thing is that the engineers responsible for it are still adopting the na・e position that its impact and implications are someone else's problem. With converged computing-and-communications technologies becoming ever more powerful and ever more pervasive, engineers have to be shaken out of their cosy cocoon, and forced to confront the implications, along with the technology and its applications.

                               Contents

      Introduction
      Outline Description of ENUM
      The Context
      Implications of ENUM
      Responses by the ENUM WG
      Conclusions
      References

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





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#### Categories

Computer and Network Risks, Japanese National ID, Privacy