[asterisk-users] Is Enum safe from spammers?

[Steve Kennedy]

On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 06:46:50PM -0500, Karl Fife wrote:

[snip]

missed the original message

> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Gordon Henderson" <gordon+asterisk at drogon.net>
> To: "Asterisk Users Mailing List Discussion" 
> <asterisk-users at lists.digium.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 9:14 AM
> Subject: [asterisk-users] Is Enum safe from spammers?
> > Just been contacted by a UK Enum registrar looking for ITSPs to become
> > resellers of their Enum registration systems ...

As a Director of UKEC Ltd (the governing body of ENUM in the UK) I'd be
interested in knowing more about this.

> > Is anyone using Enum?

Currently there is a need to populate the ENUM database. UKEC and
Nominet are working together to try and get vendors to support ENUM.

> > Does anyone (other than cynical old me) think that Enum is a spammers best
> > friend?

ENUM isn't just about VoIP, it allows end users to set policies on how
they want to receive calls. Unfortunately not many telcos yet support
ENUM (or public ENUM anyway).

The most likely growth area are ITSPs populating the ENUM database with
their customer's numbers.

> > Has anyone received a spam VoIP call yet? (ie. one placed directly over
> > the Internet aimed at a SIP URI to a PBX which allows anonymous incoming
> > calls?)

If you find out, please do let me know.

> > I can see that Enum is good to provide another way round the PSTN, but at
> > the same time, I'm just not convinced...

ENUM is the future of telephony, it's just needs mass adoption.

Unfortunately there are likely to be at least 3 ENUM systems in the UK.

 * Public ENUM as in e164.arpa

 * Carrier ENUM whereby telcos use ENUM to route calls to other telcos.

 * Eventually a central porting database for mobiles (and also fixed
   lines) which uses ENUM to store the port information.

It would be good if these all merged into one body.

> > What do others think?

Happy to have a chat off-line.


Steve

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