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Re: data point - anonymous E.164 number usage

  • To: Adrian Georgescu < >
  • From: James Seng < >
  • Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 19:19:54 +0800
  • Cc:
Ah, just asking...because I am not sure what's the point.

One of the possible ENUM deployment is using existing block and therefore, the synchronization become important. (The other is just use a new block which will make this discussion totally irrelevant)

As someone noted, you don't really need to *know* who is owning the number, just who is the user of the number. And there are couple of ways to verify it. One way I can think of is when someone claim right over a number, you actually call that number, give him a machine generated voice code which he has to entered to verify himself.

Of course, this is not foolproof ...

-James Seng

Adrian Georgescu wrote:

James,

The point is that before a model of authentication and authorization is designed for a specific market, it is advisable to take a look out there "in the real world" to see if or to which extent the effort is justified. Otherwise, we could delay or block the introduction of a new technology just because paper-work requires effort which does not compensate what the end service delivers (cost > benefit).

Adrian

On 27 Feb 2004, at 01:16, James Seng wrote:

And the point is?...

Michael Haberler wrote:
In the context of validation of numbers for ENUM, I have tried to estimate the amount of mobile users which have totally anonymously bought a prepaid SIM card, or in other words, users of E.164 numbers which have no trace at all in a phonebook or other records.
In the EU, all countries except Germany, Hungary and Italy permit totally anonymous purchase of prepaid SIM cards. This indicates that about 65% of the EU population have access to anonymous mobile service (even in Italy, just a taxpayer code is needed which is not subscriber data but allows to track down a user for law enforcement - but lets leave that out for the sake of argument; in France I understand a record is made for purposes of recovering a lost SIM card but not for proof of identity).
There are about 400 Million mobile users in Europe, and penetration of prepaid is about 40%. Assuming that nobody registers if he doesnt have to, and multiplying those figures a ballpark estimate is that *there are about 100 Million E.164 numbers in use in Europe without any subscriber data just through the use of prepaid SIM cards.
*-Michael
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