Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!bionet!hayes.fai.alaska.edu!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: cosell@bbn.com (Bernie Cosell) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: A Thesis on Caller ID Message-ID: <10809@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 13 Aug 90 12:04:56 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 47 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 566, Message 2 of 8 0004169820@mcimail.com (Rochelle Communications) writes: }In the August 11 issue of TELECOM Digest (Volume 10, Issue 562) }Jerry Leichter argues that the "peephole" analogy }often stated by Caller ID proponents is not valid.... }Finally, Jerry expresses an interest in ... }> A better Caller-ID system, though perhaps technically impractical - }>would be a button or setting on your phone that explicitly asked for }>Caller-ID. I would receive a notification of the request and could choose }>to allow my identification to be sent, or not. This would be the }>electronic analogue of your asking for my name - except that I would be }>unable to lie about it... }A system such as this is not far-fetched and may provide the ultimate }answer to the Caller ID debate by balancing the caller's "right" to }anonymity and the called person's right of privacy. You can have such a system *today*, and have no need to affect the privacy of anyone else in having it. Someone markets a 'call screener' [does anyone know who does, or if it is really still available ... I confess to not having seen any ads for it in a couple of years]: it will pick up the phone and nominally route *every* caller to an answering machine ... but ... you can program 'security codes' into it, and you can simply tell your friends whatever security code(s) you choose. The box will recognize the code, and your actual phone will ring ONLY after a person enters an acceptable code. For example, you could have a single 'password', and just tell everyone. OR ... you could have a group-password: give everyone at work one password, give the folks on your Ultimate Frisbee team a different number, etc. OR.. you can simply 'special' people to use *their*phone*number* as their 'password': that has the interesting side effect of your knowing that it is your brother calling no matter WHERE he is calling from. There are two interesting properties of this kind of approach, versus the 'big brother should do it all' approach: (a) no ones privacy is coercively invaded, and (b) only the people who want this kind of incoming-call-filtration need pay for it, and only their correspondents will have to deal with it. /Bernie\