> In other words, Paul, are you sure you're not calling for an ashcroft? completely. i have met the enemy, and i have also met the potential enemy, and i know that recipient privacy is nowhere on anybody's mind. consider what would happen if the ITU ever finished its debate about e164.arpa and there a few hundred million voip-reachable phones (either IP to the station or IP to the central office and analog to the station). all it would take a telemarketer is a simple NAPTR/SRV sweep, with SYN-probe, to build a list of tens of millions of reachable endpoints. ten racks of linux PC's later, we'd all be getting round the clock robotic calls from some telespamketer with some viagra to sell. i need ibcs to make it possible to keep doing what i used to do in e-mail, but more importantly i need the "ashcroft" you speak of in order to gain confidence about SIP callers, or instant messenger or SMS senders. right now the security people call this "the PKI problem" and calling it that is exactly what makes it unsolvable. i sweartagod the next time i meet an ivorytowermathtype who wants to tell me how hard something is, i'm just going to <do something unsavory>. We Know How To Do This! not only that, but We Know What The Market Demands! note that brokered anonymity will still be possible. knowing someone's identity means knowing that they are somebody in particular, and not necessarily knowing their meatspace-corredpondance identity. i'd be one of many people who would set my acceptance-filters to allow e-mail traffic based on transitive recourse toward a well-heeled trust broker (who has much to lose if their clients misbehave), even if i might not accept an e-commerce transaction from someone who didn't want me to know their name and address in meatspace. > Personally I'm equally convinced of the validity of both Paul's and the > view above. I'm not convinced either is all or even most of the truth. i have faith in human nature. if you build a world wide communications system to make communications easier, It Will Be Used. by the full spectrum of humanity. anybody who wants 10000:1 odds against this should just gimme yer money right now, because it's not even a fair bet. -- Paul Vixie