Speaking of Standards

So if we get to the point where we can truly “trust” the identity of the person calling us on the other end of a SIP connection, what will that look like to the end user? How will I know - easily - that I can trust that the “Caller ID” displayed on my IP phone is in fact who it says it is? Is there a “visual identifier” of some type that I could have on my IP phone (or softphone) that would clue me in? Kind of like the “lock” icon in web browsers that indicates a call is encrypted?

Those were the questions I was looking to address in a new Internet-Draft I submitted yesterday:

draft-york-sip-visual-identifier-trusted-identity-00

One of the things we focus on here at Voxeo is to ensure that the user experience is as simple and easy as possible. That’s why we rolled out our Designer tool a few years back. That’s why we spent a good amount of time looking to make Prophecy Log Search as simple to use as possible - and why we continue to improve it.

So in the discussions that have been going on within the IETF circles around the incredible need to nail down the ability to have “trusted identity” within communication based on SIP (which I wrote previously, one of the questions I’ve kept asking myself is “how will this appear to a regular end-user?” Based on some comments in the SIP mailing list the other day, I decided to write up this draft.

Feedback is welcome. I’ve already received the comments that I didn’t address the whole issue of PSTN interconnectivity, i.e. if it’s coming from a PSTN gateway, how do you deal with the fact that the Caller ID could have been spoofed on the PSTN side. I’m sure other comments will come in as well.

As I say in the draft, it’s not entirely clear to me that the IETF is the right place to have this discussion since ultimately it is about the user interface in vendor products… but at least it’s a place to start.

Technorati Tags:
ietf, standards, sip, dan york, sip identity, identity

Tags: identity, IETF, SIP

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.