Friday 15 August 2008

Contact information kept semi-private

To keep my contact information personal, I need a few things. First, I need different identifiers that I can pass out to different people and companies - a different one for everyone. Next, I need to know what identifier was used to contact me when it happens. Lastly, I need the ability to expire an identifier on my end if I decide it has been compromised.

This is how it looks in practice: I give out a phone number to a company because they request one. No problem. They pass it on to another company I do not wish to be in contact with. Now when Company B tries to call me, I recognise the number they used as the one I gave to Company A. I decide then that I no longer wish to deal with Company A or their associates Company B if this is how they treat my contact information. I terminate the number and it can no longer be used by either of them to contact me because my phone never bothers to ring for that number any more. Everyone else, who has a different number for me, can still contact me.

In theory, the same system would work with ordinary old caller ID and caller-specific blocking, but then a pest can keep calling me as long as they call from a different number every time.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Somehow I got un-listed from telemarketer call lists a while ago.
PPS - I'm not sure how. I never registered on the Do Not Call list.

2 comments:

Erin Marie said...

John smart. He got big brain.

John said...

Don't give me too much credit before you know if it would work.