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Thought experiment: Let's say you decide to phone someone who works for the bank. How do you know the phone number you have is correct? What if phone numbers
by 3xblah 7y ago
Thought experiment: Let's say you decide to phone someone who works for the bank. How do you know the phone number you have is correct? What if phone numbers were perceived to be "dynamic" -- subject to change at any time, even by the hour, without notice to you -- such that you could not rely on a consistent, stable phone number for any reasonable length of time. What if, instead, you would need to look up the number every time you make a call? What if phone numbers were thought to be too difficult for people to remember, so someone decided that all you needed was the name of the person at the bank. (Even though that name may belong to many different people across the world.) What if someone further decided that the lookup should handled by someone else. No need for you to be involved in that process. How could you be sure you were calling the intended bank employee?
- eridius 7y agoIt sounds like you're describing IP addresses, except people don't type in IP addresses to go to their bank. They type in domains. In fact, phone numbers are absolutely the equivalent of domains, and the equivalent of IP addresses in the telephone system is IMSI (I think). You can transfer phone numbers between subscribers, and so the number that you thought was going to your bank could actually some day go somewhere completely different.
- 3xblah 7y agoIn the hypothetical, assume you are calling a bank employee on a landline. IMSI is for mobile.
- eridius 7y agoOk, then whatever the equivalent is for landlines. I don't know how telephone numbers are assigned to particular physical lines, but however that's done, it can be changed.
- 3xblah 7y agoSo, a landline phone number that theoretically changes so frequently and without notice to you such that you are encouraged to keep looking it up again everyday. Except you are not expected to perform or monitor that process. Instead it is automated and hidden from you. Imagine this creates risk of fraud by someone pretending to be the bank employee, so then you rely on a third party to "validate" the number you obtain for the bank employee.
- eridius 7y agoI mean, you just described mobile numbers. If someone calls my cell phone, the phone system has to figure out what tower I'm connected to and therefore how to reach me. That's roughly equivalent to figuring out what IP address the domain should resolve to right now. In any case, I don't really understand what point you're trying to make. For the phone system we assume the phone company will route our call correctly. Sometimes they don't! Over the years I've seen a number of anecdotes where someone called a number and was connected to the completely wrong person, and when they tried a second time it worked. At least the DNS system allows critical sites like banks to use features like certificate pinning if they're afraid of hackers intercepting their domain and having a DV cert issued by a trusted root.
- 3xblah 7y ago"In any case, I don't really understand what point you're trying to make." I agree.