From: Just Rich <rich@c2.org>
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 1996 08:33:13 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Interesting Identity Hacking Experiment: www.switchboard.com
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960303152557.15462C-100000@infinity.c2.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


http://www.switchboard.com/ is a white pages directory. Basically, it's 
the Database America CD-ROM on the Web. The difference is, it's 
writeable, and free.

Pretty cool. I don't think it was wise for them to allow anyone with an
email address to change anyone else's white pages entry, though. 

Can anyone think of a prominent politician who would be in the phone 
book? The freeform "more information" field is just asking to be used.

Potentially interesting applications for anonymous web proxies and secure
pseudonym servers. 

At least they don't make direct changes to the database -- I'd guess they
only set a flag to look in the separate user-supplied file.  I.e., I
changed my entry, then hit "unregister," and all the original information
returned immediately. 

-rich