Subject: [dhcwg] Re: DUID for mobile phones

From: Ralph Droms <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 12:44:39 -0500

Francis - sounds to me like the mobile phone identifiers might be good
candidates for DUIDs.  I'm not sure of the details of the identifier
assignment and the relationship between the identifiers and device
interfaces, so I don't know how those identifiers might be used in practice.

I've forwarded a copy of your e-mail to the dhcwg mailing list to start a
discussion about the specific characteristics of the mobile phone
identifiers and whether those characteristics meet the requirements for use
as a DUID.

- Ralph

At 11:58 PM 3/29/2005 +0200, Francis Dupont wrote:
>I've noted there is no provision in RFC 3315 for mobile phones:
>3GPP and 3GPP2 have defined an unique identifier (named IMEI or MEID)
>attached to the physical device. IMHO these should be used for DUIDs
>but how? As there are many solutions, including a new type code, what
>is your feeling about this?
>
>Thanks
>
>[email-masked]
>
>PS: you can put the question (and answers) in the mailing list.

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From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2005 11:02:13 -0700

It was very much the intention when writing the DUID description that  
things like IMEIs and MEIDs should be usable as DUIDs.   I would  
suggest using the DUID-EN format, and assigning an enterprise number  
for each discrete type of mobile phone identifier, since each of  
these has to be standardized and there are therefore a limited number  
of them.   It would also be reasonable to just define new DUID  
types.   This should be documented in a new standards-track document;  
I would suggest that if you know of more than one id space, you  
document all the ones you know about in a single draft, and that  
other participants in the WG who know of id spaces that you don't  
know of participate in writing this draft.   I don't know anything  
about mobile phone id spaces, so if I'm making this sound more  
complicated than it needs to be, that's why.

It's my understanding that for phones that don't have a built-in  
identifier, the identifier is on a little sim card that can be  
swapped from phone to phone.   My understanding of how this should  
work is that the DUID should be an identifier from the sim card in  
this case, because you really want the identity of the phone to  
follow the sim card, rather than staying with the phone when sim  
cards are swapped.   Does this make sense?

---

From: Christian Strauf <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 10:08:31 +0200

Hi Ted,

> This should be documented in a new standards-track document;  I would
> suggest that if you know of more than one id space, you  document all
> the ones you know about in a single draft, and that  other participants
> in the WG who know of id spaces that you don't  know of participate in
> writing this draft.   I don't know anything  about mobile phone id
I second this motion. Especially when it comes to embedded devices my
guess is that this would be extremely helpful. Next to phones, home
electronic devices like game consoles or multimedia equipment might be
quite easy to tag with DUIDs by using already present identifiers.

> from phone to phone.   My understanding of how this should  work is that
> the DUID should be an identifier from the sim card in  this case,
> because you really want the identity of the phone to  follow the sim
> card, rather than staying with the phone when sim  cards are swapped.  
> Does this make sense?
The SIM card is what defines which phone number is "attached" to a
device. And since a phone number as a "device's address" is a good
analogon to an IPv6 address I think that your idea makes perfect sense.

Christian

---

From: Francis Dupont <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 14:10:15 +0200

In your previous mail you wrote:

   of them.

=> ETSI, 3GPP, 3GPP2, ..., are standardization bodies, not enterprises.
Even when ETSI has an enterprise number and could provide a spec about
using IMEIs in DUIDs, the issue is 3GPP/ETSI did a too good job
and now 3GPP2 ids, MEIDs, have a format compatible with EMEIs,
so IMHO the next solution is better.

   It would also be reasonable to just define new DUID  
   types.   This should be documented in a new standards-track document;  
   I would suggest that if you know of more than one id space, you  

=> IEEE EUI-64s are another example of IDs attached to harware which
become common (one per IEEE 1394 device for instance).

=> I forgot to cite my I-D about IMEIs/MEIDs for IPv6 IIDs
(draft-dupont-ipv6-imei-08.txt), we can find all details and
references about them in it. To summary any 3G device has a built-in ID
in its hardware, the original purpose of this ID was to track stolen phones.

   identifier,

=> you are wrong, the IMEI/MEID is attached to the phone itself.

   the identifier is on a little sim card that can be  
   swapped from phone to phone.

=> this is the IMSI and is per subscription. For obvious privacy concern,
it should not be published without caution. IMHO for a per subscriber ID
the phone number itself is better.

Regards

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2005 08:29:36 -0700

On Mar 31, 2005, at 1:08 AM, Christian Strauf wrote:
> home

There's already a DUID for this application.   Depending on whether  
or not the machine's personality goes with the network card, you use  
either type 1 (doesn't go) or type 3 (goes).