How to Safely Anonymize Users
You want to allow Anon to post messages; you want to block their IP address if they don’t follow your terms; but you don’t want them to be traceable. The solution to this is excessively simple. One-way encrypt their IP address.
This can be done in PHP simply by grabbing the MD5 of their IP address.
The last note is; this still isn’t completely anonymous. Anyone could easily compile a rainbow table for IP address MD5 results. Try mixing it up. Apply a secret key to the MD5 before, after, or even between the numbers. Encrypt the numbers to letters before throwing it through an MD5. Either way, you gain the ability to identify anonymous users through a Unique ID without having anything of use to a hacker or federal employee.
Improvements for @GoogleVoice
Google Voice is in dire need of some few improvements if it wants to be useful:
- Archive & Labels feature of Gmail
This one is fairly self-explanatory. It allows us to keep records of voicemails, calls, SMS, and the likes, but it doesn’t allow us to archive, label, or tag them. This would make organization much simpler.
- MMS
Google Voice does wonderfully with it’s support of SMS; but it’s lacking in one thing that more and more phones are getting: MMS. Without MMS, or at least an MMS to email forwarding system, it’s impossible to receive those cute and funny picture, sound, and/or video messages from your friends. This is a much needed feature.
- Contact Bridge
This is another issue I can see with Google Voice. How am I supposed to randomly SMS someone from my phone? Right now, it’s impossible. But doing something simple (that US carriers support) would make it super-easy to SMS people, and would remove the requirement for Google Voice to send the contacts name with each SMS.
CONTACT_NUMBER@YOUR_GOOGLE_VOICE_NUMBER.gvoice.com
ex. 15555555555@13055085676.gvoice.com
Verify that the sender is indeed the phone number supported, and then send the text from the email, and reply back from that email. SMS and MMS over email is supported by many (if not all) US carriers. Like this, I would be able to add my contacts to my phone’s address book, and message them seamlessly.
- UTF-8 Texting
So far, through my tests (in SMSing an iPhone, since they have a world keyboard) I have only been able to receive Japanese text messages through Google Voice. Attempting to send a text that's either partially or completely Japanese appears garbled on the receiver’s iPhone.
- Shortcode SMS
Maybe? This may not be cost-effective for Google.
- Ringback Tones
GrandCentral had them, and we want them back. At least the basic ones, like “Russian Ring” and “Japanese Ring.”
- Alias Numbers
One Forever number is pretty good; but you know what’s even better? Two forever numbers. Unfortunately, not all landlines have free long distance yet (Heck, not even all cell phones do yet!) So even (at least) a paid model for another number would be nice.
- Skype
Seriously, you bridge over to Gizmo but not Skype? Adding a Skype bridge would be pure awesome. PURE AWESOME. I don’t think anybody can argue with that.
Suggestion for Email: X-Thread-ID
I was just thinking, as I read over my twitter stream, that one of the best features for Gmail is indeed the threading capabilities. To have all of your messages that pertain to a certain subject/discussion listed as a thread with individual messages; allows for much better message management, and makes it much easier to find what you’re looking for.
But one way to make this even easier, would be an introduction of a new header into emails:
X-Thread-ID
This would be the MD5 of the subject and timestamp, or something along those lines to generate an ID that would be very or completely unlikely to accidentally be recreated.
This would make it super easy for mail clients and servers alike to keep track of threads.
Skype Oddity: Send SMS from Skype
Don’t get me wrong, I love Skype. It’s one of the best IM services I’ve used, the best voice chat service I’ve ever used. But it does do one thing that I find quite odd.
You can send SMS messages through it; as long as you purchase Skype credit.
Now, as an American, this is fairly odd behavior. Through most other IM services I use, I can also send and receive SMS – Completely Free.
Maybe Skype just doesn’t have enough money rolling in to be able to do that?