5 ms·

> An Urbit identity, or "ship," .... is actually just a 32-bit number, like an IP address 32-bits huh? That's brave.

by imron 10y ago

randallsquared 10y ago
They are intentionally scarce.
- zamalek 10y ago
  > By keeping addresses scarce, we make spam and abuse expensive The entire population of earth wouldn't be able to sign up. Just over half could. What happens in 50 years when all of those 4.2 billion people are dead? Does the entire infrastructure die along with those who were "lucky" enough to win the lottery?
  - dingaling 10y ago
    > The entire population of earth wouldn't be able to sign up They also have freely-available 128-bit identities, called 'submarines', that can be created on whim. The 32-bit identities are 'destroyers', both being subsets of 'ships'. Like everything else associated with Urbit, it's back-to-front. Real-world destroyers hugely out-number submarines.
    - knubie 10y ago
      They've changed the nomenclature since then. submarines -> comets, destroyers -> planet. along with 64 bit moons, 16 bit stars, and 8 bit galaxies.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
    Addresses are transferred through agnatic selection.
kevinschumacher 10y ago
I was thinking the same thing. Pretty bold move for a startup with an aim to provide a digital identity for everyone in the world with their stack. But if you really dig (and I mean really dig) into their site: > In the general case, a ship is actually a 128-bit number. ... > A comet's [128-bit] address is the hash of its initial public key. Anyone can launch a comet. Nothing stops you from using a comet as your identity, except that the name is a mouthful and everyone will assume you're a bot. [0] So, I mean, there will be a market for names I guess. [0] https://urbit.org/posts/address-space/#-moons-and-comets https://urbit.org/posts/address-space/#-moons-and-comets
kaoD 10y ago
They are intentionally scarce and many are reserved by the Urbit owners. This is like premined cryptocurrencies. I don't understand how anyone would invest money or effort in this.

> An Urbit identity, or "ship," .... is actually just a 32-bit number, like an IP address 32-bits huh? That's brave.

by imron 10y ago

> An Urbit identity, or "ship," .... is actually just a 32-bit number, like an IP address 32-bits huh? That's brave.

randallsquared 10y ago

They are intentionally scarce.

zamalek 10y ago
> By keeping addresses scarce, we make spam and abuse expensive The entire population of earth wouldn't be able to sign up. Just over half could. What happens in 50 years when all of those 4.2 billion people are dead? Does the entire infrastructure die along with those who were "lucky" enough to win the lottery?
- dingaling 10y ago
  > The entire population of earth wouldn't be able to sign up They also have freely-available 128-bit identities, called 'submarines', that can be created on whim. The 32-bit identities are 'destroyers', both being subsets of 'ships'. Like everything else associated with Urbit, it's back-to-front. Real-world destroyers hugely out-number submarines.
  - knubie 10y ago
    They've changed the nomenclature since then. submarines -> comets, destroyers -> planet. along with 64 bit moons, 16 bit stars, and 8 bit galaxies.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  Addresses are transferred through agnatic selection.

kevinschumacher 10y ago

I was thinking the same thing. Pretty bold move for a startup with an aim to provide a digital identity for everyone in the world with their stack. But if you really dig (and I mean really dig) into their site: > In the general case, a ship is actually a 128-bit number. ... > A comet's [128-bit] address is the hash of its initial public key. Anyone can launch a comet. Nothing stops you from using a comet as your identity, except that the name is a mouthful and everyone will assume you're a bot. [0] So, I mean, there will be a market for names I guess. [0] https://urbit.org/posts/address-space/#-moons-and-comets https://urbit.org/posts/address-space/#-moons-and-comets

kaoD 10y ago

They are intentionally scarce and many are reserved by the Urbit owners. This is like premined cryptocurrencies. I don't understand how anyone would invest money or effort in this.