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Some years ago I wrote a proof-of-concept chrome extension for "unlocking" domain names. https://github.com/amoffat/hash-n-slash https://github.com/amoffat/hash

by daenz 6y ago

Some years ago I wrote a proof-of-concept chrome extension for "unlocking" domain names. https://github.com/amoffat/hash-n-slash https://github.com/amoffat/hash-n-slash The basic idea was that we should be able to use anything as a routable domain name, and not just limit it to short words or phrases.

noman-land 6y ago
This is super neat but also sorta defeats the whole purpose of domain names, which is to have memorable names that point to hard to remember IP addresses. This creates impossible to remember hashes that point to difficult to remember IP addresses. This is essentially content addressing + location addressing. If you're not familiar, IPFS does content addressing in a really cool way. https://ipfs.io/ https://ipfs.io/
- userbinator 6y ago
  To be fair, I've never had a problem remembering IP(v4) addresses, much like with phone numbers and (physical) addresses. The real advantages of using domain names is that it associates a word or phrase with the site, can remain the same while the IP changes, and also allows for virtual hosting. Imagine a world in which the Internet grew and commercialised before DNS ever appeared --- we may have ended up with IPs being as common knowledge as phone numbers.
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    Ya, it would be a world where everyone uses a "phone book" because most people would only memorize their most often used numbers. In other words, google would be even more dominant.
    - rlayton2 6y ago
      Well, if the phone book gets too big, we can always add a unique human readable name to each, and then synchronise everyone's phone book world wide so everyone can share their notes. People could apply to have a human readable name associated with their IP address thats easy to remember.
gruez 6y ago
But what's preventing squatters from squatting all the valuable hashes? eg. pizza.com is valuable, so with the same logic you can also squat hash(pizza).

by daenz 6y ago

noman-land 6y ago

This is super neat but also sorta defeats the whole purpose of domain names, which is to have memorable names that point to hard to remember IP addresses. This creates impossible to remember hashes that point to difficult to remember IP addresses. This is essentially content addressing + location addressing. If you're not familiar, IPFS does content addressing in a really cool way. https://ipfs.io/ https://ipfs.io/

userbinator 6y ago
To be fair, I've never had a problem remembering IP(v4) addresses, much like with phone numbers and (physical) addresses. The real advantages of using domain names is that it associates a word or phrase with the site, can remain the same while the IP changes, and also allows for virtual hosting. Imagine a world in which the Internet grew and commercialised before DNS ever appeared --- we may have ended up with IPs being as common knowledge as phone numbers.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  Ya, it would be a world where everyone uses a "phone book" because most people would only memorize their most often used numbers. In other words, google would be even more dominant.
  - rlayton2 6y ago
    Well, if the phone book gets too big, we can always add a unique human readable name to each, and then synchronise everyone's phone book world wide so everyone can share their notes. People could apply to have a human readable name associated with their IP address thats easy to remember.

gruez 6y ago

But what's preventing squatters from squatting all the valuable hashes? eg. pizza.com is valuable, so with the same logic you can also squat hash(pizza).