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DNS! Namecoin (despite its cringe name) is pretty cool, and a marked improvement over DNS.

lucb1e 6y ago
Why do you think it hasn't caught on? Not sure how to phrase this in a way that doesn't sound suggestive. I don't mean it suggestively at all, I'm just curious why I heard of it at its inception but then never heard of anyone actually using it. You say it's a marked improvement so I would expect people to jump on it and stop paying the random companies running our TLDs?
- rictic 6y ago
  The momentum of an existing mostly-working system. Namecoin is dead but there are a few projects pushing forward, including ENS and Unstoppable Domains. There's opportunity for a significant privacy and authentication improvement over DNS. Two key advantages: 1. One can run one's own node, reducing or eliminating DNS privacy leakage. Today your ISP can't read your traffic with https://secret-newsletter.example.com/ https://secret-newsletter.example.com/ but they do know that you looked up the IP address of secret-newsletter.example.com. which is about as bad. DoH is somewhat better because you can choose your DoH provider, but in practice people will probably use one of a few major offerings, which they'll have to trust. 2. Info about a name can be authenticated, so in response to query you could receive both the ip address corresponding to a name, and a hash of the TLS certificate that ip address should use, removing the ugly hack of certificate authorities. There's lots of details to get right here, but the potential advantages are enormous. IMO those are the key advantages of DNS on the blockchain. But there's a big gap between having an idea and executing on it. There's tons of existing DNS infrastructure, and it's not going away overnight, so work is needed for interop, and there are complex questions to resolve around regulation and trademarks etc. As the saying goes, it takes years to be an overnight success.
- omginternets 6y ago
  The biggest issue for me has been the need to install the namecoin daemon. This basically means namecoin can only be used by technical folk.

Why do you think it hasn't caught on? Not sure how to phrase this in a way that doesn't sound suggestive. I don't mean it suggestively at all, I'm just curious why I heard of it at its inception but then never heard of anyone actually using it. You say it's a marked improvement so I would expect people to jump on it and stop paying the random companies running our TLDs?

rictic 6y ago
The momentum of an existing mostly-working system. Namecoin is dead but there are a few projects pushing forward, including ENS and Unstoppable Domains. There's opportunity for a significant privacy and authentication improvement over DNS. Two key advantages: 1. One can run one's own node, reducing or eliminating DNS privacy leakage. Today your ISP can't read your traffic with https://secret-newsletter.example.com/ https://secret-newsletter.example.com/ but they do know that you looked up the IP address of secret-newsletter.example.com. which is about as bad. DoH is somewhat better because you can choose your DoH provider, but in practice people will probably use one of a few major offerings, which they'll have to trust. 2. Info about a name can be authenticated, so in response to query you could receive both the ip address corresponding to a name, and a hash of the TLS certificate that ip address should use, removing the ugly hack of certificate authorities. There's lots of details to get right here, but the potential advantages are enormous. IMO those are the key advantages of DNS on the blockchain. But there's a big gap between having an idea and executing on it. There's tons of existing DNS infrastructure, and it's not going away overnight, so work is needed for interop, and there are complex questions to resolve around regulation and trademarks etc. As the saying goes, it takes years to be an overnight success.
omginternets 6y ago
The biggest issue for me has been the need to install the namecoin daemon. This basically means namecoin can only be used by technical folk.