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> “The DNS is like a phonebook for the internet. The addresses in the phonebook are the server IP addresses. DNS was created to give IP addresses human-readable
by oefrha 6y ago
> “The DNS is like a phonebook for the internet. The addresses in the phonebook are the server IP addresses. DNS was created to give IP addresses human-readable names so with our platform, you’re finding the IP address through Handshake, not through a certificate authority,” Namebase CEO Tieshun Roquerre told CoinDesk.
(Emphasis mine.) Did this Namebase CEO just state on record that he doesn’t know how DNS works?
- rasengan 6y agoI think what he meant was that the domain resolution can be validated using the blockchain as opposed to needing a centralized/single actor certificate authority.
- dlor 6y agoI think the point is that certificates are built on top of DNS, not the other way around. Domain resolution does not require certificate authorities.
- rasengan 6y agoExactly. It doesn’t require strictly from a protocol sense, but from a security perspective you do want to validate certificates ON TOP as you said.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- emacdona 6y agoFollowed by this: 'Handshake is “is effectively a decentralized domain name server,” Roquerre said.' -- thus implying that DNS is NOT decentralized? The article is pretty bad. For his sake, I hope they are taking his quotes out of context. Because I had a quick look at https://www.namebase.io/ https://www.namebase.io/ -- and it does look interesting. It appears that they have decentralized the REGISTRY by putting it on the "Handshake" blockchain. Can I configure my resolver to use this "Handshake" blockchain?
- thesuitonym 6y agoThis got me, too. >a privacy-focused, cloud-based domain name service resolver which converts IP addresses into domain names. Except for being privacy focused, this literally describes every domain name service in the Internet.
- rpdillon 6y agoI notice that sentence too. Don't DNS servers convert domain names into IP addresses?
- jaywalk 6y agoTechnically they do both, but domain to IP is the vastly more common usage.
- thesuitonym 6y agoI think it's just answering the question in reverse. It converts an IP to a domain name in that you don't need to know the IP with DNS.
- dwiel 6y agoThis is a case where I find Vitalik's distinction between different kinds of decentralization useful. [1] Roquerre is talking about political or logical decentralization whereas you are talking about architectural decentralization. [1] https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentralization-a0c92b76a274 https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/the-meaning-of-decentrali...
- emacdona 6y agoBut now that I think about it, the registry IS already decentralized. IE: .com is managed by an organization separate from .org. And the whole reason for "renting" from .com is because .com owns the space. If you "buy" a TLD on the Handshake blockchain, do you lose the ability to rescind delegations under that TLD once people have "bought" them?
- 6y ago
- sudobash1 6y ago> The DNS is like a phonebook for the internet We are going to have to come up with a new metaphor soon. I haven't seen a phonebook in ages. Honestly I would be more likely to tell my kid "Phonebooks were like DNS for telephone numbers."
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago"Phonebooks were like DNS for telephone numbers." thanks I'll be stealing this quote 100%.
- eternalban 6y agoThe word you are looking for is 'directory'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_directory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_directory
- ghaff 6y ago"Telephone directory" is a term that pretty much no one uses for phonebook.
- cgriswald 6y agoI’m not sure what the GP means by it being the metaphor to replace phone book (“contacts app” would be my off-the-cuff suggestion), but I’m not that old and I’ve heard it referred to as a directory. I haven’t heard it recently, but that has more to do with the disuse of phone books, I think. Maybe it’s a regional thing?
- ghaff 6y ago>Maybe it’s a regional thing? That is probably fair. Anywhere I've lived in the US, someone would know (well, maybe not if they were young enough) what you meant by "telephone directory" but almost everyone would say "phonebook" at least in casual conversation. It's also true that when you would dial 411 for a number, that was called directory assistance. (And a listing of phone numbers for the staff in an organization would probably be called a staff directory or a telephone directory or something along those lines.)
- Confiks 6y agoI think the more charitable explanation is that mainstream reporting often contains many misquotes, factual errors and omissions that you will only notice when you are knowledgeable about the subject at hand. To be forgetful or ignore this when turning the page regarding another subject on which you are less knowledgeable is known as the Gell-Mann amnesia effect [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnesiaEffect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnes...
- z3t4 6y agoNewsletter quotes are guaranteed to not be what you said.
- slightwinder 6y agoWhat is wrong with that explanation?
- troquerre 6y agoNamebase CEO here. The article misquoted me (and some of the data I shared) in a number of places. See this tweet where the writer incorrectly stated that Namebase created Handshake when we only build on top of it (similar to how Coinbase builds on Bitcoin) https://twitter.com/CoinDesk/status/1348801310498443264?s=20 https://twitter.com/CoinDesk/status/1348801310498443264?s=20. I'm happy to talk through how Handshake works if you have any questions about it. I also wrote an article on how Handshake can improve the root of trust for DNS which was previously discussed on HN [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20995969 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20995969