6 ms·

So what does an example name look like?

nerdponx 5y ago
> A name in GNS is a domain name as defined in [RFC8499] as an ordered list of labels. The labels in a name are separated using the character "." (dot). Names, like labels, are encoded in UTF-8.
- jesprenj 5y ago
  > UTF-8 Yes! Finally a protocol that does not discriminate against non-ASCII languages (like punycode does in my opinion). Hello, my name is xn--jeprenj-rqb! </rant> (:
  - spullara 5y ago
    They would likely still be displayed like that so people don't get tricked with look-a-like characters from other languages.
    - Arnavion 5y ago
      It's possible to be smarter than that. I believe Chrome doesn't drop down to punycode if it sees the string is entirely within a single language so that there is no possibility of look-alike characters. It might even be checking explicitly for the presence of look-alike character pairs, since they're known ahead of time.
    - teddyh 5y ago
      “People whose names break my system are weird outliers. They should have had solid, acceptable names, like 田中太郎.” — Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...
      - immibis 5y ago
        Just look at 田中太郎. Four completely independent glyphs, equal widths, no modifiers, in left-to-right order. It is a very good way to write things. The only issue is the fourth one seem to barely have enough pixels.
southerntofu 5y ago
TLDR: It's a regular domain name. It looks like a domain name. There is no specific extension for GNS. GNS is intended to replace DNS (in a backwards-compatible way) at the ICANN level so if it was ever adopted facebook.com would resolve (by following public key PKEY records, not IP/DNS NS records) using GNS. In addition, a neat feature of GNS is the hyper-hyper local root. So if you add your friend alice's PKEY in your local root as "alice", then you could resolve whatever in her zone as whatever.alice. But can this not be achieved with DNS already, you may wonder? Two differences: 1) resolution is by public key, so you don't need to keep a mapping of all your friends' nameserver IPs 2) it's intended as a recursive mechanism where you can advertise your favorite domains on your own zone, so for example if i publish The Pirate Bay's public key in my zone in a tpb record, hypothetical tpb.tofu.net will still resolve properly All in all, GNS is so far the only credible alternative to DNS i've read about, if only because both the protocol and the zonefile syntax are backwards-compatible with DNS.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  So what are some reasons that it won't gain popularity? Are the prevailing registries/registrars opposed to it? Would there be any authority that could mediate disputes over who "owns" a name? Does it address the problem of name-squatting/hijacking?
  - na85 5y ago
    >So what are some reasons that it won't gain popularity? It's a GNU project.
    - guerrilla 5y ago
      Because coreutils and gcc are so unpopular?
      - bruce511 5y ago
        Personally I don't mind GNU working on it, but I do mind GNU being part of the name,because GNU equates to FSF and that comes with a lot of political and idealogical baggage. Imagine for a moment this was a Microsoft project, and was called MSDNS. Would the name matter? I would argue that it does. Granted that basically no non-techie has ever heard of GNU (or the FSF) - despite the insistence on calling it GNU/Linux - I don't think it'll be a deal breaker, but I think it's uncool to put a "company" name/trademark in a global standard protocol name. So for me it's not the creators, but rather the name itself that warns a down vote.
DonHopkins 5y ago
They all have to start with G, and the G recursively stands for itself. ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_acronym https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_acronym

> A name in GNS is a domain name as defined in [RFC8499] as an ordered list of labels. The labels in a name are separated using the character "." (dot). Names, like labels, are encoded in UTF-8.

jesprenj 5y ago
> UTF-8 Yes! Finally a protocol that does not discriminate against non-ASCII languages (like punycode does in my opinion). Hello, my name is xn--jeprenj-rqb! </rant> (:
- spullara 5y ago
  They would likely still be displayed like that so people don't get tricked with look-a-like characters from other languages.
  - Arnavion 5y ago
    It's possible to be smarter than that. I believe Chrome doesn't drop down to punycode if it sees the string is entirely within a single language so that there is no possibility of look-alike characters. It might even be checking explicitly for the presence of look-alike character pairs, since they're known ahead of time.
  - teddyh 5y ago
    “People whose names break my system are weird outliers. They should have had solid, acceptable names, like 田中太郎.” — Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...
    - immibis 5y ago
      Just look at 田中太郎. Four completely independent glyphs, equal widths, no modifiers, in left-to-right order. It is a very good way to write things. The only issue is the fourth one seem to barely have enough pixels.

southerntofu 5y ago

TLDR: It's a regular domain name. It looks like a domain name. There is no specific extension for GNS. GNS is intended to replace DNS (in a backwards-compatible way) at the ICANN level so if it was ever adopted facebook.com would resolve (by following public key PKEY records, not IP/DNS NS records) using GNS. In addition, a neat feature of GNS is the hyper-hyper local root. So if you add your friend alice's PKEY in your local root as "alice", then you could resolve whatever in her zone as whatever.alice. But can this not be achieved with DNS already, you may wonder? Two differences: 1) resolution is by public key, so you don't need to keep a mapping of all your friends' nameserver IPs 2) it's intended as a recursive mechanism where you can advertise your favorite domains on your own zone, so for example if i publish The Pirate Bay's public key in my zone in a tpb record, hypothetical tpb.tofu.net will still resolve properly All in all, GNS is so far the only credible alternative to DNS i've read about, if only because both the protocol and the zonefile syntax are backwards-compatible with DNS.

throwawayboise 5y ago
So what are some reasons that it won't gain popularity? Are the prevailing registries/registrars opposed to it? Would there be any authority that could mediate disputes over who "owns" a name? Does it address the problem of name-squatting/hijacking?
- na85 5y ago
  >So what are some reasons that it won't gain popularity? It's a GNU project.
  - guerrilla 5y ago
    Because coreutils and gcc are so unpopular?
    - bruce511 5y ago
      Personally I don't mind GNU working on it, but I do mind GNU being part of the name,because GNU equates to FSF and that comes with a lot of political and idealogical baggage. Imagine for a moment this was a Microsoft project, and was called MSDNS. Would the name matter? I would argue that it does. Granted that basically no non-techie has ever heard of GNU (or the FSF) - despite the insistence on calling it GNU/Linux - I don't think it'll be a deal breaker, but I think it's uncool to put a "company" name/trademark in a global standard protocol name. So for me it's not the creators, but rather the name itself that warns a down vote.

DonHopkins 5y ago

They all have to start with G, and the G recursively stands for itself. ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_acronym https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_acronym