4 ms·

NFTs could be used to manage domain names, which might be a helpful replacement for ICANN.

by whatshisface 5y ago

Grustaf 5y ago
How would it work and what aspect would it improve?
- whatshisface 5y ago
  The NFT part keeps track of who owns what domain. It would improve the situation by getting rid of the questionable organization running things presently. (See: the .org scandal)
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    Obviously the NFT would "keep track of", but you have to be more specific. And changing the organisation is a completely separate question from which database technology they use. IF you just switch from SQL to NFT the organisation will not suddenly become less corrupt, or whatever the issue with them is.
    - whatshisface 5y ago
      If you're asking for the implementation details, there's a group trying to do it right now. You should look them up if you're interested. >IF you just switch from SQL to NFT the organisation will not suddenly become less corrupt, or whatever the issue with them is. It's true that it won't make the managing organization less corrupt - it will make them nonexistent. That's the idea behind decentralized decision-making. The people running the database don't have to have the power to change it or bend the rules: that's what this whole crypto thing is about.
      - Grustaf 5y ago
        How would you be able to get rid of the organisation? So many people talk about various crypto use cases but they can almost never explain how it would work. From land deeds to insurance to domain registration to in game assets etc etc, people have all these wonderful ideas. It would be interesting to one day have at least one of these ideas explained.
        ryan29 5y ago
        It's literally whoever owns the keys listed as the registrant owns the domain. If you lose your keys you lose your domain. You have no recourse if someone squats on your domain, uses a lookalike domain for phishing, steals your domain, etc.. And for the privilege of having a judgement proof blockchain with no oversight you get to buy your domain from an early adopter that's squatting (investing) and you get to pay fees every time you blink. All the crypto bros printed (mined) a bunch of monopoly money (coins), invented assets (NFTs), bought (allocated to themselves) all the assets (NFTs) using their monopoly money (coins), and want us to buy into these crappy systems with real money so they can sell us the assets (NFTs) while still being the landlords (transaction processors) that charge us rent (fees) on everything forever.
        Grustaf 5y ago
        > It's literally whoever owns the keys listed as the registrant owns the domain. Sure, but even so, how is this implemented? Presumably some organisation needs to uphold this connection. Simply "owning" a domain, in the sense that you "own" an NFT, is not very helpful, you need some kind of actual control over it. Presumably a server is needed to forward the domain to your IP, and someone needs to run that server, right?
        thebean11 5y ago
        There is a smart contract that supports features like domain name resolution and transfers. The data and code needed to resolve the domain to your IP would live on the blockchain, so effectively every node in the network is hosting it. The smart contract could be totally immutable; nobody would have special permissions. The resolution would work by executing some "lookup" smart contract function on a node (you could run your own local node for lookups, or use a public node similar to hitting your ISP's or Google's DNS server). None of this is really cutting edge, it has been possible for a long time now.
  - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
    My domain is secured by the ministry of telecommunications of my local government. To transfer ownership of my domain requires a hard copy of a random code snail-mailed to me by the ministry. It's literally tied to my legal citizenship. That's the opposite of "questionable."
    - thebean11 5y ago
      That has some obvious downsides. It probably doesn't matter for you personally but being able to take someone's domain away for political reasons isn't ideal.
      - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
        Ownership as a concept is backed and secured by law (and enforcement), an inherently political system in democracy. It's the most ideal system successfully practised around the world today. The next best thing is securing one's property by practicing personal violence, and as I've no interest in shooting anyone for mere robbery, I'll take political ownership any day of the week. If my very countrymen (and women) collectively decide I can't have my domain, then so be it. The obvious upside is that while they do uphold my ownership, it's as secure as any of my earthly possessions. Stealing my domain amounts to stealing my mail, which is a crime.
        thebean11 5y ago
        Not everyone in the world has access to a government that will uphold their ownership in a just way. Like I said it this likely isn't valuable for you personally, you are not looking past your specific situation.
        hypertele-Xii 5y ago
        But everyone in the world has access to a cryptocoin that will uphold their ownership in a just way? Is that the argument? Crypto is "more just" and "available globally" and affordably?
ryan29 5y ago
I own one. All the blockchain domains are a dream come true for squatters and scammers. I'll take the oversight, stability, accountability, and mutability of ICANN and the current registry/registrar system every single time given the choice.
- thebean11 5y ago
  Come on, there is realistically nothing stopping you from hosting a scam on a normal ICANN domain. What accountability are you talking about?
  - ryan29 5y ago
    The registrars are obligated to prevent fraud and abuse. If they fail to do that job you can appeal directly to the registry. If the registry doesn't do anything you can appeal to ICANN. All of them are within the scope of the legal system, so if you send a police report demonstrating fraud to a registrar or registry and they fail to act you have some recourse. If their inaction results in increased damages they've opened themselves to liability and you could sue them. The possibility alone is enough that everyone has published polices detailing how they deal with those situations. As long as you follow the rules you can get a domain taken away from a bad actor. It's not easy, but it's possible if someone is doing enough harm. So yeah, you can host a scam on a normal ICANN domain. It's what happens afterwards that matters. In ICANN land you get one chance to run your scam because the victim can make an appeal to authority to have you shut down. In blockchain land it's tough luck for you. As an example, this [1] looks like PayPal's wallet. What do they do about this [2] wallet which owns paypals.eth (alongside sqaree.eth, chasebanks.eth, etc.)? They have two choices AFAIK. The first is to pay whatever the owner demands for those domains. The second is to take the risk of the owner selling those domains to someone that wants to use them for phishing. There are exactly two winners in the blockchain version; the domain squatter and a would be scammer. In the existing system a high value domain owner like PayPal will have an established procedure for dealing with bad actors that infringe on their trademark and dealing with typo squatting like that is probably as simple as sending a template they have to the corresponding registry. 1. https://app.ens.domains/address/0x527FC48f1CA8b41DF3E870F5DE185781150fA8Cb https://app.ens.domains/address/0x527FC48f1CA8b41DF3E870F5DE... 2. https://app.ens.domains/address/0x7731652a9F7F48F77E94a8675F8e125BdA93D62a https://app.ens.domains/address/0x7731652a9F7F48F77E94a8675F...

NFTs could be used to manage domain names, which might be a helpful replacement for ICANN.

Grustaf 5y ago

How would it work and what aspect would it improve?

whatshisface 5y ago
The NFT part keeps track of who owns what domain. It would improve the situation by getting rid of the questionable organization running things presently. (See: the .org scandal)
- Grustaf 5y ago
  Obviously the NFT would "keep track of", but you have to be more specific. And changing the organisation is a completely separate question from which database technology they use. IF you just switch from SQL to NFT the organisation will not suddenly become less corrupt, or whatever the issue with them is.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    If you're asking for the implementation details, there's a group trying to do it right now. You should look them up if you're interested. >IF you just switch from SQL to NFT the organisation will not suddenly become less corrupt, or whatever the issue with them is. It's true that it won't make the managing organization less corrupt - it will make them nonexistent. That's the idea behind decentralized decision-making. The people running the database don't have to have the power to change it or bend the rules: that's what this whole crypto thing is about.
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      How would you be able to get rid of the organisation? So many people talk about various crypto use cases but they can almost never explain how it would work. From land deeds to insurance to domain registration to in game assets etc etc, people have all these wonderful ideas. It would be interesting to one day have at least one of these ideas explained.
      - ryan29 5y ago
        It's literally whoever owns the keys listed as the registrant owns the domain. If you lose your keys you lose your domain. You have no recourse if someone squats on your domain, uses a lookalike domain for phishing, steals your domain, etc.. And for the privilege of having a judgement proof blockchain with no oversight you get to buy your domain from an early adopter that's squatting (investing) and you get to pay fees every time you blink. All the crypto bros printed (mined) a bunch of monopoly money (coins), invented assets (NFTs), bought (allocated to themselves) all the assets (NFTs) using their monopoly money (coins), and want us to buy into these crappy systems with real money so they can sell us the assets (NFTs) while still being the landlords (transaction processors) that charge us rent (fees) on everything forever.
        Grustaf 5y ago
        > It's literally whoever owns the keys listed as the registrant owns the domain. Sure, but even so, how is this implemented? Presumably some organisation needs to uphold this connection. Simply "owning" a domain, in the sense that you "own" an NFT, is not very helpful, you need some kind of actual control over it. Presumably a server is needed to forward the domain to your IP, and someone needs to run that server, right?
        thebean11 5y ago
        There is a smart contract that supports features like domain name resolution and transfers. The data and code needed to resolve the domain to your IP would live on the blockchain, so effectively every node in the network is hosting it. The smart contract could be totally immutable; nobody would have special permissions. The resolution would work by executing some "lookup" smart contract function on a node (you could run your own local node for lookups, or use a public node similar to hitting your ISP's or Google's DNS server). None of this is really cutting edge, it has been possible for a long time now.
- hypertele-Xii 5y ago
  My domain is secured by the ministry of telecommunications of my local government. To transfer ownership of my domain requires a hard copy of a random code snail-mailed to me by the ministry. It's literally tied to my legal citizenship. That's the opposite of "questionable."
  - thebean11 5y ago
    That has some obvious downsides. It probably doesn't matter for you personally but being able to take someone's domain away for political reasons isn't ideal.
    - hypertele-Xii 5y ago
      Ownership as a concept is backed and secured by law (and enforcement), an inherently political system in democracy. It's the most ideal system successfully practised around the world today. The next best thing is securing one's property by practicing personal violence, and as I've no interest in shooting anyone for mere robbery, I'll take political ownership any day of the week. If my very countrymen (and women) collectively decide I can't have my domain, then so be it. The obvious upside is that while they do uphold my ownership, it's as secure as any of my earthly possessions. Stealing my domain amounts to stealing my mail, which is a crime.
      - thebean11 5y ago
        Not everyone in the world has access to a government that will uphold their ownership in a just way. Like I said it this likely isn't valuable for you personally, you are not looking past your specific situation.
        hypertele-Xii 5y ago
        But everyone in the world has access to a cryptocoin that will uphold their ownership in a just way? Is that the argument? Crypto is "more just" and "available globally" and affordably?

ryan29 5y ago

I own one. All the blockchain domains are a dream come true for squatters and scammers. I'll take the oversight, stability, accountability, and mutability of ICANN and the current registry/registrar system every single time given the choice.

thebean11 5y ago
Come on, there is realistically nothing stopping you from hosting a scam on a normal ICANN domain. What accountability are you talking about?
- ryan29 5y ago
  The registrars are obligated to prevent fraud and abuse. If they fail to do that job you can appeal directly to the registry. If the registry doesn't do anything you can appeal to ICANN. All of them are within the scope of the legal system, so if you send a police report demonstrating fraud to a registrar or registry and they fail to act you have some recourse. If their inaction results in increased damages they've opened themselves to liability and you could sue them. The possibility alone is enough that everyone has published polices detailing how they deal with those situations. As long as you follow the rules you can get a domain taken away from a bad actor. It's not easy, but it's possible if someone is doing enough harm. So yeah, you can host a scam on a normal ICANN domain. It's what happens afterwards that matters. In ICANN land you get one chance to run your scam because the victim can make an appeal to authority to have you shut down. In blockchain land it's tough luck for you. As an example, this [1] looks like PayPal's wallet. What do they do about this [2] wallet which owns paypals.eth (alongside sqaree.eth, chasebanks.eth, etc.)? They have two choices AFAIK. The first is to pay whatever the owner demands for those domains. The second is to take the risk of the owner selling those domains to someone that wants to use them for phishing. There are exactly two winners in the blockchain version; the domain squatter and a would be scammer. In the existing system a high value domain owner like PayPal will have an established procedure for dealing with bad actors that infringe on their trademark and dealing with typo squatting like that is probably as simple as sending a template they have to the corresponding registry. 1. https://app.ens.domains/address/0x527FC48f1CA8b41DF3E870F5DE185781150fA8Cb https://app.ens.domains/address/0x527FC48f1CA8b41DF3E870F5DE... 2. https://app.ens.domains/address/0x7731652a9F7F48F77E94a8675F8e125BdA93D62a https://app.ens.domains/address/0x7731652a9F7F48F77E94a8675F...