3 ms·

Why does a decentralized protocol need to be amenable to these disputes? Saying “we will have a jury of appointed authorities to manage disputes” defeats the po

Why does a decentralized protocol need to be amenable to these disputes? Saying “we will have a jury of appointed authorities to manage disputes” defeats the point, and is what ENS tries to avoid. If apple.eth is held by a squatter, should courts be able to override the protocol to send it to trademark holder Apple? In the end this can get resolved by regular dispute mechanisms but without compromising decentralization and integrity of the protocol.

teraflop 4y ago
> If apple.eth is held by a squatter, should courts be able to override the protocol to send it to trademark holder Apple? If the holder is using it maliciously to scam people by tricking them into thinking it's the real Apple, then yes! In that situation, revoking their ability to use the domain is a much better outcome for everybody except the scammer. > In the end this can get resolved by regular dispute mechanisms but without compromising decentralization and integrity of the protocol. But the Ethereum Name Service does not have any such dispute mechanism, by design.
- web3isgoing 4y ago
  ENS avoids this dispute mechanism by design, to avoid the need for a central third party. > If the holder is using it maliciously to scam people by tricking them into thinking it's the real Apple, then yes! Try applying your logic to Twitter and its current situation. Is it a good thing that accounts impersonating others are being suspended from the network? Mastodon does not have this same centralization, so @teraflop@teraflop.xyz could impersonate your @teraflop@teraflop.com account. There is no centralized entity that controls the whole Mastodon and ActivityPub network, which I think is a good design decision for a less centralized protocol. And see my sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33626408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33626408
  - acdha 4y ago
    Local namespaces are fine, even desirable since very few names are globally unique. The problem with ENS is that it apes the federated DNS design without the oversight mechanisms. In the example you gave, an impersonator is subject to the rules of their Mastodon instance and the operators can handle things like lost credentials or an account compromise, and if a particular host is not a good custodian many people will block the entirely. ENS has none of those corrective mechanisms and I suspect that they’ll slowly be added over time to get usage.
    - web3isgoing 4y ago
      I could be wrong, but I do not believe ActivityPub spec actively outlines suspension rules, instead letting servers decide how to moderate their content. Same with clients on top of ENS and the blockchain. These moderations already exist on services built on top of ENS, like tornadocash.eth.limo which fails to resolve because the .limo domain is following US sanctions. > In the example you gave, an impersonator is subject to the rules of their Mastodon instance Just to point out, the impersonator can self-host, so Mastodon protocol has no course to expel them except for each other instance to suspend the impersonator one at a time, or to come to consensus on large blocklists.
acdha 4y ago
> If apple.eth is held by a squatter, should courts be able to override the protocol to send it to trademark holder Apple? In the end this can get resolved by regular dispute mechanisms but without compromising decentralization and integrity of the protocol. How exactly do you think this works? With DNS, there's a trusted third party who can help recover from errors — if you lose access, you might have to prove your identity but it's not a hard process. If someone squats your domain or steals it when they compromise your computer, the registrar can sort it out or will respond to a court order. With ENS, the answer is you're screwed if you lose the key or whoever has it currently isn't responsive. Maybe you can track them down and get a legal action strong enough that they honor it but that's a lot more work and has a lot more failure modes which look like the apple.eth service having to move to apple computers.eth because the system is designed to fail hard. Very few people are going to want to build on something like that because it means that even a trillion-dollar corporation is one phish away from a massive disaster.
- web3isgoing 4y ago
  I understand how DNS works. The design goals of ENS are not the same as DNS. There is no "trusted third party" in ENS because the system aims to be trustless, decentralized, ownerless, and censorship-resistant. Even in extreme scenarios like a US sanction, tornadocash.eth domain is still functioning[1] but tornadocash.com has been revoked by Google registrar[2]. Not everybody in the world feels that the current US government administration should be able to dictate and censor worldwide internet protocols in this way. > Maybe you can track them down and get a legal action strong enough that they honor it That's fine, it's how our legal system works. Using a bank as an example: they can eject you as a customer if you do something they think is criminal, even before you have had a fair trial that might prove you innocent. ENS and crypto both ask: what if you create protocols where users actually do have complete ownership over their assets, and no single entity has more control over the ledger than another? [1] https://etherscan.io/enslookup-search?search=tornadocash.eth https://etherscan.io/enslookup-search?search=tornadocash.eth [2] https://www.whois.com/whois/tornado.cash https://www.whois.com/whois/tornado.cash
  - acdha 4y ago

teraflop 4y ago

> If apple.eth is held by a squatter, should courts be able to override the protocol to send it to trademark holder Apple? If the holder is using it maliciously to scam people by tricking them into thinking it's the real Apple, then yes! In that situation, revoking their ability to use the domain is a much better outcome for everybody except the scammer. > In the end this can get resolved by regular dispute mechanisms but without compromising decentralization and integrity of the protocol. But the Ethereum Name Service does not have any such dispute mechanism, by design.

web3isgoing 4y ago
ENS avoids this dispute mechanism by design, to avoid the need for a central third party. > If the holder is using it maliciously to scam people by tricking them into thinking it's the real Apple, then yes! Try applying your logic to Twitter and its current situation. Is it a good thing that accounts impersonating others are being suspended from the network? Mastodon does not have this same centralization, so @teraflop@teraflop.xyz could impersonate your @teraflop@teraflop.com account. There is no centralized entity that controls the whole Mastodon and ActivityPub network, which I think is a good design decision for a less centralized protocol. And see my sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33626408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33626408
- acdha 4y ago
  Local namespaces are fine, even desirable since very few names are globally unique. The problem with ENS is that it apes the federated DNS design without the oversight mechanisms. In the example you gave, an impersonator is subject to the rules of their Mastodon instance and the operators can handle things like lost credentials or an account compromise, and if a particular host is not a good custodian many people will block the entirely. ENS has none of those corrective mechanisms and I suspect that they’ll slowly be added over time to get usage.
  - web3isgoing 4y ago
    I could be wrong, but I do not believe ActivityPub spec actively outlines suspension rules, instead letting servers decide how to moderate their content. Same with clients on top of ENS and the blockchain. These moderations already exist on services built on top of ENS, like tornadocash.eth.limo which fails to resolve because the .limo domain is following US sanctions. > In the example you gave, an impersonator is subject to the rules of their Mastodon instance Just to point out, the impersonator can self-host, so Mastodon protocol has no course to expel them except for each other instance to suspend the impersonator one at a time, or to come to consensus on large blocklists.

acdha 4y ago

> If apple.eth is held by a squatter, should courts be able to override the protocol to send it to trademark holder Apple? In the end this can get resolved by regular dispute mechanisms but without compromising decentralization and integrity of the protocol. How exactly do you think this works? With DNS, there's a trusted third party who can help recover from errors — if you lose access, you might have to prove your identity but it's not a hard process. If someone squats your domain or steals it when they compromise your computer, the registrar can sort it out or will respond to a court order. With ENS, the answer is you're screwed if you lose the key or whoever has it currently isn't responsive. Maybe you can track them down and get a legal action strong enough that they honor it but that's a lot more work and has a lot more failure modes which look like the apple.eth service having to move to apple computers.eth because the system is designed to fail hard. Very few people are going to want to build on something like that because it means that even a trillion-dollar corporation is one phish away from a massive disaster.

web3isgoing 4y ago
I understand how DNS works. The design goals of ENS are not the same as DNS. There is no "trusted third party" in ENS because the system aims to be trustless, decentralized, ownerless, and censorship-resistant. Even in extreme scenarios like a US sanction, tornadocash.eth domain is still functioning[1] but tornadocash.com has been revoked by Google registrar[2]. Not everybody in the world feels that the current US government administration should be able to dictate and censor worldwide internet protocols in this way. > Maybe you can track them down and get a legal action strong enough that they honor it That's fine, it's how our legal system works. Using a bank as an example: they can eject you as a customer if you do something they think is criminal, even before you have had a fair trial that might prove you innocent. ENS and crypto both ask: what if you create protocols where users actually do have complete ownership over their assets, and no single entity has more control over the ledger than another? [1] https://etherscan.io/enslookup-search?search=tornadocash.eth https://etherscan.io/enslookup-search?search=tornadocash.eth [2] https://www.whois.com/whois/tornado.cash https://www.whois.com/whois/tornado.cash
- acdha 4y ago