5 ms·

“[…] you cannot have a namespace which has all three of: distributed (in the sense that there is no central authority which can control the namespace, which is

by teddyh 4y ago

“[…] you cannot have a namespace which has all three of: distributed (in the sense that there is no central authority which can control the namespace, which is the same as saying that the namespace spans trust boundaries), secure (in the sense that name lookups cannot be forced to return incorrect values by an attacker, where the definition of "incorrect" is determined by some universal policy of name ownership), and having human-usable keys.” — Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko%27s_triangle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko%27s_triangle

ameliaquining 4y ago
Zooko's conjecture predates the invention of Bitcoin, and the article goes on to explain that blockchain-based systems can in fact have all three properties.
survirtual 4y ago
Actually, you can.
- survirtual 4y ago
  I like the downvotes here for stating a fact. The current CA system is horrendous in its centralization. It is completely possible to make a new mechanism using hashed-addresses and using traffic + user choice as the allocation mechanism for namespaces. Instead of namespaces being fought for financially, users assign namespaces to site addresses (hashes) which represent a pub key of a keypair and identity of a server. The namespaces, say “search” is then assigned to the address hash with the most users by default. If a user likes a different one, they link the “search” namespace to a different hash and that counts as a vote for that location being the default. This can be done using just traffic as an indicator for the defaults, in the event unique humanness cannot be established properly for an identity. One summary of a frictionless scheme without central control that circumvents just about every shortcoming of the current system, and has all three properties. There are other schemes, btw. Also, in the event it isn’t clear: tls comes natively to this scheme because the addresses are pub keys. There can’t be a mitm for this scheme unless they have the priv key, or find a way to direct traffic through them and acquire a majority stake for a namespace and phish the original site. Whoever has the priv key controls the properties of the address hash, which is where all the records go. This would make the internet significantly more democratic and less prone to bad actors. It would eliminate domain name squatting completely, and would enable new technologies which more closely match a namespace than old ones to have a chance, promoting innovation and meaningful competition.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    You're punting the problem. You can't securely and objectively measure users and traffic.
    - survirtual 4y ago
      You can measure users if users also have an identity bound to a key pair, with a mechanism to have attestations to their identity. In other words, the role of a CA shifts to making attestations that a pub key belongs to a unique individual. With that modification, it becomes possible to use their signature towards voting on which namespace operates as a default binding for an address hash. This mechanism is very feasible when connected to a larger system involving federated identities, and a trust matrix where users decide which authorities they accept for identity validation (or any other attestation). Binding a physical identity to a digital one has a significant number of additional benefits, and it can be done such that anonymity is preserved via sub identities with verified claims.
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        Now you're farming out to another "larger system" to ensure that the keys are real people. How does that system ensure things, and why can't that system do domains directly? > a trust matrix where users decide which authorities they accept for identity validation (or any other attestation) So if I tell someone my "domain name" I won't know what site they'll actually get because it's calculated per person?
        survirtual 4y ago
        No one should have ownership of a word. That is an individual choice that should move fluidly with the populace. With this scheme, there are many ways to enable a stable endpoint that can be shared. But at the base, the addition of a hashed keypair address is introduced which is connected to a recordset controlled by a signed message. With that, there are a lot of possibilities. Just sharing one of them. While I could outline every little detail, that would be better served in a different format and in the future. There are going to be a lot of mental shifts required in many different ways. Maybe it will take a generation before those shifts are appropriately executed, I don’t know.
huggingmouth 4y ago
I don't think we would need to deal with zooko's triangle in the case of automated systems like let's encrypt. Human legibility need not apply.
- ameliaquining 4y ago
  It's not that anything in the verification protocol needs to be human-readable, it's that domain names themselves need to be human-readable and therefore can't just be derived from public keys. Which means you have to have some kind of system for deciding who controls which names, that doesn't just come down to who possesses a particular key. Zooko conjectured that this couldn't be done in a way that was both decentralized and cryptographically secure. He turned out to be wrong about that, although the DNS that everyone actually uses remains centralized.

by teddyh 4y ago

ameliaquining 4y ago

Zooko's conjecture predates the invention of Bitcoin, and the article goes on to explain that blockchain-based systems can in fact have all three properties.

survirtual 4y ago

Actually, you can.

survirtual 4y ago
I like the downvotes here for stating a fact. The current CA system is horrendous in its centralization. It is completely possible to make a new mechanism using hashed-addresses and using traffic + user choice as the allocation mechanism for namespaces. Instead of namespaces being fought for financially, users assign namespaces to site addresses (hashes) which represent a pub key of a keypair and identity of a server. The namespaces, say “search” is then assigned to the address hash with the most users by default. If a user likes a different one, they link the “search” namespace to a different hash and that counts as a vote for that location being the default. This can be done using just traffic as an indicator for the defaults, in the event unique humanness cannot be established properly for an identity. One summary of a frictionless scheme without central control that circumvents just about every shortcoming of the current system, and has all three properties. There are other schemes, btw. Also, in the event it isn’t clear: tls comes natively to this scheme because the addresses are pub keys. There can’t be a mitm for this scheme unless they have the priv key, or find a way to direct traffic through them and acquire a majority stake for a namespace and phish the original site. Whoever has the priv key controls the properties of the address hash, which is where all the records go. This would make the internet significantly more democratic and less prone to bad actors. It would eliminate domain name squatting completely, and would enable new technologies which more closely match a namespace than old ones to have a chance, promoting innovation and meaningful competition.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  You're punting the problem. You can't securely and objectively measure users and traffic.
  - survirtual 4y ago
    You can measure users if users also have an identity bound to a key pair, with a mechanism to have attestations to their identity. In other words, the role of a CA shifts to making attestations that a pub key belongs to a unique individual. With that modification, it becomes possible to use their signature towards voting on which namespace operates as a default binding for an address hash. This mechanism is very feasible when connected to a larger system involving federated identities, and a trust matrix where users decide which authorities they accept for identity validation (or any other attestation). Binding a physical identity to a digital one has a significant number of additional benefits, and it can be done such that anonymity is preserved via sub identities with verified claims.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      Now you're farming out to another "larger system" to ensure that the keys are real people. How does that system ensure things, and why can't that system do domains directly? > a trust matrix where users decide which authorities they accept for identity validation (or any other attestation) So if I tell someone my "domain name" I won't know what site they'll actually get because it's calculated per person?
      - survirtual 4y ago
        No one should have ownership of a word. That is an individual choice that should move fluidly with the populace. With this scheme, there are many ways to enable a stable endpoint that can be shared. But at the base, the addition of a hashed keypair address is introduced which is connected to a recordset controlled by a signed message. With that, there are a lot of possibilities. Just sharing one of them. While I could outline every little detail, that would be better served in a different format and in the future. There are going to be a lot of mental shifts required in many different ways. Maybe it will take a generation before those shifts are appropriately executed, I don’t know.

huggingmouth 4y ago

I don't think we would need to deal with zooko's triangle in the case of automated systems like let's encrypt. Human legibility need not apply.

ameliaquining 4y ago
It's not that anything in the verification protocol needs to be human-readable, it's that domain names themselves need to be human-readable and therefore can't just be derived from public keys. Which means you have to have some kind of system for deciding who controls which names, that doesn't just come down to who possesses a particular key. Zooko conjectured that this couldn't be done in a way that was both decentralized and cryptographically secure. He turned out to be wrong about that, although the DNS that everyone actually uses remains centralized.