5 ms·

Reminder: you can't really own a domain name. Use public keys instead. Like i2p and tor do.

gerdesj 3y ago
What do you mean: "you can't really own a domain name." That seems to be like saying you can't own a house! Unless you run a registrar, you have to engage the services of a registrar to register your domain with the internet infrastructure. In the UK, the Land Registry is where you register your claim for a particular plot of land and property ownership and where your mortgage provider registers an interest against your property until it is paid off. I forget the precise legal terms. The internets does have a reasonably thorough concept of domain ownership and there is a decent set of precedents. eg MacDonalds wrested control of macdonalds.co.uk from a Scottish shyster who has the surname "MacDonald". He did not have a Ltd company in his name but Maccy D does.
- defaultcompany 3y ago
  The difference is that the postal service will still forward your mail for you if you sell or lose your house. There is no way to make that happen with a domain name. A person who registers your expired domain name not only has no obligation to forward your email, they can also just read it and potentially get access to any services you set up using that email address as authentication.
- tomatocracy 3y ago
  Just as an aside - the UK land registry isn't a perfect system at all, even where land is actually registered. For example - I own a flat where the land registry scan of the original long lease which legally documents what I own is incomplete. They don't keep original documents any more since they scanned everything and got rid of the originals years ago to save storage costs. Neither I or the freeholder have original copies either. Theoretically they are supposed to pay to correct this if I complain - but part of what's missing is a plan showing the extent of what I own, which opens up a potential dispute with the freeholder as to what land the lease was originally granted over and I don't really want to have a legal fight over it (and I'm not sure the land registry would cover any legal costs of a dispute). It's not a day to day issue but there's some risk there for the future.
  - gerdesj 3y ago
    "the UK land registry isn't a perfect system at all" No shit! I was an Army brat and lived in what was called West Germany. It may have been a state thing (Nord Rhein OP) rather than a federal thing but houses often had little markers, similar to surveying benchmarks to demarcate property boundaries. In little Britain we have err the Land Registry. It's not quite as bad as you say. Since around 2007-2010 (I can't remember exactly when) plans submitted to Planning had to have a lot more detail added. For example you have to include trees and hedges but not co-ords of the boundary to 5mm from the nearest OBM. I can personally survey better than that and I'm just a Civ Eng graduate who ended up pissing around with computers. My house came with its original and subsequent conveyancing docs. It was built in the 1920s, so quite modern. The farmer who flogged off a bit of land, near to a railway line also provided a mortgage/loan to the woman who bought it. Its been through a few hands since. One of the subsequent owners lives up the road. He and his wife (she passed away recently) divided the plot, another house was built and a double garage linking the houses was added. Anyway, the Land Registry is quite loose but it works. It seems that Little Britain is quite content on a microscopic scale. We somehow manage to not get too whizzed up over boundaries too often. The boundaries somehow manage to manage themselves.
bentcorner 3y ago
Isn't there a problem with key-as-identity is that if you lose control for whatever reason, you have no recourse?
- KirillPanov 3y ago
  If you're really so worried about that, escrow your key with an undeletable backup service like the one provided by rsync.net. These are quite popular as ransomware protection. https://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/snapshots.html https://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/snapshots.html Frankly, this concern is massively overblown by people looking for an excuse to replace cryptography with government identity papers.
klysm 3y ago
Unfortunately the rest of the world uses DNS
nvy 3y ago
I like to be able to actually tell someone my domain name/email address/etc., verbally. Rattling off a 56-character base32 string just doesn't work.
- KirillPanov 3y ago
  Fine, as long as you understand that you don't own any of those pronounceable identifiers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko's_triangle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko's_triangle

What do you mean: "you can't really own a domain name." That seems to be like saying you can't own a house! Unless you run a registrar, you have to engage the services of a registrar to register your domain with the internet infrastructure. In the UK, the Land Registry is where you register your claim for a particular plot of land and property ownership and where your mortgage provider registers an interest against your property until it is paid off. I forget the precise legal terms. The internets does have a reasonably thorough concept of domain ownership and there is a decent set of precedents. eg MacDonalds wrested control of macdonalds.co.uk from a Scottish shyster who has the surname "MacDonald". He did not have a Ltd company in his name but Maccy D does.

defaultcompany 3y ago
The difference is that the postal service will still forward your mail for you if you sell or lose your house. There is no way to make that happen with a domain name. A person who registers your expired domain name not only has no obligation to forward your email, they can also just read it and potentially get access to any services you set up using that email address as authentication.
tomatocracy 3y ago
Just as an aside - the UK land registry isn't a perfect system at all, even where land is actually registered. For example - I own a flat where the land registry scan of the original long lease which legally documents what I own is incomplete. They don't keep original documents any more since they scanned everything and got rid of the originals years ago to save storage costs. Neither I or the freeholder have original copies either. Theoretically they are supposed to pay to correct this if I complain - but part of what's missing is a plan showing the extent of what I own, which opens up a potential dispute with the freeholder as to what land the lease was originally granted over and I don't really want to have a legal fight over it (and I'm not sure the land registry would cover any legal costs of a dispute). It's not a day to day issue but there's some risk there for the future.
- gerdesj 3y ago
  "the UK land registry isn't a perfect system at all" No shit! I was an Army brat and lived in what was called West Germany. It may have been a state thing (Nord Rhein OP) rather than a federal thing but houses often had little markers, similar to surveying benchmarks to demarcate property boundaries. In little Britain we have err the Land Registry. It's not quite as bad as you say. Since around 2007-2010 (I can't remember exactly when) plans submitted to Planning had to have a lot more detail added. For example you have to include trees and hedges but not co-ords of the boundary to 5mm from the nearest OBM. I can personally survey better than that and I'm just a Civ Eng graduate who ended up pissing around with computers. My house came with its original and subsequent conveyancing docs. It was built in the 1920s, so quite modern. The farmer who flogged off a bit of land, near to a railway line also provided a mortgage/loan to the woman who bought it. Its been through a few hands since. One of the subsequent owners lives up the road. He and his wife (she passed away recently) divided the plot, another house was built and a double garage linking the houses was added. Anyway, the Land Registry is quite loose but it works. It seems that Little Britain is quite content on a microscopic scale. We somehow manage to not get too whizzed up over boundaries too often. The boundaries somehow manage to manage themselves.

bentcorner 3y ago

Isn't there a problem with key-as-identity is that if you lose control for whatever reason, you have no recourse?

KirillPanov 3y ago
If you're really so worried about that, escrow your key with an undeletable backup service like the one provided by rsync.net. These are quite popular as ransomware protection. https://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/snapshots.html https://www.rsync.net/resources/howto/snapshots.html Frankly, this concern is massively overblown by people looking for an excuse to replace cryptography with government identity papers.

klysm 3y ago

Unfortunately the rest of the world uses DNS

nvy 3y ago

I like to be able to actually tell someone my domain name/email address/etc., verbally. Rattling off a 56-character base32 string just doesn't work.

KirillPanov 3y ago
Fine, as long as you understand that you don't own any of those pronounceable identifiers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko's_triangle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko's_triangle