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What's wrong with blockchain based solutions like namecoin?

• beagle3 12y ago
  If I understand correctly, namecoin is a distributed DNS replacement. Is there a way it addresses impersonation (e.g. MITM?), if so, can you please point me at documentation? DNS does not address it, and even DNSSEC does not (if you can forge the certificate, and you can mitm the traffic - which state actors are all capable of - then it doesn't matter that you can't forge the DNS response itself).
  • aianus 12y ago
    You can place your own self-signed public key in your namecoin record. There is no longer any need for certificate authorities which can be coerced into forging certificates.
    • beagle3 12y ago
      Well, if this is properly supported by software using namecoin for DNS resolution, then - yes, this may work. The proof of the pudding, however, will arrive once it's eaten. I am not familiar with namecoin to point where the potential problems are, but do note that the failure of CAs is not in the cryptography but rather in the trust model. In modern cryptography, the problems are almost always with the practice, not with the theory.
      • rakoo 12y ago
        > software using namecoin for DNS resolution Actually, it should be the other way around: dnschain [0] bridges DNS resolution and namecoin, so there's no need to modify existing software. [0] https://github.com/okTurtles/dnschain https://github.com/okTurtles/dnschain
        • beagle3 12y ago
          Cool! wasn't aware of it.