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Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

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Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#31

Post by TeMPOraL »

I might be missing something, but I completely don't get this idea, especially with the examples provided by the author. I have two major concerns:

> Bind searches to domain names, eg "food in chicago" => f02970848a63988965aa40cd368ffcf9046209ca.com

This IMO is bad, and goes in completely wrong direction. We've invented search engines to have such phrases not bound to a particular domain. Who would handle the "#://food in chicago" domain? Would it be Google? Bing? Yelp? Local restaurant chain? Or maybe some scammers? And who would maintain the completely different website "#://food in Chicago", and why "#://Food in Chicago" wants to silently install me some malware?

The reason searching for such phrases makes sense, while having them as domains does not, is that things like "food in chicago" are poorly defined, fuzzy concepts. It would feel weird to change one letter in a query, or replace word "food" with, eg. "something to eat", and see completely different website. Moreover, major search engines are more or less egalitarian wrt. buisnesses. Yes, there's the whole SEO thing, but you can't get full control of what food joints are listed near your location just because you've managed to get the register first. I can (and do) trust listings from Google; they have both incentives and track record of being fair. I will never trust listings from random-autogenerated-squat-scam-business-site.

Which brings me to the second point,

> Good domain names are pretty scarce. It's a source of frustration for anyone who has ever tried to buy a domain.

Yes, they are, and the primary source of frustration is that they are mostly taken by various squatters and other scums of the Internet. What will happen is that, the moment there's any real possibility such hash-domain scheme is introduced, all those evil people and companies will take all the domains like "#://microsoft", "#://android" and "#://insert any popular keyword or phrase here" in order to sell them back to real businesses for boatloads of money. And then we'll be back to square one, with maybe a little bigger domain space than we have right now. Bad people win, good people loose and nothing changed.

So, again, the concepts behind this idea elude me.

Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#32

Post by biot »

asperous wrote: post #21

One downside of this is that you're using a secure one-way hashing function. This means that if for some reason you have the hashed url you can't get the clean one back. You could use something something like base64 instead.. might work better but it would remove the ability to use files as domain names.

A TXT DNS entry could identify the unhashed text, eg:

  @    TXT   "v=sha1reverse; food in chicago"
The browser could look this up, verify it, and display "#:// food in chicago" in the location instead of the hashed domain name.

Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#33

Post by gahahaha »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #31

I might be missing something, but I completely don't get this idea, especially with the examples provided by the author. I have two major concerns: > Bind searches to domain names, eg "food in chicago" => f02970848a63988965aa40cd368ffcf9046209ca.com This IMO is bad, and goes in completely wrong direction. We've invented search engines to have such phrases not bound to a particular domain. Who would handle the "#://fo…

The concepts that eluded you were so eloquently explained at the bottom: "This is just for fun! A proof of concept."

Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#36

Post by EarthLaunch »

gahahaha wrote: post #33
TeMPOraL wrote: post #31

I might be missing something, but I completely don't get this idea, especially with the examples provided by the author. I have two major concerns: > Bind searches to domain names, eg "food in chicago" => f02970848a63988965aa40cd368ffcf9046209ca.com This IMO is bad, and goes in completely wrong direction. We've invented search engines to have such phrases not bound to a particular domain. Who would handle the "#://fo…

The concepts that eluded you were so eloquently explained at the bottom: "This is just for fun! A proof of concept."

The concept it proves is that a string can be hashed, not the concept it presents.

Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#37

Post by TeMPOraL »

gahahaha wrote: post #33
TeMPOraL wrote: post #31

I might be missing something, but I completely don't get this idea, especially with the examples provided by the author. I have two major concerns: > Bind searches to domain names, eg "food in chicago" => f02970848a63988965aa40cd368ffcf9046209ca.com This IMO is bad, and goes in completely wrong direction. We've invented search engines to have such phrases not bound to a particular domain. Who would handle the "#://fo…

The concepts that eluded you were so eloquently explained at the bottom: "This is just for fun! A proof of concept."

I get that, but we might keep that in mind while still having a discussion about real-world feasability of such idea :).

Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#38

Post by jyap »

This won't work because to me this is similar in concept to URL shorteners. The difference being in the shortening algorithm and the use of expensive domains.

So for example with current shorteners you have:

http://shorturl.com/{algorithm for unique URL goes here}

In the above case using a browser plug in can also eliminate any server side resolution of domains.

With this proof of concept:

http://{algorithm for unique URL goes here}.com

... Except the implementation costs $ if it is to be accepted... And to be accepted it needs to have a benefit that isn't solved by URL shorteners.

Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#39

Post by pudquick »

I would be in favor of this idea if a little more thought was put into how the hashing function works.

As it stands, someone typing in:

food in Chicago

will get a different URL than:

food in Chicago

And the same goes for: Chicago food, chicago food, food near Chicago, etc.

Every one, with a single character difference (extra space, different word order, capitalization difference, regional spelling like theatre vs theater, etc) will result in a different hash.

You've now made 'humanized URLs' into 'no one will guess your domain'.

It's an interesting approach to avoiding search engines, but it doesn't solve the problem that search engines do solve: multiple similar but different entries resulting in the same "appropriate"/top website result.

With this approach, not even face book, Facebook, and facebook would result in the same .com (and please don't suggest just purchasing a billion domains and redirecting them all).

Re: Show HN: Use any text as a domain name

#40

Post by penguincaravan »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #31

I might be missing something, but I completely don't get this idea, especially with the examples provided by the author. I have two major concerns: > Bind searches to domain names, eg "food in chicago" => f02970848a63988965aa40cd368ffcf9046209ca.com This IMO is bad, and goes in completely wrong direction. We've invented search engines to have such phrases not bound to a particular domain. Who would handle the "#://fo…

You're right, looks like someone already bought f02970848a63988965aa40cd368ffcf9046209ca.com
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