Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Open Name System: Extending DNS with the Blockchain

opennamesystem.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 32 posts

Re: Open Name System: Extending DNS with the Blockchain

#11

Post by x1798DE »

gtirloni wrote: post #5

Why should we base critical infrastructure on completely anonymous building blocks? There is no mention about who is working on this, their motivations, the domain is behind WhoisGuard, etc. Why is it so critical to become anonymous as a developer in this case? Perhaps I'm missing something but is the FBI/CIA going after anyone working on blockchain/crypto stuff nowadays? It feels like asking for transparency, but on…

>It feels like asking for transparency, but only from others. Same reason I can't truly trust Bitcoin, it's as shady as my bank's processes.

What additional information would get get from the name of the people behind this? How is Bitcoin in any way shady? It's an open protocol and most people use open-source clients to access it. You (and anyone else - including people with a lot of money riding on it) can verify that you trust the code, even if you don't have any idea who wrote it. Compare to a bank's process, where if you even try and reverse engineer the protocol you're risking jailtime.

Re: Open Name System: Extending DNS with the Blockchain

#12

Post by eric_bullington »

This is a pretty direct challenge to keybase.io. I really, really like the keybase implementation, but the one thing I wished for keybase was that it was decentralized.

This has that.

However, in terms of the implementation itself, they still have a way to go before they match keybase.

Re: Open Name System: Extending DNS with the Blockchain

#13

Post by DINKDINK »

misterbishop wrote: post #4

This is the first attempt I've seen at using a blockchain for DNS. Looks like an amazing solution to an increasingly desperate problem (as DNS takedowns are the preferred method for internet censorship).

Are you familiar with NameCoin?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namecoin

Re: Open Name System: Extending DNS with the Blockchain

#14

Post by Rhapso »

misterbishop wrote: post #4

This is the first attempt I've seen at using a blockchain for DNS. Looks like an amazing solution to an increasingly desperate problem (as DNS takedowns are the preferred method for internet censorship).

https://github.com/BrendanBenshoof/P2PDNS/raw/master/P3DNS.p...

Re: Open Name System: Extending DNS with the Blockchain

#15

Post by harveygold »

eric_bullington wrote: post #12

This is a pretty direct challenge to keybase.io. I really, really like the keybase implementation, but the one thing I wished for keybase was that it was decentralized. This has that. However, in terms of the implementation itself, they still have a way to go before they match keybase.

> However, in terms of the implementation itself, they still have a way to go before they match keybase.

Care to explain how? They're the team behind onename.io and clearly seem to have just as strong an implementation.

Re: Open Name System: Extending DNS with the Blockchain

#16

Post by itistoday2 »

misterbishop wrote: post #4

This is the first attempt I've seen at using a blockchain for DNS. Looks like an amazing solution to an increasingly desperate problem (as DNS takedowns are the preferred method for internet censorship).

Namecoin has been used for this purpose since 2011. It already has specifications for DNS and identities (and these have been iterated on for years now):

https://wiki.namecoin.info/index.php?title=Domain_Name_Speci...

https://wiki.namecoin.info/index.php?title=Identity

As well as others (like hashes for software). Even OneName.io's u/ namespace is listed here:

https://wiki.namecoin.info/index.php?title=OneName

There are also many other blockchain DNS related projects:

DNSChain (gives full-security read/write to arbitrary blockchains for all devices without having to run a DNS-based blockchain node, another nifty features like censorship circumvention and dotDNS metaTLD for JS apps):

https://github.com/okTurtles/dnschain (I'm one of the devs of this)

BitShares DNS (a different type of blockchain with a different consensus protocol): http://dotp2p.io

Feel free to mention others. I hope for more collaboration and less reproduction of efforts.

Re: Open Name System: Extending DNS with the Blockchain

#17

Post by ryan-c »

eric_bullington wrote: post #8
misterbishop wrote: post #4

This is the first attempt I've seen at using a blockchain for DNS. Looks like an amazing solution to an increasingly desperate problem (as DNS takedowns are the preferred method for internet censorship).

One of the first uses of blockchain technology for a non-financial application was an alternative domain name registration system called Namecoin, started back in 2010 and still active. Granted, that was an alternative domain name system, not an ICANN extension like this one. And it used a separate blockchain and coin (Namecoin), not the Bitcoin blockchain, which may be what you were referring to. Nonetheless, I feel…

This thing runs on Namecoin, though that is buried in the documentation.

Re: Open Name System: Extending DNS with the Blockchain

#18

Post by ryan-c »

itistoday2 wrote: post #16
misterbishop wrote: post #4

This is the first attempt I've seen at using a blockchain for DNS. Looks like an amazing solution to an increasingly desperate problem (as DNS takedowns are the preferred method for internet censorship).

Namecoin has been used for this purpose since 2011. It already has specifications for DNS and identities (and these have been iterated on for years now): https://wiki.namecoin.info/index.php?title=Domain_Name_Speci... https://wiki.namecoin.info/index.php?title=Identity As well as others (like hashes for software). Even OneName.io's u/ namespace is listed here: https://wiki.namecoin.info/index.php?title=OneName There…

OneName and OpenNameSystem appear to be trying to avoid any association with Namecoin despite the fact that they use it. Both projects have no mention of Namecoin (they just say "blockchain") on their websites and a lot of the documentation isn't very clear on this. What gives?

Re: Open Name System: Extending DNS with the Blockchain

#19

Post by itistoday2 »

higherpurpose wrote: post #2

How is this different from DNSChain?

Having looked at it a bit more, here are some differences that I noticed:

    - This is written in python. DNSChain is written in CoffeeScript and runs
      on NodeJS.
    - This focuses on a command line utility, whereas with DNSChain you don't
      need one (just do an HTTP request).
    - opendig is like dig, so it doesn't provide your devices with DNS service
      (DNSChain does).
    - DNSChain focuses on security, signing of responses (though that's not
      implemented yet), replacing X509 PKI, unique anti-censorship features
      thanks to partnership with Unblock.us.org project, public key
      distribution for JavaScript apps... See the full list on the GitHub
      page.
    - ONS seems to be working on competing blockchain specifications to
      Namecoin's existing ones. DNSChain doesn't touch that.
    - DNSChain intends to add write access to the blockchain. It's not clear
      whether ONS project does or not.
    - Namecoin and DNSChain predate ONS and are active projects with different
      functionality that ONS seems to be replicating parts of, so I'm not
      sure why the authors chose to not collaborate with either of those
      projects and tread off on their own.

Re: Open Name System: Extending DNS with the Blockchain

#20

Post by jude- »

ryan-c wrote: post #18
itistoday2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Namecoin has been used for this purpose since 2011. It already has specifications for DNS and identities (and these have been iterated on for years now): https://wiki.namecoin.info/index.php?title=Domain_Name_Speci... https://wiki.namecoin.info/index.php?title=Identity As well as others (like hashes for software). Even OneName.io's u/ namespace is listed here: https://wiki.namecoin.info/index.php?title=OneName There…

OneName and OpenNameSystem appear to be trying to avoid any association with Namecoin despite the fact that they use it. Both projects have no mention of Namecoin (they just say "blockchain") on their websites and a lot of the documentation isn't very clear on this. What gives?

I think the reason they don't say Namecoin explicitly is because at the end of the day, it doesn't particularly matter which *coin's blockchain gets used. At this point in the course of distributed system design, a "blockchain" can be thought of as a building-block for a system, and the matter of which particular blockchain gets used is an implementation detail.
Post reply on HN