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Handshake: An experimental peer-to-peer root DNS

handshake.org

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Re: Handshake: An experimental peer-to-peer root DNS

#51

Post by fowl2 »

lugg wrote: post #50
iforgotpassword wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how this would work out at scale. Would everyone just get a long descriptive TLD and then use that directly? While that would technically work I imagine it would confuse people who are used to treat the address bar of the browser primarily as the search box. So I'd enter "flowers" and expect a Google search for flowers, but since the TLD flowers exists and resolves to something you end up on some dude's b…

Chrome already handles this: if you want the domain enter in the protocol - https:// If you want to search leave it off. On top of that Chrome already has the ability to redirect you straight to the domain if it is well defined. I can't imagine it difficult to move that logic to google redirects instead. e.g. "test.vm" goes to a google search despite being url format. "test.dev" goes to domain.

trailing slash works and is easier to type ;)

Re: Handshake: An experimental peer-to-peer root DNS

#52

Post by kalleboo »

nine_k wrote: post #49
gruez wrote: post #46

Technical merits aside... Why was this done as an alternate root project rather than an alternate tld? I get it makes the project more useful (ability to register .johnsmith rather than johnsmith.bit), but it's going to severely increase complications when interoperating with the ICANN dns root. what happens if you register .foobar on handshake, and then a few years later, ICANN delegates .foorbar? If you let the ICA…

This is a great objection. I nevertheless fail to see why making it a TLD would help any. A particular TLD (.bit) would clash with ICANN the same, unless someone would keep shelling $185k/y for keeping it up. This does not look very realistic. Registering a TLD is the only official way to interact with ICANN in this area, and I don't see ICANN making any concessions to an outright competitor. Even if registered, such…

FWIW, $185k is the application fee. After that it's $25k/year and $0.25/second-level domain. The latter is probably a killer for any kind of decentralized system.

Re: Handshake: An experimental peer-to-peer root DNS

#53

Post by igliu »

imglorp wrote: post #32
mynewtb wrote: post #29

How does this compare to namecoin?

And how to avoid squatting? People started buying up tons of obvious namecoin names while they were cheap, as speculators.

Handshake names are released on a weekly basis, ~2% of the names every week for a year. `sha3(name) % 52` basically.

Re: Handshake: An experimental peer-to-peer root DNS

#54

Post by oelmekki »

_eht wrote: post #33
imglorp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how to avoid squatting? People started buying up tons of obvious namecoin names while they were cheap, as speculators.

Why is squatting a problem that needs to be solved? Serious question.

(please guys, don't punish/downvote someone for asking a question)

Domain Squatting is border line extortion. It's not your usual business because there is no competition possible : there is only one person that can own the domain. If a squatter registers the name of a well known company on a TLD they weren't present in, then mail them saying they put some porn website on it and put money in SEO, there is little the company can do except paying absurd amount of money to get control over the domain (mind you, Handshake would not prevent that, from what I see).

In a less dark way, you may also have to change your startup name because someone is squatting a domain and you don't have any money yet to buy it, which is a real nuisance when you think that person is doing absolutely nothing with that domain.

Re: Handshake: An experimental peer-to-peer root DNS

#55

Post by iforgotpassword »

lugg wrote: post #50
iforgotpassword wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how this would work out at scale. Would everyone just get a long descriptive TLD and then use that directly? While that would technically work I imagine it would confuse people who are used to treat the address bar of the browser primarily as the search box. So I'd enter "flowers" and expect a Google search for flowers, but since the TLD flowers exists and resolves to something you end up on some dude's b…

Chrome already handles this: if you want the domain enter in the protocol - https:// If you want to search leave it off. On top of that Chrome already has the ability to redirect you straight to the domain if it is well defined. I can't imagine it difficult to move that logic to google redirects instead. e.g. "test.vm" goes to a google search despite being url format. "test.dev" goes to domain.

The point is not whether there is a technical solution to that or not.

"I'll prefix the domain with https:// so I will directly establish a secure connection because leaving it out implicitly means plain http, which makes me vulnerable to mitm attacks" - nobody outside tech, ever

And it wouldn't be any different here. Over the last decade we've been so focused on dumbing down tech enough so that it's accessible to pretty much anyone on the planet. It will be very hard to reverse this trend. Even just adding a trailing slash is cumbersome. I can only imagine how many million man hours we'd have to waste worldwide to explain that to the average Joe and their mom. Just remembering how many times I've seen people type a backslash instead of a slash in URLs, this will be fun.

Re: Handshake: An experimental peer-to-peer root DNS

#56

Post by tialaramex »

nine_k wrote: post #49
gruez wrote: post #46

Technical merits aside... Why was this done as an alternate root project rather than an alternate tld? I get it makes the project more useful (ability to register .johnsmith rather than johnsmith.bit), but it's going to severely increase complications when interoperating with the ICANN dns root. what happens if you register .foobar on handshake, and then a few years later, ICANN delegates .foorbar? If you let the ICA…

This is a great objection. I nevertheless fail to see why making it a TLD would help any. A particular TLD (.bit) would clash with ICANN the same, unless someone would keep shelling $185k/y for keeping it up. This does not look very realistic. Registering a TLD is the only official way to interact with ICANN in this area, and I don't see ICANN making any concessions to an outright competitor. Even if registered, such…

Tor doesn't pay ICANN $185k per year for .onion

A single TLD could reasonably be added to IANA's registry of special suffixes, since it wouldn't be part of the DNS hierarchy that ICANN is responsible for they'd have no claim on $185k or any other amount of money.

But a parallel hierarchy is never going to get that, so basically this choice ensures an up-hill battle, presumably mostly so that like other parallel hierarchies its proponents can make hollow claims about "owning" names that actually are meaningless, it's like buying land claims on Mars.

Re: Handshake: An experimental peer-to-peer root DNS

#57

Post by tialaramex »

jancsika wrote: post #48
koolba wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better, what happens when a mining operation decides to mount a 51% attack and take over a root resolver? If I’m understanding the point of this correctly (big if...), then they’d be able to route any TLD anywhere they’d like. Combined with DNS caching for extended chaos.

They wouldn't be able to immediately route any TLD anywhere they'd like, but they could certainly screw with the network. They would have to expend hashing power solving a previously solved block puzzle while continuing to build the blockchain off their new branch and ensure that its total difficulty is greater than any competing chain. So suppose you immediately buy up TLD "foo", get a single confirmation on it, and…

> They wouldn't be able to immediately route any TLD anywhere they'd like

It seems to me that this can only be true if it's also impossible for the legitimate owner to change this. If it can be changed, then the 51% attacker can change it.

The actual DNS contains names with hugely long cache lifetimes and very little practical agility, and it also contains "fast flux" names whose RRs change constantly. If this experiment is only interested in the former it should highlight that, as a shortcoming.

Re: Handshake: An experimental peer-to-peer root DNS

#58

Post by xur17 »

palisade wrote: post #40
RileyJames wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m confused, and after skimming through the paper I’m still not sure. How does this work after the handshake network launches? If I register a new domain with ICANN, but do not register it with Handshake, can someone else? And if not, doesn’t that mean ICANN is still the central authority for domain names? (Including transfers) It seems like the existing root zone & handshake will immediately fork, and then how will…

My understanding of it is that 100,000+ are in reserve for existing companies / sites already registered. All you have to do is contact them to let them know, with proof, that you want ownership of yours. After launch there will be a "sunrise" period where if you register with ICANN, and then provide proof to handshake, they will give you ownership. I'm not sure how long that period lasts, I'm guessing for a long tim…

My understanding is that all current tlds (.com, .net, .org, etc) will be claimable once the service launches. In addition, everyone in the Alexa 100k will be able to claim their domain stripped of the tld, so example.com gets .example, root.com gets .root. Handshake is only handling top level domains - dns will continue to handle resolving of subdomains.

Icaan will continue to be relevant, this will just control all other tlds.

This is just my understanding after doing some reading last night - someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Re: Handshake: An experimental peer-to-peer root DNS

#59

Post by fanf2 »

nine_k wrote: post #49
gruez wrote: post #46

Technical merits aside... Why was this done as an alternate root project rather than an alternate tld? I get it makes the project more useful (ability to register .johnsmith rather than johnsmith.bit), but it's going to severely increase complications when interoperating with the ICANN dns root. what happens if you register .foobar on handshake, and then a few years later, ICANN delegates .foorbar? If you let the ICA…

This is a great objection. I nevertheless fail to see why making it a TLD would help any. A particular TLD (.bit) would clash with ICANN the same, unless someone would keep shelling $185k/y for keeping it up. This does not look very realistic. Registering a TLD is the only official way to interact with ICANN in this area, and I don't see ICANN making any concessions to an outright competitor. Even if registered, such…

There is a plan to reserve an .alt TLD for use by non-DNS name services, so this could put all its domains under handshake.alt

https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-dnsop-alt-tld

Re: Handshake: An experimental peer-to-peer root DNS

#60

Post by dboreham »

tialaramex wrote: post #57
jancsika wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They wouldn't be able to immediately route any TLD anywhere they'd like, but they could certainly screw with the network. They would have to expend hashing power solving a previously solved block puzzle while continuing to build the blockchain off their new branch and ensure that its total difficulty is greater than any competing chain. So suppose you immediately buy up TLD "foo", get a single confirmation on it, and…

> They wouldn't be able to immediately route any TLD anywhere they'd like It seems to me that this can only be true if it's also impossible for the legitimate owner to change this. If it can be changed, then the 51% attacker can change it. The actual DNS contains names with hugely long cache lifetimes and very little practical agility, and it also contains "fast flux" names whose RRs change constantly. If this experi…

I don't think anyone has a short TTL for a record in the root zone.
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