204 sats \ 1 reply \ @0330830bf9 17 Sep 2023 \ on: The ICANN Problem, Solved with Bitcoin and Nostr via Nomen nostr
I and countless others have described similar systems. The idea of using Bitcoin as proof-of-costliness and timestamps for name registration is almost as old as Bitcoin itself. Nostr seems like the missing piece given it's ability to provide a second layer for storing and updating zone data.
It makes sense from one angle, as specific namespace is the only thing more scarce than Bitcoin. It's a logical value to store on chain.
But... I've all but given up on pushing something like this for a few reasons.
  1. ICANN DNS isn't really that broken and censorship of it is an imaginary problem. The most reviled people/states in the world have their own domains without fuss.
  2. Whatever system we try to displace it with still relies on legacy DNS underneath, just because that's how everything on the internet is built around it from ISP's to Browsers. AltDNS systems are just like Altcoins, pointless due to the gravity of the big daddy coin (or DNS system in this case)
  3. Squatting is a positive market function, and any facet of a new system that can mitigate this is a fundamental flaw in that system. Squatting is proof the existing system works by the market pricing scarce namespace appropriately.
  4. As soon as someone mentions a browser extension I stop taking them seriously. Relatively few people can/will use a browser extension, and without large numbers of users such projects are unsustainable. The lift away from SSL-Everywhere design cannot be hand-waived away with another browser extension.
There is an area that should be explored more acutely than DNS with some of these principles though: Human readable names for key-based identities.
NIP-05 is a good example of a half-baked solution that even so has proven some utility.
  • It provides a human readable translation to a key
  • If everyone owned a TLD would we even care about nostr?
  • If enforcing costliness with Bitcoin was a good idea, wouldn't everyone have a TLD already?
  • Few seem to care that it's usually trust-based
That last point is the sticky one and what to solve for, trust-less nyms... not DNS.
If we're to use indexers of OP_Returns, why not just use our peers in a Web-of-Trust type naming system? Ultimately namespace comes down to "What do other people know this entity as?" and nostr already has a concept of petnames.
If 100 out of 100 of the people you follow know someone as something, odds are you'll agree to as well. It doesn't matter what the timestamps say, as is admitted in the linked spec.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @freakoverse OP 17 Sep 2023
  1. If it's possible for them to censor or steal, then it's a possibility and that is indeed a fact. The whole nature of Bitcoin, as an example, is not trust but verify.
  2. I'm not that technical of a person, so I can't properly respond to this, however from my colleagues who are knowledgeable about it, and from seeing alt solutions, it's a hurdle but not that big of a hurdle.
  3. I'm in agreement here.
  4. I'm not saying people should rely on it, it's just a step in the process, which I did mention after that, browsers would have native support for these new Nomen domains. Heck, if they can go straight to native support / having a browser with native support built-in, and forget about the extension, then by all means. It's just a bonus.
  5. I mean sure, but in that regard, both who want to follow and be followed, at least for me and others, would like to have a concrete name that people without a doubt would know it's me or them. Considering I view ICANN as an issue, then NIP-05 is just a temporary ducktape solution.
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