

Namecoin: distributed domain registration system based on Bitcoin - llambda
http://namecoin.bitcoin-contact.org/

======
Locke1689
This was submitted 12 days ago (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2546815>)

I'm so thrilled that instead of reading almost identical bitcoin stories I can
now read actually identical bitcoin stories.

At this point I'm almost hoping everyone who uses bitcoin gets picked up by
the IRS for tax evasion just so no one will submit any more stories to HN.

~~~
pnathan
There once was a bot which caught the reposts and commented on them.

But it was so offensive to have the reposts mentioned that the author shut it
down, and perhaps even left HN. I haven't seen him around for a long time.

~~~
Locke1689
That was RiderOfGiraffes. He left a while ago for greener pastures. To be
honest, my comment is probably one he would have objected to and I'm
personally surprised at all the upvotes it has gotten. I think it reflects
that there is an extremely vocal minority of people who care about Bitcoin and
a lot of people don't care and just want them to take it somewhere else.

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chalst
This text uses language I've seen a lot in discussion around Bitcoin:

>It allows you to ... be the only person to be able to modify it (no possible
external control)

Using the cryptographic algorithms believed to be the best does not make bad
things impossible, for three reasons:

1\. Encryption is rarely the weakest point in security. How do the authors of
Namecoin know that I won't manage my keys incompetently if I use their
software?

2\. We don't know what unknown flaws there are in our most trusted algorithms.
The worst flaws in RSA were discovered a long time after the algorithm were
made public; perhaps we will find worse flaws in AES quite soon.

3\. Moore's law tells us that keys have a lifetime. The Bitcoin reaction to
this and other protocol problems involves something based on network majority
consent. This does not sound safe to me.

I know that anyone who uses such language as "no possible external control" is
either ignorant or careless. Even careless bothers me.

------
rfugger
Brilliant. This is an equally useful application of the block chain concept as
the Bitcoin currency, and should be much less controversial.

~~~
polarized
Maybe but things like domain squatting and the inability to shut down domains
pointing to illegal or controversial sites is likely to be quite
controversial.

~~~
DennisP
I think the inability to shut down domains is the main point. (And quite a
good one, in my opinion.)

------
gyom
It's funny how the word "coin" in that name is essentially used to refer to
this distributed computational process whose purpose it is to get people to
agree on some version of the state of things (i.e. what is "real").

Next thing you know, kids in 2050 refer to _reality_ as some sort of "heavily
coined world".

------
X-Istence
So does this mean that to keep a domain I have to keep running the namecoin
service thereby using up CPU time that could be better spent serving requests
from users?

~~~
Groxx
Not really. It's bitcoin-like, so "the network" of miners would
collaboratively re-enforce your control of your domains. You'd only need to
use up CPU (/GPU) time to _create_ new name coins for free - you could also
purchase them from people who had mined them previously, and hadn't used them.

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dbaugh
Despite people likely being able to break this 50 years in the future, I am
willing to bet that ICE couldn't sieze a .bit domain right now.

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tectonic
Has anyone setup a .bit proxy yet so I can browse them without setting it up?

~~~
ptarjan
bitname.org

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astro1138
Can't resolve any of those. Not on my Internets.

------
sneak
If you ignore it, it will disappear.

