discuss Handshake domains

[Synozeer]

There's been talk about .eth and .crypto, but I haven't seen many posts on here about Handshake.

Handshake is a naming protocol that's backwards compatible with the existing DNS system. It does not replace the DNS protocol, but instead expands the root zone file where TLD ownership information is stored by adding a distributed and decentralized blockchain-based system that no one controls and anyone can use. This allows for a root zone that is uncensorable, permissionless, and free of gatekeepers like ICANN.

https://learn.namebase.io/about-handshake/about-handshake

This is what I believe the next step in domains will potentially be. Instead of just registering domains under new TLDs, you actually own the TLD and can sell subdomains (my.wallet/, use your TLD as a web address (synozeer/), and also use your TLD as a username on sites that allow it.

A few domain registrars already allow registrations under various Handshake TLDs, and you can bid on new TLDs along with buy/sell from the marketplace at https://namebase.io. Namecheap just bought the p/ TLD for $230,000 and they said they are looking to support Handshake. Brave browser should also be releasing an update soon that will allow for Handshake domains to be accessed using their browser.

It's really interesting technology and I can see it being adopted by a lot of big companies in the future. Of course, it's all speculative, but people have been making good money buying/selling TLDs and subdomains.

The best two TLDs I own in my opinion are .visit and .articles. Lots of end user uses (hawaii.visit/, seo.articles/, etc.) but there are some killer ones out there. The owner of .c/ has already sold several hundred domains under his TLD and some others like xr/ and defi/ are doing well.

 

[HotKey]

The world is already trained to use the . and we’ll be dead before they catch on to /

Believe me, I’d like to think that EV/ is gold but it’ll never compare to EV.com

Btw, type any of these in your browser and see where it goes lol. All to the .com

I agree to an extent. Handshake has a ton of hurdles to overcome, it could easily be a generation before they satisfy everyone.

Your either on board for the ride or not, but looking at people who aren't domain investors who have taken to it shows that new stuff can be adopted even when its outside of what we're used to.

 

[Santaclaws]

Browsers are actually the sensible choice to provide filtering on the Internet. It should be their responsibility to filter out these websites and Handshake stakeholders would be glad to see this implemented.

It would be welcome by many for sure, but in reality all that does is cement Google and Apple’s control of the ecosystem and in doing so makes HLS domains a highly centralised commodity. But it’s a moot point, it makes little legal sense for Google or Apple, especially in the current climate, to police or control HLS domains in any way shape or form. And if the consequences of both policing and not policing are equally frightening then the only answer is to stay away, not support HLS in any official capacity (perhaps promote a few plug-ins for a small tech-savvy crowd and monitor usage.) At this point Apple is wary to even support progressive web apps, something pretty benign, to say nothing of HLS.

With the browser situation the way it is, it's akin to having 80% of Bitcoin transactions forced through either JP Morgan or Deutsche Bank, it doesn't work and it makes HLS domains a very un-bitcoin like thing.

And the browser situation is not going to change, modern browsers are tied up with far too many other things besides simply browsing (accounts, services, cloud this and that). If anything there will be even more browser centralisation as the developing world comes on 100% with Safari, Chrome and their offspring.

All that said, it's very hard to see a path to widespread adoption.

 

[jamesau]

You mean a handshake domain like bary/ and nft.bary/

Let’s not forget the added slash which is the big downfall with these.

This is only an early adopter problem. If this tech is adopted the slash will not be required for subdomains. That said most browsers will probably still resolve phrases without dots as search queries.

It would be welcome by many for sure, but in reality all that does is cement Google and Apple’s control of the ecosystem and in doing so makes HLS domains a highly centralised commodity. But it’s a moot point, it makes little legal sense for Google or Apple, especially in the current climate, to police or control HLS domains in any way shape or form. And if the consequences of both policing and not policing are equally frightening then the only answer is to stay away, not support HLS in any official capacity (perhaps promote a few plug-ins for a small tech-savvy crowd and monitor usage.) At this point Apple is wary to even support progressive web apps, something pretty benign, to say nothing of HLS.

With the browser situation the way it is, it's akin to having 80% of Bitcoin transactions forced through either JP Morgan or Deutsche Bank, it doesn't work and it makes HLS domains a very un-bitcoin like thing.

And the browser situation is not going to change, modern browsers are tied up with far too many other things besides simply browsing (accounts, services, cloud this and that). If anything there will be even more browser centralisation as the developing world comes on 100% with Safari, Chrome and their offspring.

All that said, it's very hard to see a path to widespread adoption.

Definitely agree but there is already a trend amongst early adopters to move away from those big platforms.

I really don't think there are any new problems in terms of content that are not already problems today. There is filth out there on every corner of the Internet right now, and in many ways HNS and community ownership could help to improve that with simpler reporting and blocking.

Don't get me wrong Handshake is still a moonshot but Namecheap getting on board has so far been hugely underplayed.

 

[jamesau]

The world is already trained to use the . and we’ll be dead before they catch on to /

Believe me, I’d like to think that EV/ is gold but it’ll never compare to EV.com

Btw, type any of these in your browser and see where it goes lol. All to the .com

I actually hope that most domains continue that redirecting behaviour. We all still want .com to be king.

It's no different to most ngTLDs redirecting to the .com. For most it's defensive.

I still don't believe in ngTLDs as a domain investor. The registries take all the cream.

But with HNS there's that slim possibility to be the registry.

 

[Santaclaws]

There is filth out there on every corner of the Internet right now, and in many ways HNS and community ownership could help to improve that with simpler reporting and blocking.

Sure there's a heap of bad stuff out there on the normal web, but you cannot go to crack.com and place an order for crack. There are multiple levels of take-down for such a thing, from ICANN to the national registry to the registrar and so on. If I create crack.crack on the blockchain, that's a different story. Nobody can really "take it down", so to speak, not the community, not the authorities (what authorities?) -- The only true layer or insulation is with the browser. And again, that puts policing firmly in the hands of Google and Apple, neither of whom want that job by any stretch of the imagination.

And again, other browsers won't likely emerge -- the very idea of a standalone browser not tied to a massive ecosystem is something that's already out step with the non-techy mainstream. Just seems like a very tough sell.

 

[jamesau]

And again, other browsers won't likely emerge -- the very idea of a standalone browser not tied to a massive ecosystem is something that's already out step with the non-techy mainstream. Just seems like a very tough sell.

I would have thought Firefox is an exception? But I don't know how much they are integrated into the larger ecosystems.

 

[Santaclaws]

I would have thought Firefox is an exception? But I don't know how much they are integrated into the larger ecosystems.

Well Firefox has about 3% browser share combined, and only 0.5% on mobile, where the action is in emerging markets. Plus the Mozilla Foundation, although a US non-profit organisation, is treated as a legal entity capable of suing and being sued. And any browser that resolves a contentious blockchain domain will be sued, given that the browser is about the only thing in the chain that can be sued (or even identified). And there will be contentious domains, including blatant trademark violations, it's just a matter of time. Meaning the Mozilla Foundation will inevitably be sued, and, given the way things are going at the FCC, it's very likely the Mozilla Foundation will lose and be liable for considerable damages -- putting a big question mark over their further support for blockchain domains in general. So yeah, while a great idea in theory it really does look like a tough road to walk in practice.

 

[jamesau]

Well Firefox has about 3% browser share combined, and only 0.5% on mobile, where the action is in emerging markets. Plus the Mozilla Foundation, although a US non-profit organisation, is treated as a legal entity capable of suing and being sued. And any browser that resolves a contentious blockchain domain will be sued, given that the browser is about the only thing in the chain that can be sued (or even identified). And there will be contentious domains, including blatant trademark violations, it's just a matter of time. Meaning the Mozilla Foundation will inevitably be sued, and, given the way things are going at the FCC, it's very likely the Mozilla Foundation will lose and be liable for considerable damages -- putting a big question mark over their further support for blockchain domains in general. So yeah, while a great idea in theory it really does look like a tough road to walk in practice.

Thanks for the detailed reply.

I think we've successfully debated why browsers controlling access is a challenge but it's worth clarifying for other readers that I don't think this has a huge bearing on Handshake's overall chances of success.

There are many outcomes which would be considered a success. As domainers one would be the whitelisting of Handshake powered extensions not controlled by ICANN.

 

[Santaclaws]

Thanks for the detailed reply.

I think we've successfully debated why browsers controlling access is a challenge but it's worth clarifying for other readers that I don't think this has a huge bearing on Handshake's overall chances of success.

I appreciate your enthusiasm and I'd like to share it, but browser control has a monumental bearing on Handshake's overall chance of success. Domains need browsers. As for whitelisting, that is a most likely a non-starter for Google and Apple -- and if not them either doing or making use of the whitelisting, then who?

 

[jamesau]

I appreciate your enthusiasm and I'd like to share it, but browser control has a monumental bearing on Handshake's overall chance of success. Domains need browsers. As for whitelisting, that is a most likely a non-starter for Google and Apple -- and if not them either doing or making use of the whitelisting, then who?

Google and Apple just provide access to the content people want. If that content is on .whatever then allowing access is trivial.

Unstoppable Domains (.crypto) is accessible on Opera browser so the first steps are already happening. Admittedly there are many steps between this and Chrome.

 

[Santaclaws]

Google and Apple just provide access to the content people want. If that content is on .whatever then allowing access is trivial.

My argument is that Google and (most certainly) Apple will not resolve blockchain domains, even if they gain some popularity on niche browsers. It's a legal and policy nightmare, in a time of legal and policy nightmares. Plus it's hard to see blockchain domains reaching any mainstream level of "what people want" without Google and Apple support in the first place, so it's chicken and egg there too. And even if they somehow do, Google and Apple still won't bite.

I think blockchain domains will remain a niche thing, hobby domains if you will, supported by smaller browsers looking to stand out and attract the tech-savvy community. This innocent tinkering period will last for one or two years, and then we will see a dark web emerge: drug sales, child porn, ransomware, trademark squatting, much else -- with shows like 60 Minutes airing segments called "Dark Web 2.0" and so on. (Unlike with Bitcoin, your eyes can actually see stuff on domains). This will lead to lawsuits, a reckoning and, in the end, either a crackdown or a policing effort. The policing effort, whether led by the FCC, tech giants, or both, will de-facto remove much of the so-called independence from blockchain domains (via pressure on any legal entity that makes software that resolves them), and it won't be clear just want the advantages are over regular old domains.

I don't like registrar control at all, the current system has many flaws, but I can't see any other future for blockchain domains really. I wish I could.

 

[MKM]

IMO, I don't see the browsers as being the main issue. It is the overall accessibility of these domains that is in question here. Lets not lose the forest for the trees.

Browser accessibility is only relevant for human users, but a large portion of the internet traffic is used by (ro)bots, spiders, crawlers, automated API calls, IoT (internet of things) devices which don't even rely on web browsers. One of the major concerns here is the site indexing robots which are the enablers for any major search engines like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Baidu, Yandex et al. Without the sites being reachable by any of these search engines, you are as isolated as having your own .onion address in an anonymous corner of the web, even with a fancy vanity name.

Forget about other businesses, even for a domainer, the revenue from traffic exchange from keyword related domains can significantly alleviate the cost of maintaining a large portfolio of domains. But if the domains cannot generate traffic revenue then they are just another non-performing assets. And why/how would any serious business build their brand identity in the absence of search engine visibility? Whats the point of having keyword domains then, other than vanity?

But if you are just looking at quick investment opportunities then there are other Ponzi schemes like blockchain based Earth2 and other blockchain based games that offer to multiply investment value.

 

[jamesau]

My argument is that Google and (most certainly) Apple will not resolve blockchain domains, even if they gain some popularity on niche browsers. It's a legal and policy nightmare, in a time of legal and policy nightmares. Plus it's hard to see blockchain domains reaching any mainstream level of "what people want" without Google and Apple support in the first place, so it's chicken and egg there too. And even if they somehow do, Google and Apple still won't bite.

I think blockchain domains will remain a niche thing, hobby domains if you will, supported by smaller browsers looking to stand out and attract the tech-savvy community. This innocent tinkering period will last for one or two years, and then we will see a dark web emerge: drug sales, child porn, ransomware, trademark squatting, much else -- with shows like 60 Minutes airing segments called "Dark Web 2.0" and so on. (Unlike with Bitcoin, your eyes can actually see stuff on domains). This will lead to lawsuits, a reckoning and, in the end, either a crackdown or a policing effort. The policing effort, whether led by the FCC, tech giants, or both, will de-facto remove much of the so-called independence from blockchain domains (via pressure on any legal entity that makes software that resolves them), and it won't be clear just want the advantages are over regular old domains.

I don't like registrar control at all, the current system has many flaws, but I can't see any other future for blockchain domains really. I wish I could.

I think you're getting too caught up in the dark web. There will always be a darkweb, Handshake or otherwise.

In reality a Handshake domain could be even more regulated than is currently offered. You could create .mytown and only allow businesses from your own postcode to register by visiting your office in person and hand signing a registration paper.

IMO, I don't see the browsers as being the main issue. It is the overall accessibility of these domains that is in question here. Lets not lose the forest for the trees.

Browser accessibility is only relevant for human users, but a large portion of the internet traffic is used by (ro)bots, spiders, crawlers, automated API calls, IoT (internet of things) devices which don't even rely on web browsers. One of the major concerns here is the site indexing robots which are the enablers for any major search engines like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Baidu, Yandex et al. Without the sites being reachable by any of these search engines, you are as isolated as having your own .onion address in an anonymous corner of the web, even with a fancy vanity name.

Forget about other businesses, even for a domainer, the revenue from traffic exchange from keyword related domains can significantly alleviate the cost of maintaining a large portfolio of domains. But if the domains cannot generate traffic revenue then they are just another non-performing assets. And why/how would any serious business build their brand identity in the absence of search engine visibility? Whats the point of having keyword domains then, other than vanity?

But if you are just looking at quick investment opportunities then there are other Ponzi schemes like blockchain based Earth2 and other blockchain based games that offer to multiply investment value.

Indexing will happen organically. It's no different to every ngTLD struggling with ranking.

But I completely agree it certainly isn't available yet and you'd be crazy to build a business on solely a Handshake domain for many years.

 

[MKM]

Indexing will happen organically. It's no different to every ngTLD struggling with ranking.

I don't suppose I made myself clear on that point. The issue with search engine indexing stems from the inaccessibility of handshake domains by third-party crawlers especially Googlebot, Bingbot, Slurp (yahoo) et al that uses root zone to lookup domain names. Its not about ranking when the bot can't even reach the handshake website while querying the root zone. At least with a ngTLD/ccTLD/sTLD one still has a chance of scoring at ranking but there is zero chance of ranking if the crawling bot can't access a handshake website in an alternate root. Say, how would you tell Googlebot to use that blockchain to resolve handshake domains?

The best one can do is to suffix .hns.to to the handshake domain to address the accessibility for bots but then that makes the handshake domain a third/fourth level domain which would be less advantageous for SEO when compared to ngTLDs or the sTLDs.

 

[jamesau]

I don't suppose I made myself clear on that point. The issue with search engine indexing stems from the inaccessibility of handshake domains by third-party crawlers especially Googlebot, Bingbot, Slurp (yahoo) et al that uses root zone to lookup domain names. Its not about ranking when the bot can't even reach the site while querying the root zone. At least with a ngTLD/ccTLD/sTLD one still has a chance of scoring at ranking but there is zero chance of ranking if the crawling bot can't access a handshake website in an alternate root. Say, how would you tell Googlebot to use that blockchain to resolve domains?

The best one can do is to suffix .hns.to to the handshake domain to address the accessibility for bots but then that makes the handshake domain a third/fourth level domain which would be less advantageous even compared to ngTLDs or the sTLDs.

Thanks for clarifying. The goal of Handshake is to upgrade that root zone so if Handshake does succeed then the crawlers will have an amended root zone to work from.

 

[Santaclaws]

There will always be a darkweb, Handshake or otherwise.

There is a critical difference. The current darkweb by and large does not exist on public facing ICANN domains. It exists on overlay networks that require specific software configurations and such. Human beings that work for ICANN to the national registries on down will not allow a child porn site to function as normal for long. Moreover on the IP side, ICANN and many international registrars have clear trademark dispute resolution policy and anyone that wants to claim a trademarked domain from a squatter can do so, and many have.

However for blockchain domains the darkweb is inseparable from the light web. That is absolutely key. The only separation can be made by be browsers, and the last thing Google and Apple want is that job. What that means is the drakweb can (and will) bring the light web down with it. That's not a risk with .com, .net, io, etc.

And it may not even need the dark stuff -- trademark violations alone can be enough.

So no, it's not a case of there will be a dark web either on ICANN or on Handshake. Handshake will have an "infused dark web" while ICANN does not and will not.

 

[jamesau]

There is a critical difference. The current darkweb by and large does not exist on public facing ICANN domains. It exists on overlay networks that require specific software configurations and such. Human beings that work for ICANN to the national registries on down will not allow a child porn site to function as normal for long. Moreover on the IP side, ICANN and many international registrars have clear trademark dispute resolution policy and anyone that wants to claim a trademarked domain from a squatter can do so, and many have.

However for blockchain domains the darkweb is inseparable from the light web. That is absolutely key. The only separation can be made by be browsers, and the last thing Google and Apple want is that job. What that means is the drakweb can (and will) bring the light web down with it. That's not a risk with .com, .net, io, etc.

And it may not even need the dark stuff -- trademark violations alone can be enough.

So no, it's not a case of there will be a dark web either on ICANN or on Handshake. Handshake will have an "infused dark web" while ICANN does not and will not.

I do appreciate your continued input. I just think our opinions fundamentally differ on this so all we can do is have a friendly wager on whether Handshake domains will resolve in major browsers or not in 10 years.

Some interesting browser stats from 10 years ago: https://www.sitepoint.com/ie6-usage-below-5-percent-browser-trends/

Firefox and IE shared 80% of all traffic. A lot can change.

 

[Santaclaws]

Firefox and IE shared 80% of all traffic. A lot can change.

I agree with you that a lot can change in 10 years. If I made a wager I'd say:

All handshake domains will resolve in major browsers in 10 years in an impossibility, given that major access points of any stripe cannot facilitate illegal activities and Handshake will never be 100% clean.

Some handshake domains will resolve in major browsers is a possibility, but if that’s the case it means either Google and Apple (or whoever else has emerged by then) will have become de-facto Handshake domain registrars, even more in control than the registrars of today in some ways. So out of the frying pan into the fire, for those against outside control of their domains.

No handshake domains resolving remains the most likely outcome in my opinion, perhaps after a fraught period of some domains resolving, and my money is there.

But you're right, one never knows, we shall see.

 

[bmugford]

The problem with these domains is that in a couple years when ICANN opens a second round of gTLD applications, many if not all of these are going to be applied for and delegated on the standard DNS servers, which don't require any special software or settings to resolve.

Any mainstream browser is going to resolve that version, not these alternate DNS versions, which will largely render them moot.

ICANN did not care about alternate "extensions" in the past, and won't now either. They will delegate them.

Here is one of several examples -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New.net

Brad

 

[MKM]

Thanks for clarifying. The goal of Handshake is to upgrade that root zone so if Handshake does succeed then the crawlers will have an amended root zone to work from.

That is question - how do you make Google, Microsoft, Yahoo et al believe in this handshake Tinkerbell? Businesses have no motivation for adopting handshake unless the major search engine crawlers index their websites. The prospect of decentralization is not enough to urge businesses into sacrificing their marketing potential. And without the mass adoption handshake sites are going to either turn into a haven of outlaws or stagnate to dormancy before fading to extinction.