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poll Will Blockchains replace DNS?

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Will new technologies, such as blockchains, replace the current Domain Name System (DNS)?

  • This poll is still running and the standings may change.
  • Yes

    10 
    votes
    24.4%
  • No

    31 
    votes
    75.6%
  • This poll is still running and the standings may change.

Internet.Domains

Account Closed (Requested)
Impact
6,717
Will new technologies, such as blockchains, replace the current Domain Name System (DNS)?

There is a current project called "Handshake" (HNS) that is proposing to use it's blockchain to replace the current root servers and root zone files. This system would completely bypass current registries, such as Verisign, and completely bypass ICANN. The idea is to create a decentralized authority bypassing ICANN's centralized and abusive powers.

The proposal goes on to say that domains will be auctioned and effectively anyone can end up running their own decentralized registry via blockchain.

Also of interest is that within the protocol the dots, such as "." will not be needed. As HNS described, someone could bid for "BruceLee" and the browser would recognize this by entering "BruceLee/".

This proposal seems to be getting some momentum with some big names in the technology and VC sphere being early adopters.

More from those proposing "Handshake."

"How do Handshake domains work?


Handshake domains work just like the centralized ICANN domain system, with a few key exceptions. In the world of domains, stuff like “com” “net” and “org” are referred to as Generic Top Level Domains or TLDs. In addition to those ones, there are new TLDs like .pizza or .business, and Country Code TLDs like .io (Indian Ocean) or .ly (Libya). ICANN decides, through a complicated auction and voting process, what top level domains will be approved, and then individual domain registrars who own those TLDs get to sell access to the subdomains on top of them.

On Handshake, *anyone* can register a new TLD, without having to ask for anyone elses permission! So in the beginning on Handshake there is likely to be a rush to register TLDs that will be in demand for people who want to put subdomains on top of them. For example, if you registered “lee” on Handshake, then say Bruce Lee could come and buy bruce.lee from you! So that will probably be where most people direct their attention initially.

However, because anyone can register a tld, another option is to simply USE tlds as your domain. So for example, bruce lee can just register “brucelee” and use it, sans any subdomains. This is pretty awesome, but its also a new pattern for users, and they will have to get used to it. Browsers will also have to choose to adopt allowing bare TLDs instead of assuming they are search terms (currently if you type brucelee into a browser, it won’t do a DNS lookup but will just google brucelee for you). That said, if you enter "brucelee/" your browser will correctly recognize that as a domain. We believe that browsers will offer optional support for this pretty quickly (Brave is already [evaluating](https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1036389193864208384)), and perhaps some will make it the default soon, but in the beginning domains that follow the “thing.domain” pattern will be most in demand because they will simply “work” with existing browsers, as long as users point their DNS at a handshake-supporting server, or if the large DNS servers begin to support Handshake domains."


Handshake white paper:
https://namebase.io/handshake-whitepaper/
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
I am betting on the continuation of the existing namespace model and am actively reinforcing it as much as I can.

Completely understood. I believe, and one can tell by the poll, most agree with you on that point.
 
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To "JB":

First of all, you should be happy about my efforts to support Unstoppable domains as it will sustain .COM domains for a long time to come as more individuals can pay retail to own them. I am encouraging our retail clients to buy Forever .COM and they are doing it.

If you do choose to offensively engage me on a thread, you can be assured that I reserve the right to respond. Why? Because you are not actually my audience. You just drive up page views and turn threads into trending threads. You see how that works.

I know I'm not your audience, it's cheaper just to have them on auto-renew. Think we went over the math in the other thread, it seemed most thought it was ridiculous - https://www.namepros.com/threads/would-you-like-to-own-a-domain-name-forever.1106617/

Just like we went over the Escrow math. You hopped in that thread, then we looked at the math and you never came back to reply, you can now - https://www.namepros.com/threads/ep...s-fees-knowledge-thread.1112364/#post-7016980

Prager U is a known joke btw. Get some paid off by fossil fuel company scientists to deny climate change type of nonsense.
 
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Well I'm going to say you are attempting to reinvent the wheel, and a very young wheel.

give it another 30 to 40 years and you'll not only have something in maturity that could seek redress but with the ability to make seamless amendments..The DNS is no where near enough to maturity to think its up for playing around with - blimey look how long https took us
 
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Well I'm going to say you are attempting to reinvent the wheel, and a very young wheel.

give it another 30 to 40 years and you'll not only have something in maturity that could seek redress but with the ability to make seamless amendments..The DNS is no where near enough to maturity to think its up for playing around with - blimey look how long https took us
Just for the record, I am not affiliated or part of any project pertaining. I am not selling it. I see pros and cons and think its worthy of discussion and something to keep an eye on as a domain investor.
 
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I accept your neutrality in discussion, then your also aware that half-the-world lives on what the other half is playing catch-up on. The internet system is there for development, I personally feel there are far better priorities and benefits to work with what we have, than to take it into a further 'naming/concept/security futures for the time being...And I think the market knows that.

The vulnerable isn't the net, just the bloody individual
 
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I know I'm not your audience, it's cheaper just to have them on auto-renew. Think we went over the math in the other thread, it seemed most thought it was ridiculous - https://www.namepros.com/threads/would-you-like-to-own-a-domain-name-forever.1106617/

Just like we went over the Escrow math. You hopped in that thread, then we looked at the math and you never came back to reply, you can now - https://www.namepros.com/threads/ep...s-fees-knowledge-thread.1112364/#post-7016980

Prager U is a known joke btw. Get some paid off by fossil fuel company scientists to deny climate change type of nonsense.

You are off topic but to clarify:

1. On Forever (and soon Unstoppable) domains, the economics make sense for people who value their time, don't want to lose a strategic domains, and are not managing 100,000 domains. ;)

2. On escrow, our rates are great. In fact, on Monday you will see an announcement about that one. We have a fast-growing escrow product -- already our #2 business and very synergistic.

As for SPLC, maybe you would prefer the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...ab7d60-756d-11e8-9780-b1dd6a09b549_story.html

The SPLC just paid Maajid $3.3 million. Of course this is all theater and funny money but you will find plenty of damning evidence about the SPLC.

And now the RICO and class-actions are coming:

https://cis.org/Press-Release/CIS-RICO-Lawsuit-SPLC

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/201...center-could-be-hit-with-60-lawsuit-landslide
 
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I accept your neutrality in discussion, then your also aware that half-the-world lives on what the other half is playing catch-up on. The internet system is there for development, I personally feel there are far better priorities and benefits to work with what we have, than to take it into a further 'naming/concept/security futures for the time being...And I think the market knows that
While I agree to an extent, I feel the market is loving all things "decentralized" in this era. Will it stick? Time will tell.
 
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Nope your thinking about Politicians :xf.wink: Not the same thing
 
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Nope your thinking about Politicians :xf.wink: Not the same thing
No, I was thinking and speaking of economics and business trends.:xf.wink:
 
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We only get outside the bed the way our politics drive us. Sorry i took it off topic.

There will be change, as always - some are just too early to the start gate imho
 
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I am going to bank on it with ServerChain. The fact is they will run out of ip addresses.
 
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what benefits will the domain investor get if the HNS system is implemented?
 
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what benefits will the domain investor get if the HNS system is implemented?
The fact that the ip range will have too many numbers dots and combinations they need a system that can use to assign addresses to. Won't be any benefits other than not running out of numbers
 
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The fact that the ip range will have too many numbers dots and combinations they need a system that can use to assign addresses to. Won't be any benefits other than not running out of numbers

after the ip address runs out, there will be an increase in the price of the domain.
 
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what benefits will the domain investor get if the HNS system is implemented?
If HNS is implemented there will be an auction. More specifically they would implement a blind second-price auction, also known as a Vickrey Auction.

The largest benefit would be complete ownership of the domain. The domain owner would be the registry, no renewals and ToS.
 
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I think what most people are overlooking are both the commercial viability, trust, as well as usability.

I think the biggest hindrance with Crypto is that a wall in terms of number of people would would ever bother setting up a virtual wallet. Be it for technical or trust reasons. I say trust because there certainly are a large number of non-tech people who actually do trust their bank more than their ability to keep their passwords (from hackers and much more importantly, from their own recklessness/stupidity/magnets/etc).

While the current system does rely on registrars, registries and ICANN and is therefore subject to their "rules" / "censorship" .. their control also does hold extreme abuse in check. If you look around this forum you'll find discussions where I am excessively pro-free-speech. But at the same time you'll also see that I am very much in favour of there actually being some semblance of limits, particularly when it comes to child pornography, rape and hate-speech. I completely do understand that there is a problem when it comes to interpretation .. but the lines are NOT as blurry as people on BOTH sides would have you believe. Most jurisdictions do have relatively clear laws in place establishing what is or isn't allowed. It most definitely is NOT a perfect or even ideal solution .. but it is better than the extremist views on both sides.

Another issue is usability .. domains are not about what you type into the browser address bar .. they are also about links .. the dual levels of ____.___ (SLD.TLD) are actually very effective at helping content creation tools (such as the very simple reply box in this forum) automatically detect an active link/email. Every now and then there is a wave of support for top tier only domains (dotless) .. but implementation for content creation as well as email would be a colossal nightmare.

Another MASSIVE point against is just the simple economic might behind the current system. If businesses will not be able to secure their actual trademarks then there will never be enough momentum for any alternate system to get anything close to the critical mass needed to really take off.

Combine the various points I've mentioned and it will be virtually impossible for any such system to ever get any significant traction .. and almost definitely not enough to actually replace the current system.
 
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Consumers would obviously need to be aware, but potentially we could see:

"Name/" vs. "Name.com"

"Name/" would be completely owned and controlled by the owner with a private key. "Name.com" is leased with pages of ToS.

A blockchain decentralized internet could bring great opportunity to early domain investors.

First, the new system needs to be effortlessly accepted by all (most) major browsers, or the alts will remain mostly unused, similar to Namecoin needing a browser plugin for .bit domains.

Second? Stay tuned... :)
 
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Current DNS system is very simple to understand. You don't have to be an engineer, I am not. You can find abundant info about DNS on the internet. If you have managed a web server on linux or used a linux system on your daily computer you should already know how DNS works, what is BIND and how internal IP addresses -such as localhost (127.0.0.1)- resolves. DNS is a very simple system. It converts domain names into IP numbers. Your browser (client) asks IP address of a domain to a public resolver, public resolver asks to the DNS server, DNS server answers to the resolver, resolver answers to the client. There are 3 actors: client, resolver (ISP or another) and DNS server.

Technically you can use anything as domain. Domain isn't necessary if you know the IP, especially if the website has dedicated IP. Just type IP addresses on your browser. You can use your email client or ftp client or ssh client, etc. without a domain name. In other words, domains have almost zero technical functionality or advantage for the websites or for the entire internet to work. This is a hard fact for domainers. If human brain could remember IP addresses or if a different browsing system would be invented, noone would invent domain names or domain names would be used only by some trademark owners. Rest of the websites wouldn't need a domain name.

Even though domain names look like helping us to remember our favorite websites most people bookmark domain names on their browsers as they forget domains names too. In the practice, domain names don't even help us to remember something easier. Domain names have almost no value for the end user.

Domain is just a name and names have no inherent value. Names of the things which we need, like, love or hate are not important. For instance, assume you like orange and apple. If their names changed or replaced would like them less? If they were nameless would you like them less? Do small children and babies know the names of everything they need, like or hate? Did you learned the name of "milk" before or after drinking it?

Nothing would change if the names of everything changed yesterday or all names have been lost suddently. Maybe you could have difficulty to buy something that has no name. If it's a popular product and if you know what it is, a seller could easily find it for you even if it wasn't named.

Another hypothetical example: You go to a country which you don't know its language. You need water but you don't know how to ask for it. What is the possibility for you to die for thirsty as you don't know the name of water in the local language? Yes very very low, it's almost impossible as long as there is water there. Name of water has very very low inherent value. Water is valuable not because of its name. It's not important whether its name is water, gater, mater, xater or something else. Sometimes you eat something that you don't know its name. You remember what you ate, how good it was, when, where, with whom, but not its name. You don't remember its name because its name is unimportant. Because you know you can go to the same place and can find it, can eat it again even if you don't know its name. You don't have learn and memorize its name. Your brain doesn't care about names. Because your brain 1,000 times more intelligent than you think. I am sure the most women you liked, was initially nameless for you. You first liked and then learned their names, or never had a chance to learn their names, or forgot their names. Her name has no importance for your brain. You continue to remember her name as long as remembering her name makes your life easier, then you forgot if the name becomes entirely unneccessary. If you were in a deserted island with her, you wouldn't need her name at all. Because she would be the only one human you can speak to, no need to name her to distinguish her from other humans. You could eat various vegatables in that island which you don't know their names.

Similarly trademarks, product names and brands have no value for the end user. For example, assume you produce very bad phones and your sales are low. One day you decided to produce the same phone under a different brand name. Would this help your sales? I don't think. People buy phone, not its name. Even if the word of "phone" changes, buying decisions of that products will not be affected. Names, as a whole have little functionality, help us to distinguish unique things (like human names) or group of things like chicken, egg, appple, orange. But we can live even if we can't distinguish anything verbally. We can live without knowing the name of water but we can't live without water.

End users do not care about domain names as long as they can access their favorite websites. New technological developments in domain names will come based on this fact and domain names will lose lots of value. Even currently most domains are not worth renewal fee, so they drop. This trend has started with nTLD's -nTLD's has raised domain supply dramatically- and will not stop in the near future. Decentralization of domain names will raise the supply quantity to its maximum level. Even if decentralization ends up with failure, new TLD's will not stop. You may think .com is king and you can protect yourself from new TLD's with sticking to .com. Nope. Com TLD is just a bubble, is overrated. It's the first TLD only. If overall prices in an industry drop, price of the king drops. Example: Bitcoin price drops or raises in the similar speed and direction with other coins.
 
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"Browsers will also have to choose to adopt"
Not going to happen imo,....
the only possibility I see happening is it being adapted in very small scales. Small networks of users that use it to communicate etc. Amongst themselves.
 
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Good news as i own a lot of / domain names!! Will register few more today.
 
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First things first. From a technical perspective, DNS is a tough act to follow. It has served the Internet very well for more than 3 decades and will easily pivot as needed to allow even more IP addresses and ever more domains. So far so good.

However, in the wake of rising and arbitrary censorship, it is clear that the domain model is at risk of being abandoned to lack of effective governance. For now ICANN is holding the line but registries and registrars are looking really weak these days.

In response, Blockchain has been touted as the panacea. First we had NameCoin, which was Dead on Arrival, and is not going to amount to anything, largely because of implausibly long resolution times that cannot possibly compete with DNS.

This is fairly accurate. While there are various motivations to replace DNS, for the majority of the Western world, DNS is sufficient and works well enough. There are certainly people with higher-than-average awareness of privacy and political issues, and the trend right now tends toward decentralization, but I don't think there's quite enough momentum (yet) to result in a fullscale DNS replacement. That's not to say we shouldn't keep trying, but, as Rob has pointed out, the most notable attempts (e.g., NameCoin) have been broken from day one.

There are solid technologies that can improve privacy in the interim, though they don't really address the decentralization issue. Personally, I'm a fan of DNSCrypt and DNS-over-HTTPS, both of which have relatively widespread support. I haven't looked into @Rob Monster's Unstoppable Domains yet, but I certainly encourage such efforts.

I currently use a Pi-hole at home, modified to support OpenNIC.
 
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Based on how the internet and technology progresses, it's not an issue of if DNS will be replaced, but a matter of when. And that when can take a very long time. :xf.wink:
 
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This is the kind of topic that novices like me really get a buzz off of reading. I'm learning a lot here on NP.

I think this is an important topic and I just want to keep this thread in the back of our minds. Just a quick post and a soft bump for that purpose.
 
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