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Author Topic: Namecoin was stillborn, I had to switch off life-support  (Read 46117 times)
eldentyrell
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October 16, 2013, 12:00:28 AM
 #81

I'm not sure that a block chain is required at all

What prevents double-transfer of names, then?

The Namecoin v2.0 rules.

If by "namecoin v2.0" you mean luke-jr's proposal, that does require a blockchain.



Quote
the next namecoin should be implemented on top of the bitcoin blockchain.

Well, good luck convincing people to use it.  I'm not very interested in spending money or computing power on an entry in a key-value store that could suddenly become frozen due to small outputs suddenly becoming unspendable or some other change to the bitcoin block validation consensus.

Bitcoin works because everybody has a common interest in it being usable as money.  If you're trying to use it for something else you will always be at risk of the majority (who don't care about your weird use) tweaking the rules in a way that breaks it.


The printing press heralded the end of the Dark Ages and made the Enlightenment possible, but it took another three centuries before any country managed to put freedom of the press beyond the reach of legislators.  So it may take a while before cryptocurrencies are free of the AML-NSA-KYC surveillance plague.
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October 16, 2013, 12:21:28 AM
 #82

That's one area where Namecoin was very weak. Its blockchain may have started out smaller, but its scalability is no better than Bitcoin's, and it'll eventually have the same problems (like all Bitcoin-based altcoins). But if your decentralized DNS doesn't include a currency, then old data about domain ownership can be more easily forgotten. For example, if you require that registrants renew their domains weekly, then resolvers only need the last few weeks of full blockchain data (plus headers to verify the chain). There may also be better ways of doing this that don't require frequent renewal. (You can also do this sort of renewal thing with BTC in order to reduce download requirements, but it'd be really unpopular.)

Well, Namecoin name registrations are rather short term (3 or 6 months?), so I wonder if that can't be implemented in some way, the same way Bitcoin will do pruning.
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October 16, 2013, 12:29:49 AM
 #83

One issue I could see with implementing NMC on top of BTC is future scalability. Specifically, when BTC blockchain gets huge, it would mean that the datacenters that store bitcoin blockchain information would have to also double as DNS providers. I think a NMC blockchain would be much much smaller in size compared to bitcoin, since transactions on namecoin are much less frequest, even if they may hold more data. So keeping the two separate would allow for many more smaller, independent DNS providers, instead of limiting it to just the few bitcoin providers we'll likely end up with in the future.

That's one area where Namecoin was very weak. Its blockchain may have started out smaller, but its scalability is no better than Bitcoin's, and it'll eventually have the same problems (like all Bitcoin-based altcoins). But if your decentralized DNS doesn't include a currency, then old data about domain ownership can be more easily forgotten. For example, if you require that registrants renew their domains weekly, then resolvers only need the last few weeks of full blockchain data (plus headers to verify the chain). There may also be better ways of doing this that don't require frequent renewal. (You can also do this sort of renewal thing with BTC in order to reduce download requirements, but it'd be really unpopular.)

Running a resolver on a well-designed DNS system will always be pretty cheap unless Bitcoin's network requirements become huge.

Could DNS be implemented as smart property on top of something like Mastercoin?

Probably, but I'm not a huge fan of smart property or Mastercoin.
People, lol! You all just ignore my messages but your ideas clearly point to dianna-project.org

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October 16, 2013, 01:01:18 AM
 #84

I'm not sure that a block chain is required at all

What prevents double-transfer of names, then?

The Namecoin v2.0 rules.

If by "namecoin v2.0" you mean luke-jr's proposal, that does require a blockchain.

No, I mean a hypothetical protocol that doesn't use a separate blockchain.

Quote
the next namecoin should be implemented on top of the bitcoin blockchain.

Well, good luck convincing people to use it.  I'm not very interested in spending money or computing power on an entry in a key-value store that could suddenly become frozen due to small outputs suddenly becoming unspendable or some other change to the bitcoin block validation consensus.

Bitcoin works because everybody has a common interest in it being usable as money.  If you're trying to use it for something else you will always be at risk of the majority (who don't care about your weird use) tweaking the rules in a way that breaks it.

You just don't get it: it's impossible to stamp out all the ways of timestamping data in the blockchain, and timestamping w/ bitcoin sacrifices is sufficient to build a useful and secure distributed DNS system. Even a majority of miners can't use blacklists to stop timestamping and bitcoin sacrifices because you can devise protocols with very useful properties where the transactions involved are revealed after they have been confirmed; they've have to whitelist all acceptable transactions, which is close cousin to very strong censorship.

Such a system can't replicate the scamcoin-like aspect of namecoin where you see speculators hoping the price goes up of course, but notice how namecoin has never caught on...

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October 16, 2013, 03:24:42 AM
 #85

People, lol! You all just ignore my messages but your ideas clearly point to dianna-project.org

Take a hint and stop spamming your thing on this topic? Go bump your own topic, and hope others join in.
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October 16, 2013, 04:04:59 AM
 #86

Namecoin has always been my favorite alt-coin - it had a clear purpose, different from Bitcoin, offering a nice way to keep a de-central registry of key-value pairs.
You found a bug that can be patched. Kudos. If there were an active development team, you would have alerted them privately first I presume rather than stir a panic. I do hope some developers will take this warning to heart and fix the problem, even if a bounty is necessary. Because like the OP, Namecoin is also the favorite alt-coin of many others.

Any significantly advanced cryptocurrency is indistinguishable from Ponzi Tulips.
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October 16, 2013, 04:30:57 AM
Last edit: October 16, 2013, 05:07:34 AM by Paladin69
 #87

So it is dead or can it be salvaged?  Sorry, not technical here.
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October 16, 2013, 05:12:16 AM
 #88

Namecoin has always been my favorite alt-coin - it had a clear purpose, different from Bitcoin, offering a nice way to keep a de-central registry of key-value pairs.
You found a bug that can be patched. Kudos. If there were an active development team, you would have alerted them privately first I presume rather than stir a panic. I do hope some developers will take this warning to heart and fix the problem, even if a bounty is necessary. Because like the OP, Namecoin is also the favorite alt-coin of many others.

OP contacted the Namecoin devs through multiple channels and gave them over a month to respond.  They never responded nor gave any indication that a fix was being worked on.  Project was assumed abandoned.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Namecoin, Dogecoin, Ripple, Stellar, US dollar, euro, British pound, Canadian dollar and Japanese yen exchange:  https://www.kraken.com
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October 16, 2013, 05:20:55 AM
 #89

So it is dead or can it be salvaged?  Sorry, not technical here.
I think it can be salvaged. A particular block, well in the future, will have to be chosen. After that block, every name will have to be recomputed to determine its correct ownership under the new, correct, rules. At that time, all names will revert to their correct owners, and from then on, the exploit will be impossible. It's just going to take the Namecoin community to come together, agree on the new rules and block number, get the work done on time, and so on.

I am an employee of Ripple. Follow me on Twitter @JoelKatz
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Paladin69
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October 16, 2013, 05:32:42 AM
 #90

I'm not taking any chances.  I just made 20 BTC off selling mine.  Nice surprise when you haven't paid attention to something for a while.  I dropped the vircurex price pretty hard...lol  If anyone wants to get back in cheaper than btc-e, go there.

Time will tell if that was a mistake, but I think not.  Especially if the project was abandoned.
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October 16, 2013, 10:59:38 AM
 #91

Namecoin has always been my favorite alt-coin - it had a clear purpose, different from Bitcoin, offering a nice way to keep a de-central registry of key-value pairs.
You found a bug that can be patched. Kudos. If there were an active development team, you would have alerted them privately first I presume rather than stir a panic. I do hope some developers will take this warning to heart and fix the problem, even if a bounty is necessary. Because like the OP, Namecoin is also the favorite alt-coin of many others.

OP contacted the Namecoin devs through multiple channels and gave them over a month to respond.  They never responded nor gave any indication that a fix was being worked on.  Project was assumed abandoned.

some more contacts have been given to him.. Khal received messages, but he has been busy the last month or 2

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October 16, 2013, 11:13:00 AM
 #92

RIP NMC  Sad

Bitcoin will show the world what hard money really is.
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October 16, 2013, 11:46:37 AM
 #93


there are also some other bugs as pm'd by libcoin.. please wait before updating.. there will be an official announcement eventually/soon

also namecoin-qt is NOT the official repo

What is the official repo?
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October 16, 2013, 12:18:57 PM
 #94


there are also some other bugs as pm'd by libcoin.. please wait before updating.. there will be an official announcement eventually/soon

also namecoin-qt is NOT the official repo

What is the official repo?

Find it here: http://namecoin.info
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October 16, 2013, 05:10:06 PM
Last edit: October 16, 2013, 05:21:56 PM by cassini
 #95

Quote from: phelix
Works like a charm so far. Just updated d/wav
Did you use snailbrain's new namecoin-qt build for regaining d/wav?

http://explorer.dot-bit.org/tx/af84b86f549c1c484238b70d742789ac07d4e9295bd2e075895fd968ab00f53b
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October 16, 2013, 05:14:05 PM
 #96

Quote from: phelix
Works like a charm so far. Just updated d/wav
Did you use snailbrain's new namecoin-qt build to reclaim d/wav?

http://explorer.dot-bit.org/tx/af84b86f549c1c484238b70d742789ac07d4e9295bd2e075895fd968ab00f53b

Hehe. Still testing Wink
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October 16, 2013, 05:40:08 PM
 #97

So all the brains and noise in crypto and open source projects over looked such a disaster?
I'm not sure whether to congratulate you or offer my condolences to the dev team and the big players.

This is rather interesting, not only for crypto, but also for all open source projects; having a project "open source" and calling the myth of "open source is more secure" doesn't make the code more secure.. Having developers like yourself actually looking into the code and testing the hell out of every possibility  is what makes it secure.

Nice work, hope a fix, patch, rebirth or whatever you want to call it will be pushed out soon as such noise is in no way good to any cryptos including but not limited to Bitcoin  

I partly agree with you. The problem is that most open source software is poorly documented. Sparse documentation is what keeps the developers from actually inspecting the source... making it more secure becomes secondary in nature. This is one of the reasons I'm excited about the release of btcd (blog.conformal.com/btcd-not-your-moms-bitcoin-daemon). At least the source is readable and well structured. I'll not be surprised if majority of the developers start moving away from the Satoshi client to btcd once btcd reaches stability. I'm not saying that Satoshi client is unreadable. But it has a steep learning curve that deters new developers.

What is the point of open-sourcing software if you can't document it? Its like Shinichi Mochizuki (who was incidently thought to be Satoshi Nakamoto) having supposedly proved the ABC conjecture(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abc_conjecture) but nobody can understand it.

Interesting read: Paradox of Proof (http://projectwordsworth.com/the-paradox-of-the-proof/)

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October 16, 2013, 05:46:19 PM
 #98

Namecoin is alive and kicking. It has been around a bit longer
than any of the other altcoins and certainly is the most innovative coin
after Bitcoin. It was created as a separate chain to prevent bloat in
Bitcoin as per Satoshi's suggestion. Also merged mining was first
implemented in Namecoin. This means that though it is a separate chain
it improves Bitcoin security (and of course benefits).

Note that there are more possibilities in Namecoin than domain name
resolution as it is a general name/value storage system. The community
is only starting to experiment with new ideas like IDs, logins,
TLS/https, Bitmessage integration, file verification and so on.

In such a system it is necessary to have something of value: work or
coins with coins being superior. It would be interesting if the coins
were Bitcoins but it is not so easy to do and no one came up with such
an implementation so far. The NMC price floating freely has the
advantage that system fixed fees are subject to some external price
regulation.

If you have a problem that Namecoin is mostly a superset of Bitcoin's
features: better learn to deal with it, there is much more to come -
both in Namecoin and other chains.

Namecoin needs more active core developers. With Namecoin it is much
easier to make a difference than in Bitcoin so it is probably a fun
starting point for future Bitcoin developers, too.
If you don't want to go down the c++ rabbit hole there are also a lot of
possibilities to create peripheral software mostly in Java and Python
that could make an impact: Browser Plugins, split DNS resolvers on
various systems (Android), Electrum Bitcoin address ID integration, web
of trust, voting, bonds, decentralized facebook/twitter/reddit mashup....

You are welcome:
http://namecoin.info
http://dot-bit.org
http://dot-bit.org/forum/index.php = http://nf.bit


Quote from: libcoin link=topic=310954.msg3341333#msg3341333
date=1381833893
So current status is - don't buy a domain from someone, and don't trust
any important key-value pair in namecoin before the fix has been rolled
out! - Will update once it is there, but could take days to deploy at
miners.
Unless you have the fixed version installed that is. BTW it's being
tested right now.

Scalability
For domain name resolution alone there should be much less transactions
than for a payment system like Bitcoin. We will have to see about other
applications but probably Namecoin will have to bear much less load than
Bitcoin but scale similarly.

Lite client
A lite client is possible though it may have to download all block
HEADERS and name_op TXs.
Also a very lite client is possible that only verifies that a name_op is
in a block and checks a couple of the next block headers. The name value
could have been altered later on but it would still be safer than using
a regular DNS.
While as of now running the Namecoin client does not take a lot of
computing power it would be nice to see this implemented.

OP contacted the Namecoin devs through multiple channels and gave them
over a month to respond. They never responded nor gave any indication
that a fix was being worked on.
He only contacted devs long gone. There has been quite some activity on
the forum over the last couple of months.
Still glad he made the problem public and helps us now e.g. by editing
the OP and maybe the OP title? Wink


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October 17, 2013, 03:06:49 AM
 #99

Well spoken Phelix. Looks like this incident has a silver lining and actually made the Namecoin community stronger and more resolved. Onwards and Forwards!
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October 17, 2013, 05:48:20 AM
 #100

Well spoken Phelix. Looks like this incident has a silver lining and actually made the Namecoin community stronger and more resolved. Onwards and Forwards!

I agree here.  While reading the thread I collected ideas of what to contribute to this discussion at the end, but phelix already expressed all of that very nicely. Wink

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