[announce] Namecoin - a distributed naming system based on Bitcoin

[benjyz]

https://nameid.org/

many thanks for this work. I will have to look into this further. Combining namecoin with OAuth is really what I need. I think part of the issue is the work required by users to a) acquire namecoins b) running namecoind. I'm working on a) and hope to make this much easier soon. If the whole process would be seamless more people might be interested. I think currently the ID part is much more useful than the domain part.

Is there some code for an explorer, like http://explorer.namecoin.info/ somewhere? I currently don't have the time to write such a webinterface, but pulling together stuff from Bitcoin should be sufficient. It would be nice to be able to explorer the blockchain after registration, see when names were registered, etc.

[benjyz]

I fully agree here.  While I'm not one of the "early squatters", I hold some names and will gladly give them for free (together with free help in configuration) to anyone who wants to set up a real website in earnest.  I've already seen "statistics" like "oh look, what a mess, 99% of .bit domains are only squatted and not resolving to a website!" a lot, and think that this is mostly due not to squatting being such a bad problem, but because there simply isn't yet enough demand to build .bit websites.  I'm sure that, when .bit gets more popular and more people can actually resolve it, this fraction will improve by a lot.

Just doing ".bit" like a ".com" is by itself not interesting. The ability to change DNS by consensus is extremely powerful in different ways than that. So the incentive to build a "bit" website is very small indeed. You have to get all users to install new software, for very little benefit. Which is why NMC hasn't taken off. It's rather the potential that is fascinating. Once there are incentives to switch to alternatives, the dynamic changes.

Squatting is an issue because we are mapping names from the real world (trademark names such as "Google", "Coke", ...) to a virtual world. So the first come first serve principle is not very good. One needs more sophisticated rules than that.

[CoinHeavy]

While `namecoind getinfo` and `namecoind getdifficulty` display the current difficulty, `namecoind getblock <block_hash>` does not return difficulty info for an arbitrary block in the past.

Is it possible to do this?  I've rolled some code that works across dozens of other coin daemons but it breaks with namecoin because of this missing historical difficulty field.  I've patched together some workarounds for other issues but this one is a significant obstacle to the inclusion of namecoin in various multi-coin projects.

Any help would be much appreciated -- cheers.
_{(if a diff patch would require significant time/effort please feel free to pm me to work out a bounty)}

[domob]

While `namecoind getinfo` and `namecoind getdifficulty` display the current difficulty, `namecoind getblock <block_hash>` does not return difficulty info for an arbitrary block in the past.

Is it possible to do this?  I've rolled some code that works across dozens of other coin daemons but it breaks with namecoin because of this missing historical difficulty field.  I've patched together some workarounds for other issues but this one is a significant obstacle to the inclusion of namecoin in various multi-coin projects.

Any help would be much appreciated -- cheers.
_{(if a diff patch would require significant time/effort please feel free to pm me to work out a bounty)}

https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin/issues/112  Will probably be fixed soon.

[paythrough_team]

Namecoin is NMC?
I am a little confused.

[bitpop]

Namecoin is NMC?
I am a little confused.

Yes why

[CoinHeavy]

While `namecoind getinfo` and `namecoind getdifficulty` display the current difficulty, `namecoind getblock <block_hash>` does not return difficulty info for an arbitrary block in the past.

Is it possible to do this?  I've rolled some code that works across dozens of other coin daemons but it breaks with namecoin because of this missing historical difficulty field.  I've patched together some workarounds for other issues but this one is a significant obstacle to the inclusion of namecoin in various multi-coin projects.

Any help would be much appreciated -- cheers.
_{(if a diff patch would require significant time/effort please feel free to pm me to work out a bounty)}

https://github.com/namecoin/namecoin/issues/112  Will probably be fixed soon.

Thank you Domob!

[snailbrain]

v0.3.75 ->>> http://forum.namecoin.info/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1865&p=11640#p11640

[phelix]

x-post for the record

[benjyz]

I just read that namecoin does not and will never do name-validation [1]. interesting...

[1] https://forum.namecoin.info/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1719

[bitpop]

many of my names seem to have disappeared after the last update

[cassini]

many of my names seem to have disappeared after the last update

Looks a bit like you did some experiments with directory names and then mixed up older and newer versions of your wallet.dat backups. What does the "validateaddress" command give you on the addresses of these names? "ismine"=true?

[bitpop]

many of my names seem to have disappeared after the last update

Looks a bit like you did some experiments with directory names and then mixed up older and newer versions of your wallet.dat backups. What does the "validateaddress" command give you on the addresses of these names? "ismine"=true?

i dont think so

yes it says true

if i delete the database, they appear but disappear at or close to synced

out of many, only 1 shows, i dont think they expired as 1 is still good, the other may have no data tho, are those filtered?

[phelix]

many of my names seem to have disappeared after the last update

Looks a bit like you did some experiments with directory names and then mixed up older and newer versions of your wallet.dat backups. What does the "validateaddress" command give you on the addresses of these names? "ismine"=true?

i dont think so

yes it says true

if i delete the database, they appear but disappear at or close to synced

out of many, only 1 shows, i dont think they expired as 1 is still good, the other may have no data tho, are those filtered?

did you try to start with -rescan, like

Code:

namecoin-qt -rescan

[jarif]

How long a name will stay until it expires?

One of my names does not resolve any more, but when  I tried to re-extablish it with historical commands those commands failed

name_update: error: {"code":-5,"message":"Invalid namecoin address"}

name_firstupdate: error: {"code":-1,"message":"this name is already active"}

[bitpop]

many of my names seem to have disappeared after the last update

Looks a bit like you did some experiments with directory names and then mixed up older and newer versions of your wallet.dat backups. What does the "validateaddress" command give you on the addresses of these names? "ismine"=true?

i dont think so

yes it says true

if i delete the database, they appear but disappear at or close to synced

out of many, only 1 shows, i dont think they expired as 1 is still good, the other may have no data tho, are those filtered?

did you try to start with -rescan, like

Code:

namecoin-qt -rescan

still gone ive also tried deleting everything but the wallet

[cassini]

How long a name will stay until it expires?

36000 Blocks. This currently equals to around 200 days.

name_update: error: {"code":-5,"message":"Invalid namecoin address"}

This shows that you made a syntax error. The error message "Invalid namecoin address" is displayed only when you transfer a name to somebody else. This is not what you want.

Check the value field of your name_update command. I think there is a space or a special character in your value field.

[renee25]

How long a name will stay until it expires?

36000 Blocks. This currently equals to around 200 days.

200 days? my god, i'm sure many people are going to lose their domain names or IDs very soon,
it should be a year or more than a year and stop resolving after a year.

I bet some people would like to be able to pay for longer registration periods,
even if it's more expensive than just renewing every year,
just to have the security to not run into trouble.

what's the official fee plan? 0.01 forever and for TX follow bitcoin fees?

[phelix]

many of my names seem to have disappeared after the last update

Looks a bit like you did some experiments with directory names and then mixed up older and newer versions of your wallet.dat backups. What does the "validateaddress" command give you on the addresses of these names? "ismine"=true?

i dont think so

yes it says true

if i delete the database, they appear but disappear at or close to synced

out of many, only 1 shows, i dont think they expired as 1 is still good, the other may have no data tho, are those filtered?

did you try to start with -rescan, like

Code:

namecoin-qt -rescan

still gone ive also tried deleting everything but the wallet

Did they expire? What does name_history say? I don't see how the update could be directly responsible.

[bitpop]

Where's that? Do you have the link to the old zip? Let me delete the database and try the old one.

They shouldn't be expired, they were created with the only one left. Only difference is the rest had no data.