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

[biolizard89]

I would probably be happy to do an AMA every now and then, as long as it doesn't cut into development time too much.  Do you have suggestions on where a good venue would be?

This is probably not the easy answer you might have wanted, but I'll give a suggestion of what I think a good venue would be.

I would look for somebody with media and political connections to ask DemocracyNow to do it.

https://twitter.com/democracynow

https://www.youtube.com/user/democracynow

That's actually a very good idea.  I'm a huge fan of Democracy Now, and I'm aware that they interview software developers from time to time (Jake Appelbaum immediately comes to mind).

I fully agree that outreach to political / activist communities is worthwhile, rather than simply staying focused on Bitcoin audiences.  (I was a speaker at a small human rights conference hosted at my university last year, for exactly this reason.)  Given that Democracy Now often covers issues of mass surveillance, it seems to me that it might be best to wait until TLS and Tor integration is released before we consider talking to Democracy Now -- I imagine that the TLS and Tor aspects would be pretty big draws for Democracy Now and their audience.  Now that we've got funding to work on these features (see the link in my previous post), this should proceed pretty fast.

Thank you for the suggestion!

[1714951889]

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[PeterTheGrape]

For somebody who does not want to click through links

https://www.namecoin.org/2017/05/19/funding-nlnet.html

Namecoin Receives Funding from NLnet Foundation's Internet Hardening Fund

May 19, 2017 • Jeremy Rand

We’re happy to announce that Namecoin is receiving 29,895 EUR in funding from NLnet Foundation’s Internet Hardening Fund. If you’re unfamiliar with NLnet, you might want to read about NLnet Foundation, or just take a look at the projects they’ve funded over the years (you might see some familiar names). The Internet Hardening Fund is managed by NLnet and funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs. The funding will be used to fund 4 Namecoin developers (Jeremy Rand, Hugo Landau, Brandon Roberts, and Joseph Bisch) to produce a usable decentralized TLS public key infrastructure.

Specifically, the following areas of development will be funded:

    Integration with DNS functionality of major operating systems. We intend to support GNU/Linux and Windows, including DNS integration for Tor. Other operating system support may be developed if things go well.
    Integration with TLS certificate validation functionality of major web browsers. We intend to support Chromium, Firefox, and Tor Browser on GNU/Linux and Windows. Other browser support may be developed if things go well.
    Improvements to the lightweight SPV name lookup client.
    A lightweight SPV wallet with name support. We intend to use Electrum.
    Wallet GUI improvements, including Coin Control for name transactions and a name update GUI that doesn’t require knowing JSON.
    Improved installation automation. We intend to provide a Windows installer that includes a Namecoin client, DNS integration, and TLS integration. Other OS support may be developed if things go well.

We’d like to thank the awesome people at NLnet Foundation for selecting us for this opportunity, as well as the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs for recognizing that a hardened Internet is worth receiving government financial support.

We’ll be posting updates regularly as development proceeds. (Spoiler alert: a few components are already nearly ready for beta releases.)

[marcus_of_augustus]

Namecoin Receives 29,895 EUR in Funding from NLnet Foundation's Internet Hardening Fund

Well done Jeremy. Decentralised TLS using namecoin integration for DNS has been a secret wish and hobby horse of mine since learning about namecoin.  Let's give those corrupt and incompetent rent-seeking CA a run for their money.

[TeamMollyMassive]

I sold all my namecoin in 2013 for 15$ on btc-e but now im thinking about buying once again

[mishax1]

I sold all my namecoin in 2013 for 15$ on btc-e but now im thinking about buying once again

Think fast

[NameGame123]

Hi @Biolizard89,

I am quite new to all of this, but have been cautiously reading as much as I can about alt-coins, which of course led me to the wonders of blockchain and various projects underway. I can't believe how disconnected much of the world is from something so transformative for all of us. For obvious reasons, Namecoin stood out to me and I have invested for the long-run. Much appreciation for the relentless work you and your team have and are putting into Namecoin.

What I would like to know: Are the Namecoin and Monero teams still actively working alongside each other on common projects, as stated on Namecoin's official webpage and the presentation you gave in London last year? I just did a bit of reading about OpenAlias and I know that Monero mentioned receiving assistance from NLnet Labs, but it appears that this is their own, in-house project. Is there a collaboration that will be announced in the near future? What would such a collaboration mean for Namecoin?

What are your general thoughts about potential fallout surrounding BIP 148 at the beginning of August? Do you think a lot of the miners will seriously think about rejecting SegWit? I know you are focused on AAA at the moment, but what would it mean for Namecoin and everyone else if they take that position, and why would they (re: history lesson from BIP66!)?

Like I said, I am new to all of this so excuse me if my questions are a bit rudimentary.

[NameGame123]

Hi @Biolizard89,

I am quite new to all of this, but have been cautiously reading as much as I can about alt-coins, which of course led me to the wonders of blockchain and various projects underway. I can't believe how disconnected much of the world is from something so transformative for all of us. For obvious reasons, Namecoin stood out to me and I have invested for the long-run. Much appreciation for the relentless work you and your team have and are putting into Namecoin.

What I would like to know: Are the Namecoin and Monero teams still actively working alongside each other on common projects, as stated on Namecoin's official webpage and the presentation you gave in London last year? I just did a bit of reading about OpenAlias and I know that Monero mentioned receiving assistance from NLnet Labs, but it appears that this is their own, in-house project. Is there a collaboration that will be announced in the near future? What would such a collaboration mean for Namecoin?

What are your general thoughts about potential fallout surrounding BIP 148 at the beginning of August? Do you think a lot of the miners will seriously think about rejecting SegWit? I know you are focused on AAA at the moment, but what would it mean for Namecoin and everyone else if they take that position, and why would they (re: history lesson from BIP66!)?

Like I said, I am new to all of this so excuse me if my questions are a bit rudimentary.

I'll add an opinion here, anybody is free to disagree,

Namecoin started as an honest coin, and is an honest coin, to the best of my knowledge.

Monero started as a coin pushed aggressively by people who got marketshare spamming threads, attacking others etc. I personally do not consider Monero a respectable coin, regardless how much they spent on shills to attack other coins and force use. I would be cautious of any attempt by Monero to steal legitimacy by association with Namecoin.

-

 

@PeterTheGrape - I have done little research about Monero, but the little I know from @Biolizard89's presentation about them piqued my interest. If what you say is the case then that is disappointing to hear about Monero.

[icqcointokenwallet]

Who is the DEV here?  I have a few ideas

[PeterTheGrape]

Who is the DEV here?  I have a few ideas

If you have an idea say it, or send a message to one of the devs. This is not ripple etc. You do not need permission to speak. If you are not able to find out who any of the devs are you probably should research things a bit before you share ideas.

[biolizard89]

Hi @Biolizard89,

Hello!  Sorry for the delayed reply, it seems I've been failing to check this thread for a couple weeks.

I am quite new to all of this, but have been cautiously reading as much as I can about alt-coins, which of course led me to the wonders of blockchain and various projects underway. I can't believe how disconnected much of the world is from something so transformative for all of us. For obvious reasons, Namecoin stood out to me and I have invested for the long-run. Much appreciation for the relentless work you and your team have and are putting into Namecoin.

Thanks for your support!

What I would like to know: Are the Namecoin and Monero teams still actively working alongside each other on common projects, as stated on Namecoin's official webpage and the presentation you gave in London last year? I just did a bit of reading about OpenAlias and I know that Monero mentioned receiving assistance from NLnet Labs, but it appears that this is their own, in-house project. Is there a collaboration that will be announced in the near future? What would such a collaboration mean for Namecoin?

The Namecoin and Monero teams are continuing to collaborate on areas of common interest.  One example is that Namecoin's anonymity properties are very poor, and this is a roadblock for Namecoin's usage as a naming system for Tor.  The way we're going about fixing that is by trying to support a workflow where a user purchases NMC using a more anonymous currency.  (This could be Monero, Zcash, or any other asset that can be traded for NMC.)  This isn't Monero-specific (I've talked to Riccardo from Monero about it, as well as Zooko from Zcash), but since Monero will need to do a consensus fork in order to support this use case properly (and Zcash won't, to my knowledge), more coordination is happening between Namecoin and Monero than between Namecoin and Zcash.  Also, Riccardo tends to hang around #namecoin-dev, and Zooko doesn't, so naturally there's more interaction with Riccardo than with Zooko.  Namecoin as a project doesn't endorse any particular anonymous cryptocurrency as the best one -- in fact we explicitly decided not to integrate ring signatures or zk-SNARKs into Namecoin, specifically because we want end users to have a choice about what anonymous blockchain technology they use.

Also note that NLnet Labs and NLnet Foundation are two different entities.  NLnet Foundation's primary role is funding projects; NLnet Labs' primary role is development.  NLnet Foundation funds NLnet Labs, but any collaboration between Monero and NLnet Labs is unrelated to Namecoin's funding from NLnet Foundation.

What are your general thoughts about potential fallout surrounding BIP 148 at the beginning of August? Do you think a lot of the miners will seriously think about rejecting SegWit? I know you are focused on AAA at the moment, but what would it mean for Namecoin and everyone else if they take that position, and why would they (re: history lesson from BIP66!)?

Ah, I see you were paying attention to my QCon talk.  Kudos to you!  Yeah, the fact that CSV and SegWit are blocked until AAA happens does set up a scenario similar to the BIP66 issue.  You probably noticed that I alluded to this a bit in my talk, when I mentioned that even if you're diligent, you'll find yourself in a situation occasionally where you need to maintain a patchset against your upstream, and that effort should be made to minimize the duration where this is the case.  We are expending effort on this front, but unfortunately coordinating a hardfork takes time.  All we can do here is try to activate AAA as fast as can do safely, and hope that CSV and SegWit don't become the next BIP66.

Other than the BIP66-like scenario, we should be mostly unaffected by Bitcoin consensus issues.  Namecoin blocks don't need to have a parent block that's actually part of the Bitcoin blockchain; as long as the parent block has valid SHA256D PoW, it's accepted by Namecoin.  So if Bitcoin has a chainfork, both sides of the Bitcoin chainfork will be valid as Namecoin parent blocks.  (Some people have speculated that this might even result in Namecoin having a higher hashrate than Bitcoin for a short period of time.)

Like I said, I am new to all of this so excuse me if my questions are a bit rudimentary.

On the contrary, your questions are excellent -- clearly you did your homework before asking them. 

[NameGame123]

Hi @Biolizard89,

Hello!  Sorry for the delayed reply, it seems I've been failing to check this thread for a couple weeks.

I am quite new to all of this, but have been cautiously reading as much as I can about alt-coins, which of course led me to the wonders of blockchain and various projects underway. I can't believe how disconnected much of the world is from something so transformative for all of us. For obvious reasons, Namecoin stood out to me and I have invested for the long-run. Much appreciation for the relentless work you and your team have and are putting into Namecoin.

Thanks for your support!

What I would like to know: Are the Namecoin and Monero teams still actively working alongside each other on common projects, as stated on Namecoin's official webpage and the presentation you gave in London last year? I just did a bit of reading about OpenAlias and I know that Monero mentioned receiving assistance from NLnet Labs, but it appears that this is their own, in-house project. Is there a collaboration that will be announced in the near future? What would such a collaboration mean for Namecoin?

The Namecoin and Monero teams are continuing to collaborate on areas of common interest.  One example is that Namecoin's anonymity properties are very poor, and this is a roadblock for Namecoin's usage as a naming system for Tor.  The way we're going about fixing that is by trying to support a workflow where a user purchases NMC using a more anonymous currency.  (This could be Monero, Zcash, or any other asset that can be traded for NMC.)  This isn't Monero-specific (I've talked to Riccardo from Monero about it, as well as Zooko from Zcash), but since Monero will need to do a consensus fork in order to support this use case properly (and Zcash won't, to my knowledge), more coordination is happening between Namecoin and Monero than between Namecoin and Zcash.  Also, Riccardo tends to hang around #namecoin-dev, and Zooko doesn't, so naturally there's more interaction with Riccardo than with Zooko.  Namecoin as a project doesn't endorse any particular anonymous cryptocurrency as the best one -- in fact we explicitly decided not to integrate ring signatures or zk-SNARKs into Namecoin, specifically because we want end users to have a choice about what anonymous blockchain technology they use.

Also note that NLnet Labs and NLnet Foundation are two different entities.  NLnet Foundation's primary role is funding projects; NLnet Labs' primary role is development.  NLnet Foundation funds NLnet Labs, but any collaboration between Monero and NLnet Labs is unrelated to Namecoin's funding from NLnet Foundation.

What are your general thoughts about potential fallout surrounding BIP 148 at the beginning of August? Do you think a lot of the miners will seriously think about rejecting SegWit? I know you are focused on AAA at the moment, but what would it mean for Namecoin and everyone else if they take that position, and why would they (re: history lesson from BIP66!)?

Ah, I see you were paying attention to my QCon talk.  Kudos to you!  Yeah, the fact that CSV and SegWit are blocked until AAA happens does set up a scenario similar to the BIP66 issue.  You probably noticed that I alluded to this a bit in my talk, when I mentioned that even if you're diligent, you'll find yourself in a situation occasionally where you need to maintain a patchset against your upstream, and that effort should be made to minimize the duration where this is the case.  We are expending effort on this front, but unfortunately coordinating a hardfork takes time.  All we can do here is try to activate AAA as fast as can do safely, and hope that CSV and SegWit don't become the next BIP66.

Other than the BIP66-like scenario, we should be mostly unaffected by Bitcoin consensus issues.  Namecoin blocks don't need to have a parent block that's actually part of the Bitcoin blockchain; as long as the parent block has valid SHA256D PoW, it's accepted by Namecoin.  So if Bitcoin has a chainfork, both sides of the Bitcoin chainfork will be valid as Namecoin parent blocks.  (Some people have speculated that this might even result in Namecoin having a higher hashrate than Bitcoin for a short period of time.)

Like I said, I am new to all of this so excuse me if my questions are a bit rudimentary.

On the contrary, your questions are excellent -- clearly you did your homework before asking them. 

Hi @Biolizard89, again - thank you for your hard work alongside the Namecoin team and associates. Much appreciation for taking the time to answer my questions! You have left me with much to ponder, pointing me in a good direction for further research. 

[ethquestions]

Obviously, if you will look at the chart, It will go up just like other known cryptocurrency from the past. Specially now they are adding some features that can compete now to other cryptocurrency. The price is still low if you look at its history.

[DoomDumas]

Namecoin is the first solution to produce a naming system that is simultaneously secure, decentralized, and human-meaningful.

I don't understand why torrent website owner did'nt catch up on this yet

[mishax1]

Namecoin is the first solution to produce a naming system that is simultaneously secure, decentralized, and human-meaningful.

I don't understand why torrent website owner did'nt catch up on this yet

It blows my mind, a few local torrents and translation sites were shut down an people got fined.. and none of then heard of Zeronet.

[biolizard89]

Namecoin is the first solution to produce a naming system that is simultaneously secure, decentralized, and human-meaningful.

I don't understand why torrent website owner did'nt catch up on this yet

I'm unaware of any BitTorrent indexes using Namecoin, but TheShadowBrokers used Namecoin for a while [1].  I guess TSB are a bit ahead of the curve compared to BitTorrent index operators [2].

[1] I believe they removed the links to their Namecoin domain name from their Twitter and Steemit profiles in the last few weeks, which coincided with most of their Twitter posts disappearing.  However, it looks like their Namecoin domain name is still active.  I don't know what the backstory there is.

[2] The usual disclaimer applies that while I wouldn't be surprised if TSB are capable of using Namecoin safely, I don't endorse average-skilled people using Namecoin for high-risk activity.

[PeterTheGrape]

Namecoin is the first solution to produce a naming system that is simultaneously secure, decentralized, and human-meaningful.

I don't understand why torrent website owner did'nt catch up on this yet

I'm unaware of any BitTorrent indexes using Namecoin, but TheShadowBrokers used Namecoin for a while [1].  I guess TSB are a bit ahead of the curve compared to BitTorrent index operators [2].

[1] I believe they removed the links to their Namecoin domain name from their Twitter and Steemit profiles in the last few weeks, which coincided with most of their Twitter posts disappearing.  However, it looks like their Namecoin domain name is still active.  I don't know what the backstory there is.

[2] The usual disclaimer applies that while I wouldn't be surprised if TSB are capable of using Namecoin safely, I don't endorse average-skilled people using Namecoin for high-risk activity.

...

-

I know Satoshi Nakamoto was involved in Namecoin. Was Aaron Swartz?

[biolizard89]

I know Satoshi Nakamoto was involved in Namecoin. Was Aaron Swartz?

Aaron wrote a proposal for Nakanames, which described a system very similar to Namecoin.  Aaron wrote this a few months after Appamatto proposed BitDNS, but a few months before Vince released Namecoin.  So to that extent, Aaron was involved with Namecoin.  I am unaware of any conversations/discussions that Aaron had with the Namecoin developers (or the BitDNS discussion participants).

[PeterTheGrape]

I know Satoshi Nakamoto was involved in Namecoin. Was Aaron Swartz?

Aaron wrote a proposal for Nakanames, which described a system very similar to Namecoin.  Aaron wrote this a few months after Appamatto proposed BitDNS, but a few months before Vince released Namecoin.  So to that extent, Aaron was involved with Namecoin.  I am unaware of any conversations/discussions that Aaron had with the Namecoin developers (or the BitDNS discussion participants).

A philosophical opinion.

Almost any educated person supports Aaron Swartz's pushing to make information more freely available, and to minimize the harm caused by bureaucratic malignancies.

However with TSB there is a more blurry line. For one, we don't know if he or she is motivated by an ideal that should be supported. TSB could well be an alphabet agency employee who used the pretext of a leak or hack to cover widespread targeted use of certain tools in a specific geographic area. If I were Eastern European that would seem to be what the evidence suggests.

Aaron Swartzs are often times killed or driven to the grave by their governments, because they feel protected by their good intentions, they were raised with the belief "you do not attack good intentions", but do not understand that many people who seek government jobs are raised more with the ideal "you do not attack power".

TSB survives, either because he or she is smart enough to anticipate the possible threats generated by bureaucrats, or because he/she is acting on their behalf.

The best that Namecoin can hope to offer, in my opinion, is the same protection from physical harm to Aaron Swartz, and others who mistakenly trust the bureaucrats, as it offers to more savvy players like TSB. If those two were on equal footing, if both Aaron Swartz nd TSB had equal surviveability in our environment, there would be possible a public examination of the motives of each, and much to be learned by that. Instead the mass of people are forced to timidly avoid death by not violating empty rules.

 

[pumpmydump]

Aaron Swartzs are often times killed or driven to the grave by their governments, because they feel protected by their good intentions, they were raised with the belief "you do not attack good intentions", but do not understand that many people who seek government jobs are raised more with the ideal "you do not attack power".

Very true

I think most people do not want to attack "good", not out of education or belief but because of how it feels. To materialists everything is relative (except for their belief in materialism), to them good and evil are relative, but feelings and emotions are ultimately the drive behind every of our actions and shape everything that we experience, they are what is most real, and so the ideal of goodness is not merely a belief, it is something more. To pursue good is not an empty quest, it is profoundly worth it and no rationalization could ever change that.

And most people pursue "good", both the Swartzs and the people seeking government jobs, but the latter have been indoctrinated into associating power with good. They are both pursuing the same goal but the latter ones have been blinded by their education, that has ingrained into their mind that believing in the authority is good, and then Aaron Swartzs are singled out as threats to what they believe is good. But their belief is an artificial one, imposed upon them by those who seek control and power to have safety, by those who think about themselves before thinking about others. And those are afraid to let go of that control ultimately because they fear others. And it is fear that drives evil which drives more fear in an endless self-reinforcing circle.

And if decentralization allows to break that circle, by forcing those in power to let go of their control, by showing the world that we are all inherently after the same thing, that no great catastrophe will come from allowing every individual to be free, that the will for good is more powerful than evil, that there is more good in each and everyone of us than we tend to think, then good will self-reinforce rather than fear and then we all win.
 

[marcus_of_augustus]

I know Satoshi Nakamoto was involved in Namecoin. Was Aaron Swartz?

Aaron wrote a proposal for Nakanames, which described a system very similar to Namecoin.  Aaron wrote this a few months after Appamatto proposed BitDNS, but a few months before Vince released Namecoin.  So to that extent, Aaron was involved with Namecoin.  I am unaware of any conversations/discussions that Aaron had with the Namecoin developers (or the BitDNS discussion participants).

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/squarezooko