[ANN] Namecoin v3.50 : faster & better

[khal]

A new version of namecoin is available !

Project : http://dot-bit.org/
Files : http://dot-bit.org/files/

Improved performances :

* New index for names, created at first startup
* Faster name_scan (3x)
* Faster name_list (11x !)

New rpc commands :

* sendtoname : sendtoname <namecoinname> <amount> [comment] [comment-to]
- allow you to send namecoin to last owner of a name

* name_show : name_show <name>
- show only one name (same as name_scan "xx" 1) or nothing of name is not found

* name_filter : name_filter [regexp] [maxage=36000] [from=0] [nb=0] [stat]
- filter names with regular expressions, height of a name (to get only names from last X blocks), to count names, etc
Examples :
* list all unexpired names
namecoind name_filter

* list all names in the d/ namespace
namecoind name_filter "^d/" 0

* list names modified last 150 blocks
namecoind name_filter "^d/" 150

* count names modified last 150 blocks
namecoind name_filter "^d/" 150 0 0 stat

* list 20 names from number 100
namecoind name_filter "" 0 100 20

Other

* name_scan now only returns the minimum of data (8MB instead of 16MB)
* if index of names (nameindexfull.dat) is deleted, it'll be recreated at startup.
* default rpc port updated to not conflict with bitcoin
* config file renamed to namecoin.conf (it's never too late...). Still works with original name. Same for pid file.


Some really useful changes !
NamecoinToBind will be updated soon to benefit from this.

Check it out !  

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[bulanula]

Is this supposed to be in alt coin ? 

[khal]

Hum, possible (i've an old habit to post here :p). Could someone move it if it fits better in Alt coin ?

Did you test namecoin ? :p

[rjk]

Wow, I thought it was mostly dead. Glad to see Namecoin still being worked on.
Are there any plans to make the jump to the 0.6.x bitcoin sources?

EDIT: Also, what about Windows support for this newest version?

[khal]

No, namecoin is not dead. There is still a lot of work done, on a lot of external tools (proxies, bridges, dns servers, etc) needed for all this to work. And it's not finished . So, that's why there was no new namecoin releases (most of work done on other things). But, using it day to day was a bit frustrating, so, i've written some code to reduce my frustration :p

You can currently browse .bit easily, with Foxyproxy for example : http://dot-bit.org/How_To_Configure_Foxyproxy. But, you must trust my server, so, that's not perfect for everybody.
Our next step is to provide an easy tool to do the same on your computer (like the namecoin bundle).


Rebasing namecoin on bitcoin 0.6.x will be done by vinced if nobody else is volunteer. But, vince is almost disappeared... so any help is welcome.

For the windows build, i've contacted twobits, who built the previous versions. If some body else want to provide binaries for windows and mac, they are welcome too.

For sure, we don't have as much developers as bitcoin :p

[Bitinvestor]

Hello khal, I wonder if you could give us your opinion on point number five below:

Crashing bugs, any bug that might result in loss of bitcoins, and security fixes are always highest priority, but here are the big things I think are very high priority that, as far as I know, nobody is working on.  I think they all need to be done before we can say we have a "Bitcoin 1.0" :

• finish download-only-blockheaders client mode
• password-protect the wallet private keys (mitigate the steal wallet.dat problem: see https://gist.github.com/803170 )
• import a backed-up wallet
• figure out how to do click-to-pay
• design/implement a secure DNS-like "map string to bitcoin address" system  (so I can send bitcoins to "gavin@acm.org")
• export+encrypt part of your balance (for long-term storage; I still waffle on whether we want to encourage that right now)

Stumbled upon Gavin's post from over a year ago and wondered about the status of these points.  It looks like the pace of development is slow, but not being a programmer, I feel all I can do to help is tell businesses and friends about bitcoin, play bitcoin poker, order the magazine, and bomb hundreds of coins at SatoshiDice.

It seems that here is an opportunity for namecoin to make itself useful for bitcoin and gain wider adoption. What do you think?

[khal]

It seems that here is an opportunity for namecoin to make itself useful for bitcoin and gain wider adoption. What do you think?

The alias feature is mentioned in the BIP 0015 and has been discussed on the bitcoin development mailing list.
I think Namecoin is the perfect solution for aliases because it relies on no external server (no dns server, no forced external service, etc), benefits from the blockchain advantages and would be very easy to add into bitcoin.

PS : BIP 0015 page is locked, so it's not possible so add Namecoin to the list.

But here is the the summary :
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Talk:BIP_0015#Namecoin_aliases

And the Alias specification for Namecoin :
http://dot-bit.org/Namespace:Aliases

[Bitinvestor]

I think Namecoin is the perfect solution for aliases because it relies on no external server (no dns server, no forced external service, etc), benefits from the blockchain advantages and would be very easy to add into bitcoin.

If it were to be added to Bitcoin then it would have to go through the BIP process which doesn't seem easy to me, but I understand that you meant it would be easy from a programming standpoint. I think it would be much easier to implement it first in Namecoin as a proof of concept. Can you do this?

[khal]

I think Namecoin is the perfect solution for aliases because it relies on no external server (no dns server, no forced external service, etc), benefits from the blockchain advantages and would be very easy to add into bitcoin.

If it were to be added to Bitcoin then it would have to go through the BIP process which doesn't seem easy to me, but I understand that you meant it would be easy from a programming standpoint. I think it would be much easier to implement it first in Namecoin as a proof of concept. Can you do this?

There is a similar feature in this release of namecoin : sendtoname.
You can send namecoins to a name owner. It first gets the address associated with a name and then send coins to this address.

But, adding name_getjson function would be a more complete proof of concept indeed.

For example, you could have this alias registered :

$ namecoind name_show a/khal
{
    "email"    : "khal@dot-bit.org",
    "bitcoin"  : "1J3EKMfboca3SESWGrQKESsG1MA9yK6vN4",
    "namecoin" :
    {
      "Donation address": "N2pGWAh65TWpWmEFrFssRQkQubbczJSKi9",
      "Generic address" : "N2pGWAh65TWpWmEFrFssRQkQubbczJSKi9"
    }
    "gpg"      :
    {
        "fpr"  : "0123456789abcde0123456789abcde0123456789",
        "uri"  : ["http://domainA/user.key", "http://domainB/user.key"],
    }
}

And bitcoin would query it like that :

$ namecoind name_getjson khal bitcoin
{
    "bitcoin"  : "1J3EKMfboca3SESWGrQKESsG1MA9yK6vN4"
}

and namecoin :

$ namecoind name_getjson khal namecoin
{
    "namecoin" :
    {
      "donation": "N2pGWAh65TWpWmEFrFssRQkQubbczJSKi9",
      "default" : ["N2pGWAh65TWpWmEFrFssRQkQubbczJSKi9", "N2pGWAh65TWpWmEFrFssRQkQubbczJSKi9"],
    }
}

The namecoin client can propose to select "khal donation" or "khal default". If default is selected, one is chosen randomly.

The current draft for bitcoin/namecoin aliases says it can return several labels and several addresses. I don't know if this is really useful or not.

What do you think ?

[marcus_of_augustus]

watching

[Garr255]

Great!

[MaxSan]

Long live namecoin ! Will instal later when home.

[Bitinvestor]

What do you think ?

I've thought about it for a little while and here are my high-level suggestions (I'm not a programmer and my understanding of Namecoin is limited):

* Only allow e-mail addresses to be registered as aliases and verify that the person who registers it has access to it. This can be automated like most mailing lists do. It is necessary to provide this basic level of security to prevent Bulanula from associating his wallet address with gavin@acm.org, for example.

* Make it independent of any coin (except Namecoin, obviously). Leave it up to the user to decide which coins to use and provide a secure data structure that any coin (existing or yet to be invented) can query to associate an e-mail address with a wallet address. While this feature isn't implemented by other coins it should still be possible to query Namecoin manually to list all the addresses for gavin@acm.org so that the right one can be copied and pasted into the client.

* Allow the aliases to be modified quickly in case somebody loses his wallet or changes his e-mail address. Also make sure that people get notified early on when it is necessary to renew their alias to keep it in the blockchain.

Is this possible?

[khal]

* Only allow e-mail addresses to be registered as aliases and verify that the person who registers it has access to it. This can be automated like most mailing lists do. It is necessary to provide this basic level of security to prevent Bulanula from associating his wallet address with gavin@acm.org, for example.

If you want a feature to add existing email addresses and to ckeck if someone really owns it, you insert control and you want someone else to control a registered alias. This is not possible in namecoin because there is no central control (and it must be like that for security reasons !).
What you can do is :
- adding alias with .bit domains, for example : khal@dot-bit.bit or khal@tor.bit
- adding alias with a namecoin mark : khal25@namecoin, manu44@namecoin, khal25@alia
- adding alias without domains : khal25, manu44

* Make it independent of any coin (except Namecoin, obviously). Leave it up to the user to decide which coins to use and provide a secure data structure that any coin (existing or yet to be invented) can query to associate an e-mail address with a wallet address. While this feature isn't implemented by other coins it should still be possible to query Namecoin manually to list all the addresses for gavin@acm.org so that the right one can be copied and pasted into the client.

This is the case. One registration allows you to associate any kind of data (bitcoin address, namecoin, msn/jabber/xmpp email, nickname, gpg key, website, etc) with a unique "word". See it as an identity manager.

* Allow the aliases to be modified quickly in case somebody loses his wallet or changes his e-mail address. Also make sure that people get notified early on when it is necessary to renew their alias to keep it in the blockchain.

Namecoin works like bitcoin. If you loose your wallet, you loose your keys, you loose you alias (but you have the time to give another one to people you know before it expires. Somebody can still query you and send you bitcoin for example).
What you can do is send the private key/wallet somewhere : on you mail address for example :p

Is this possible?

Not the way you imagine it, but yes, it is possible :p

I know it would be convenient to use existing emails addresses but it is only possible if 1 person control the system. Are you sure you really want 1 person controlling 10'000 bitcoin addresses ?

[Bitinvestor]

If you want a feature to add existing email addresses and to ckeck if someone really owns it, you insert control and you want someone else to control a registered alias. This is not possible in namecoin because there is no central control (and it must be like that for security reasons !).

I see. No problem, it simply means that we have to make sure that we use the correct alias, just like we do with phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

What you can do is :
- adding alias with .bit domains, for example : khal@dot-bit.bit or khal@tor.bit
- adding alias with a namecoin mark : khal25@namecoin, manu44@namecoin, khal25@alia
- adding alias without domains : khal25, manu44

How about #Khal#, #Gavin.Andresen#, or #Bitinvestor# as pattern for the aliases? It would be easily recognized as a payment address and it can't be confused with an e-mail address.

* Make it independent of any coin (except Namecoin, obviously). Leave it up to the user to decide which coins to use and provide a secure data structure that any coin (existing or yet to be invented) can query to associate an e-mail address with a wallet address. While this feature isn't implemented by other coins it should still be possible to query Namecoin manually to list all the addresses for gavin@acm.org so that the right one can be copied and pasted into the client.

This is the case.

Excellent! So what else do we need to make this work?

[khal]

How about #Khal#, #Gavin.Andresen#, or #Bitinvestor# as pattern for the aliases? It would be easily recognized as a payment address and it can't be confused with an e-mail address.

This looks like a bit like hash tags. So, why not @Khal ?
Anyway, bitcoin can use the syntax it wants, namecoin will store data in it's own format (example: alias/Khal instead of #Khal)

* Make it independent of any coin (except Namecoin, obviously). Leave it up to the user to decide which coins to use and provide a secure data structure that any coin (existing or yet to be invented) can query to associate an e-mail address with a wallet address. While this feature isn't implemented by other coins it should still be possible to query Namecoin manually to list all the addresses for gavin@acm.org so that the right one can be copied and pasted into the client.

This is the case.

Excellent! So what else do we need to make this work?

1. Add the Namecoin proposal to the existing BIP 15
2. Choose Namecoin as the solution among others
3. Finalize and validate the Alias specification
4. Explain how to create an alias

[Bitinvestor]

How about #Khal#, #Gavin.Andresen#, or #Bitinvestor# as pattern for the aliases? It would be easily recognized as a payment address and it can't be confused with an e-mail address.

This looks like a bit like hash tags. So, why not @Khal ?

Because it looks a bit like an e-mail address. I didn't know about hash tags (http://hashtags.org/). How about $Khal$, or $Khal? I hope all keyboards around the world have a $ symbol.

Excellent! So what else do we need to make this work?

1. Add the Namecoin proposal to the existing BIP 15
2. Choose Namecoin as the solution among others
3. Finalize and validate the Alias specification
4. Explain how to create an alias

No, no, that comes later. I mean what needs to be done to get it working in Namecoin, now? There is nothing stopping us from starting to use it now. It should be much easier to get one or more of the other altcoins to adopt it (if it works).Then the Bitcoin developers can test it and if they like it they can add it to Bitcoin. I don't want to wait a few years until somebody manages to take it through the BIP process.

1. Decide which pattern to use for the alias
2. Write a sendtoalias() function
3. Create an alias
4. Test it
5. If it works, tell others how to use it
6. If it doesn't work, make it work

[khal]

1. Decide which pattern to use for the alias
2. Write a sendtoalias() function
3. Create an alias
4. Test it
5. If it works, tell others how to use it
6. If it doesn't work, make it work

1. No special pattern used in namecoin itself, use the alias directly

2. Code is available here (new rpc command sendtoalias) :
https://github.com/khalahan/namecoin

3. The existing alias is "khal" (stored in namecoin as "id/khal") and contains that data :

{
 "email" : "khal@dot-bit.org",
 "bitcoin" : "1KHAL8bUjnkMRMg9yd2dNrYnJgZGH8Nj6T",
 "namecoin" : "N1KHAL5C1CRzy58NdJwp1tbLze3XrkFxx9"
}

4. Use the command below to send me 2NMC :

Code:

namecoind sendtoalias khal 2

The coins will be sent to my namecoin address N1KHAL5C1CRzy58NdJwp1tbLze3XrkFxx9.

5. Copy/paste the sendtoalias function in other softwares and add a part to do a name_show query to namecoin (namecoin has a direct database access so it doesn't need it).

6. Beta phase is here to tell us
Things may change a bit if needed, so consider this a beta phase.

[Bitinvestor]

This is fantastic news! I'm busy today but I will try it out tomorrow. Thanks!

[khal]

Here is a binary for linux 64 bits if people want to test quickly :
http://dot-bit.org/files/temp/namecoind-sendtoalias