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Comment by jpzk | Hacker News Reader

Check https://handshake.org/ it has the potential to overthrow DNS and CA while also providing real ownership to names.

The real problem here is "overthrow" vs "work with"

That was handshakes biggest mistake

The handshake team itself has never used language like "overthrow", and have carefully designed the system to work with DNS, not necessarily replace it. From their FAQ:

> Does Handshake replace DNS?

No. Handshake is meant to replace the root zone file, not DNS. Browsing the web with human readable names is what Internet users have gotten acclimated to. Our solution allows for a seamless transition between a centralized name root zone file controlled by private parties to a decentralized root zone file controlled by actual Internet users. The Handshake blockchain itself is essentially one big distributed zone file in which anyone has the right to add an entry in.

https://handshake.org/faq/

They have in fact used phrases like "overthrow" and "collision course"

You have to look at their behavior and communications over time and beyond their website

Some of the community wants to aggressively replace ICANN, that is the context, not changing how DNS works.

https://github.com/handshake-org/hs-names/issues/6#issuecomm...

This is the flaw, being an uncooperative community member in the DNS ecosystem

The word "overthrow" is not used anywhere in that thread.

"Collision" is used 26 times, mainly referring to name collisions between different root zone domains or to the ICANN NCAP project (Name Collision Analysis Project).

"Collision Course" is used only once, by a contributor who was not part of the original Handshake team but joined and became a major contributor later.

Hardly representative of the entire community, and definitely not of the founding team.

the context for that comment is that handshake took a snapshot of the icann namespace. so any names icann adds or changes after the fact will conflict with the HNS namespace.

The comment is the start of a longer thread that is one data point in understanding how HNS would rather be adversarial than cooperative, from my perspective and others. Much of the crypto public speak is about replacing rather than enhancing existing systems. There is no join, only beat. They would likely become the very thing they desire to replace. It's human nature

There are factions within crypto, some think the "end of history" looks like crypto replacing centralized systems. others (like myself) think those systems are complements and simply alternatives in the marketplace.

As to being adversarial... ICANN was allocated 1.2% of the total HNS supply, and all existing TLD owners (at the time of the snapshot) can claim their TLDs on chain. The icann allocation is 5.8% of the current circulating supply.

i suppose there could have been a way to give ICANN a blank check to modify the handshake namespace in perpetuity, but i suspect that might either be technically unworkable or just made the whole venture pointless.

It sounds great. Do you use it? Curious to learn about people's experiences with it and things like it. Centralized control over DNS is flawed, and I would like to see more solutions to this problem deployed and in use. Unfortunately, many HNers will immediately scoff at the mere mention of blockchain.

I scoff at the plethora of pointless blockchains shoehorned into a problems where neither centralization nor trust are essential complexity of the problem domain. Most new blockchain tech claims that they'll solve centralization and trust (in a domain that doesn't have those problems) -- as long as you centralize on their platform and trust them. Most blockchain is a whitewash for new-age centralization.

But DNS does have those problems inherent in the domain. It's one of the very few use-cases for blockchain that actually makes a modicum of sense.

It was actually one of the legit uses of blockchain. It actually replaces ICANN, not DNS. There are registrars that have built on top of HNS, but serving DNS requests still uses the same tools and tech.

A couple of problems with it is that the do not prevent existing domains from transacting (unless you are in the top 100k) and the real big problem is the same guy who ruined Freenode, essentially controls handshake.

Unless a blockchain based DNS is involved with a blockchain currency, I see nothing to stop the mad grab of all memorable, pronounceable, or legible names less than 40 characters long almost immediately.

If I was so inclined to participate, I'd just grab a ton of blockchain DNS names, back them up, and hope I can sell one someday.

From a NamePros thread [1]:

> artdao.eth bought for 59Ξ ($191711.65)

> tara.eth bought for 6Ξ ($21797.16)

> keira.eth bought for 15.0Ξ ($51192.90)

> protein.eth bought for 10.0Ξ ($32484.00)

> esports.eth bought for 2.76Ξ ($10699.55)

> fidenza.eth bought for 30.0Ξ ($107111.40)

> artblockscurated.eth bought for 7.0Ξ ($24992.66)

There are tons of similar sales apparently. Some of it just doesn't make sense. $200k for artdao.eth? Really? The last two are apparently NFT related things. The only one in there I can maybe understand is esports.eth since $10k for an esports company to have a premium wallet address makes sense to speculate on given that market.

However, they have domain validated integration of existing (ICANN) domains now, so I don't see much value in the .eth stuff. There's some value in avoiding confusion. Saying "send money to esports.eth" is less ambiguous than "send money to esports.com" because the latter could be confused with normal eTransfers. Beyond that though, what makes a .eth domain worth $10k+?

1. https://www.namepros.com/threads/ens-ethereum-domain-service...

yup, there was a lot of that on HNS and ENS

I use it, and own a small portfolio of names on chain. "base" and "faq" are a couple of them. It's been pretty interesting to watch the ecosystem mature.

Just recently a small dev team released a desktop app that syncs name data to your local device and lets you browse sites with lookups to the handshake root before falling back to icann root https://impervious.com/fingertip.html

So name squatting will still be a thing? Any solutions for that?

the way handshake addresses this problem is putting a cap on the total number of names that can be registered, and then users compete on fees in order to get their transaction mined to renew the name

Can't I make a few million accounts (or "wallets") programmatically, since it's a blockchain?

total number of names "total", not total number per wallet

So there is an ongoing cost to owning a name and the cost increases as the global number of names registered/owned increases?

yeah. right now it's ~$0 since there's no fee competition, but as soon as the total names registered gets close to the limit (66 million) then the cost of renewall will go up and it will be costly to squat. there are 1.85 million names registered currently.

I've looked at HNS and ENS a bit. I want a domain on both, but haven't bought any. The biggest problem is having to deal in crypto currency.

In Canada buying and selling crypto currency is similar to dealing with stocks. You need to track it like an asset and both sales and transfers create taxable events.

Imagine you want to buy a 2x4 at Home Depot. In the crypto equivalent world, you'd have to provide KYC / AML information to an exchange that supports Home Depot to get an account, buy Home Depot stock, use the stock to buy lumber, sell your excess stock, and claim any relevant losses / gains on your taxes. It's a hilariously bad user experience.

Then on the ENS side the fees are insane. To buy a "$5" .eth domain right now shows me .001 ETH (they try to keep it around $5 USD) for the domain plus .083 (~$285) ETH for gas fees for ~$290 total.

I went as far as signing up to an exchange to get a .eth domain and that exchange charges .008 ETH to transfer my money off the exchange which is another $30. So all in, right now it would cost me (up to) $320 USD to buy a "$5" .eth domain.

Paying $315 in fees to buy a $5 good doesn't seem like the free market efficiency the crypto crowd is selling. To me it feels like a bit of a grift where whoever's getting those fees is taking a ton of money out of the system.

Then if you jump over to the HNS side, the exchange I signed up with doesn't support HNS, so I would need to provide them (HNS) KYC levels of identity verification too and I'm not willing to do that because they're not listed in FINTRAC (Canada's AML regulator). I think Coinbase would be ok, but what a hassle!

This is a fantastic solution, the only issue it's relatively unheard of.

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