troquerre

The main goal of the Handshake airdrop was to get developers interested in using Handshake, but one of the sub-goals was to help incentivize good security practices. The airdrop process involves running a script on your private key[1], so you should naturally rotate your key after claiming your coins.

[1] https://namebase.io/airdrop

You're correct. Unfortunately due to regulatory restrictions in the US, we're required to verify accounts before enabling withdrawals and selling HNS for BTC (we're not happy about it either). We work with Cognito and Jumio, which are the vendors that Coinbase, Brex, Airbnb, and many other companies use — so if you've used any of those products you've already used Cognito and Jumio before.

Yeah that's how the airdrop tool works and the instructions use that tool too (the first step in the instructions just shows how to install the tool).

It’s not an ethereum airdrop which goes to an address you already own. You don’t have the coins until you deliberately claim them, so it’s opt-in.

Note this airdrop was implemented on the Handshake blockchain and just went live today. If you had over 15 followers on GitHub in Aug 2018 you were included and get 4662 HNS (worth $2000+ at current market price). If you’re eligible, we created these instructions on how to claim here https://namebase.io/airdrop.

Well either way, we’re passed block 2016 now so you can claim! Were you able to try it out?

Sorry I should've made this more clear. Txs aren't enabled until block 2016 (in less than 6 hours). The claiming process will only work after then. If you try again after block 2016 it should work! It's currently on block 1970 https://hnsxplorer.com/

This faq answers some basic questions https://namebase.io/faq along with this tutorial https://www.namebase.io/blog/tutorial-1-what-is-handshake-an...

Yep! Once transfers are enabled in ~6 hours (https://hnsxplorer.com/) you'll be able to claim, but not before then. This tool can help you claim your coins easily https://namebase.io/airdrop (currently worth ~$2000 at market price but imo it's better to actually play around with them and hold rather than sell everything immediately).

In addition, the $10.2mm that was raised was all donated to non-profits and open-source projects. I.e. fsf https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-receives-1...

It doesn't update with SSH keys because the tree is static, but it was updated within a few months ago, so if you claim now (in 1-2 days when claiming is enabled on the mainnet) it should work with your existing keys.

PSA if you had over 15 followers on GitHub by August 2018 you were likely included in the Handshake airdrop. Basically they developed a way to give each dev in the airdrop 4662 coins each (worth a lot since current market price is $0.50[1]). These instructions walk through what the claiming process is like, which can only be done after block 2016 in a day or so https://namebase.io/airdrop.

[1] https://namebase.io

There's an airdrop that gives developers on github claims. Basically if you had over 15 followers on GitHub by August 2018 you likely got 4662 coins (worth a lot since current market price is $0.50[1]). These instructions walk through how to claim the airdrop https://namebase.io/airdrop. This way you can easily register names to try Handshake out even if you already have websites in traditional DNS.

[1] https://namebase.io

If you're trying to claim the airdrop, we created this resource to make it easy https://namebase.io/airdrop. It walks you through using https://github.com/handshake-org/hs-airdrop under the hood but it generates a wallet address for you automatically.

Any name up to 63 characters (normal domain name characters, unicode gets converted to punycode) can be registered. The difference with Handshake is that users get to choose how they store their names. There's a spectrum of convenience and self-sovereignty. In traditional DNS the existing system makes that choice for you, whereas Handshake is creating a system where individuals get to choose based on their preferences. I place a lot of value on that freedom to choose.

The auctions are semi-blind. You bid, and can optionally add a blind to your bid. The network sees your combined total bid + blind, but won't know your true bid value until the reveal period. So if you want to guarantee you win an auction, just make sure your bid is greater than the highest existing total.

Exactly. We built a registrar for Handshake (https://namebase.io) and our service will automatically handle renewal transactions. That said, anyone can still manage their keys and submit renewal transactions on their own if they want to do that, similar to how you can use Coinbase vs a desktop wallet for Bitcoin.

You are correct in that Handshake is trying to decentralize DNS more so than solve the scarcity nature of naming. That said, Handshake will increase the supply of TLDs by multiple orders of magnitude so the names do become less scarce overall.

All the existing TLDs like .com and .net are blacklisted so that only the TLD owners can register them. The claiming process for blacklisted TLDs uses DNSSEC so there are no third parties involved in the process. In addition, the top 100k Alexa domains are pre-registered so that only the domain owners can register those domains as TLDs (only google.com can register .google). That is done through DNSSEC as well.

Handshake didn't do an ICO. They raised $10.2m from institutional investors like A16Z, Sequoia, Greylock, and Founders Fund, and then donated all the money they raised to non-profits and open-source projects. Here's a notice from the free software foundation when they received $1m from Handshake https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-receives-1...

Shameless plug - if anyone wants to try using Handshake, we built a registrar for Handshake domains and an exchange for Handshake coins (HNS) at https://namebase.io. We just launched last week but there's already been a lot of usage so it'll be interesting to see what people do with their Handshake domains when they become available.

One of the issues with Namecoin is the issuance. You can register any name for a set price. This leads to easy squatting behavior and allows whales to buy up all the good names. Handshake built in mechanisms to improve the issuance of names (detailed in danShumway's comment) which is critical when you're working with the issuance of scarce, non-fungible assets. It's like drawing a comparison to bitcoin and bit gold. Both had the same idea, but the specifics matter.

- Names are released over the course of 52 weeks. Determined by hash(name) % 52. So at worst the name you want to register will not be available until ~51 weeks from now (Handshake launched last week!). - Names have to be renewed bi-annually. You don't need to pay a fee, you just need to submit a transaction to prove you still have access to the private key. I don't think this will be any different than the existing DNS in terms of link rot. - I think the main thing names being released over time does is it allows for more people to find out about Handshake and start competing for the good names before they're gone. In an ideal world, everyone would know about Handshake at the same time, and so any name that is registered has the maximum competition for it. That world is not feasible but we can get closer to it by releasing names over time. - I've only heard Zooko's triangle described in the first way, which matches the wikipedia article on it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko%27s_triangle

Disclaimer: I'm the ceo of Namebase.io, we built a registrar for Handshake domains and exchange for Handshake coins (HNS), so I'm pretty bullish on Handshake.

There are well-funded projects working on creating a better alternative to ICANN, namely https://handshake.org which is creating a distributed alternative root zone. The main benefit is security (the root of trust is a distributed ledger instead of Certificate Authorities which are a huge security hole), but there are additional benefits in that anyone can register their own TLD privately without risk of that TLD being seized or censored.

IPFS is more of a storage layer. Pairing it with a decentralized naming layer like https://handshake.org (just launched a week ago) would make for a powerful combination.

Agree DNS has won today but I don’t think the current infrastructure will be what the world is using 10 years from now. ie We're trying to improve the security of the Internet by replacing Certificate Authorities with a distributed root of trust. DNS is currently centralized and controlled by a few organizations at the top of the hierarchy (namely ICANN) and easily censored by governments. Trust in HTTPS is delegated by CAs, but security follows a one of many model, where only one CA out of thousands needs to be compromised in order for your traffic to be compromised. We're building on top of a new protocol (https://handshake.org, just launched 4 days ago!!) to create an alternate root zone that's distributed. Developers can register their own TLDs and truly own them by controlling their private keys. In addition, they can pin TLSA certs to their TLD so that CAs aren't needed anymore. I wrote a more in-depth blog post here: https://www.namebase.io/blog/meet-handshake-decentralizing-d...

I like namecheap.com — it's straightforward and more user-friendly than godaddy.

@chinmays awesome can you join our discord? Let's discuss there we just launched today!! https://discord.gg/9r9wUrq

Supporting all of Apple's functionality was one of the reasons for not supporting Flash that Steve shared in his post, but I think you're right that Adobe not being able to get Flash working on iPhone was the main reason. Thanks for the correction!

The power of websites is that they run cross-platform. If your website works on chrome on windows it’ll work (for the most part) on Firefox on Mac and safari on iOS. Apple is against this philosophically because it doesn’t take advantage of the unique capabilities their devices provide. It’s the same reason why Apple stopped supporting flash https://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/