[Bitcoin-development] [BIP 15] Aliases

[Stefan Thomas]

>> Would it be too strange to use namecoin?
> This has the same problem as FirstBits, except .bit domains are dirt cheap,
> whereas vanitygen at least slows down grabbing all the common words...

Grabbing is no more an issue than mining Bitcoins is an issue. Sure, 
domain grabbers will have the domains first, but they want to profit and 
therefore are willing to sell them for whatever price they can get. Just 
like the trading of any other limited resource, this process sounds like 
somebody is getting rich for nothing, but it does tend to put the 
limited resources to good use as people who waste good domains can't 
afford them in the long run. The problem with Firstbits is that the 
names already grabbed have fixed private keys that are known by their 
originators. That makes the names untradable. This may be fixable with 
split keys, but a lot of "good" 1firstbits are already made useless in 
this way.

Names in Namecoin can be transferred/traded securely, strong 
cryptography is built in and it shares mining without bloating the 
Bitcoin block chain. I see it as a decentralized DNS alternative at a 
time when domain seizures are on the rise, even absent any court order.

So I would use one of the DNS-based solutions that Amir suggested and 
simply require standard-compliant clients to be able to look up .bit 
(i.e. Namecoin) domains as well. That way we have a pragmatic solution, 
but one that also provides security and true decentralization for the 
more paranoid of our users.


On 12/13/2011 12:41 AM, Luke-Jr wrote:
> On Monday, December 12, 2011 6:37:56 PM Jorge Timón wrote:
>> Would it be too strange to use namecoin?
> This has the same problem as FirstBits, except .bit domains are dirt cheap,
> whereas vanitygen at least slows down grabbing all the common words...
>
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