We could be selling .com's and .orgs on a superior decentralised system

[fuzzy]

That's a great test arhag. At the end of the day it can't be a pain in the ass for users. Look how long and transparently ipv6 has/is taking.
The _ has merit imho.

 

If the '_' is the only one that's really possible. I think it's fine. 'Apple_'  certainly has a lot of value because the'_' is so discreet. I personally think if added, the 100 top brands and perhaps 10-50 crypto brands in the form brand_ and brand_com together will earn more money than everything else combined.

Having said that Toast is clear he'd prefer 'BDNS' & to focus on .p2p's as is for the next few months, which is definitely a .bit killer.

Edit: Trying out a poll now https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=734486.0

Really good discussion.  Google+, Apple+ or Google!, Apple! is also a great concept.  Makes it even easier for users because most are confused by .com, .net, .gov....etc anyway.  Getting rid of the TLD actually seems like a potentially great idea. 

[bdnoble]

I've gotta say guys I really like the '_' idea. Are there any other symbols that would work well? Like | > $ & % ?

[Empirical1]

That's a great test arhag. At the end of the day it can't be a pain in the ass for users. Look how long and transparently ipv6 has/is taking.
The _ has merit imho.

 

If the '_' is the only one that's really possible. I think it's fine. 'Apple_'  certainly has a lot of value because the'_' is so discreet. I personally think if added, the 100 top brands and perhaps 10-50 crypto brands in the form brand_ and brand_com together will earn more money than everything else combined.

Having said that Toast is clear he'd prefer 'BDNS' & to focus on .p2p's as is for the next few months, which is definitely a .bit killer.

Edit: Trying out a poll now https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=734486.0

[xeroc]

I want to suggest a caret (^) that would pronounce as "up" . It denotes upward trend.  Sample below :

google^ -google up
facebook^ -facebook up
bitshares^ bitshares up

In france ^ is a socalled dead-key because they ise it as an accent .. thus they need to typ ^ + [space] to get an emty ^

Big drawback

[arhag]

A few additional thoughts on the underscore proposal (it is starting to grow on me):

• It allows us to choose very convenient TLDs (or really they are more like meta-TLDs, or I like to call them extensions) since they do not conflict with any ICANN TLDs. So perhaps we like _p2p but maybe _o would be better (to designate ownership) and maybe we could use _l to designate the leasing model.
• We could pronounce a domain like "domain-name_o" as "domain dash name under O". The "under" would have two meanings: it would be short for underscore; and, it would also mean the name is under the O namespace.
• People could choose to make any of the models they prefer not need the extension at all in their local web browser. For example, if a user really liked the leasing model they can make it so that typing "domain-name" alone would automatically redirect them to "domain-name_l". This could cause conflicts with ICANN names, but if it this is the user's opt-in choice, then it shouldn't matter.
• Finally, in the future, if there was a broad consensus that names under a particular namespace are preferred to be promoted to not need an extension, the internet would standardize around it. For example, if everyone decided the leasing namespace (_l) had the most useful names, they would want to just promote those names so they wouldn't want to type the extra _l. I am assuming at that point the old ICANN names are unused, so shadowing those old domains would not be a concern to users.

[Empirical1]

Thoughts:

* Calling it "the decentralized internet" mischaracterizes what .p2p actually does.. it's just a name->value mapping, not a full internet stack.

I know it doesn't change much,  but I've changed the opening line from 'the decentralised internet, is an entirely new internet system based on a decentralised blockchain..' To 'The Decentralised Internet, is an entirely new decentralised front end to the internet system that is based on a blockchain, ' but I think to most users, that if you're based on a decentralised blockchain giving them and web address owners the advantages they associate with decentralisation & a similar TLD system then it's 'the decentralised Internet' to them, but I don't know.

* I'd like to make it compatible with existing internet infrastructure so that the only place we have to touch is resolvers on existing DNS servers. This means the "+" might not work, I'll have to look at it.

Let's focus on .p2p as is for the next month or two.

Cool, I don't know if any of these things are technically possible at all.

[Riverhead]

That's a great test arhag. At the end of the day it can't be a pain in the ass for users. Look how long and transparently ipv6 has/is taking.
The _ has merit imho.

[arhag]

* I'd like to make it compatible with existing internet infrastructure so that the only place we have to touch is resolvers on existing DNS servers. This means the "+" might not work, I'll have to look at it.

I agree. I think whatever we do, it's incredibly important that we do not break the entire current internet infrastructure. I just did some quick testing by modifying /etc/hosts on my system. Both ! and + do not work well with Chrome and Firefox. Both browsers do not bother trying to lookup a DNS if I do "test!tld". Surprisingly, Firefox does do the lookup with "test+tld" but Chrome does not. Also if I try to ping the domains in a terminal, "test+tld" does work, but "test!tld" has some problems because you need to escape the ! (so "test\!tld" works). For this reason I am really against using the ! or + as a separator in domain names. Also, @ is even more problematic than ! or +. What I did find that works however is the underscore. The domain "test_tld" does resolve in Firefox and the terminal. Unfortunately in order to make Chrome resolve it rather than just search for the query "test_tld" you are forced to put a forward slash after it ("test_tld/"). But that's okay since it would normally be there in typical URLs (e.g. "http://test_tld/blah/blah?foo=bar"). Not adding the tld at the end also works, meaning "test_/" resolves everywhere.

I don't particularly like this approach. All of these approaches seem to me like a big hack to get around ICANN conflicts. But if we must do it, I would be okay with _ being used as the separator. It is already not allowed in the list of KeyID names which is a big plus. This means we could have various different _tld extensions for each sale model we come up with:

• domain_p2p -> Website pointed to by the name "domain" in guaranteed-ownership model
• domain_web -> Website pointed to by the name "domain" in the carrying-cost model
• first-last_key -> Website pointed to by the KeyID "first-last"

Also, all current and future ICANN domains/TLDs would work without conflict (unless ICANN decides they want to allow _ in their TLDs).

[toast]

Thoughts:

* Calling it "the decentralized internet" mischaracterizes what .p2p actually does.. it's just a name->value mapping, not a full internet stack.
* I'd like to make it compatible with existing internet infrastructure so that the only place we have to touch is resolvers on existing DNS servers. This means the "+" might not work, I'll have to look at it.

Let's focus on .p2p as is for the next month or two.

[Bitshark]

+ .. In addition to, more, greater, new. 

[Empirical1]

I like plus. 

Apple mark.
Apple ex
Apple plus. 

Apple+ looks like google +    The only downside is whether or not it is friendly to type on a phone.   


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

+ Does seem to be the main consensus. Someone I asked also chose +. I've amended it in my description of 'the decentralised Internet' https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=6778.msg90432#msg90432

[Bitshark]

Google+
Apple+
Yahoo+

I like

[bytemaster]

I like plus. 

Apple mark.
Apple ex
Apple plus. 

Apple+ looks like google +    The only downside is whether or not it is friendly to type on a phone.   


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[jwiz168]

I want to suggest a caret (^) that would pronounce as "up" . It denotes upward trend.  Sample below :

google^ -google up
facebook^ -facebook up
bitshares^ bitshares up

[xeroc]

Maybe + or * is a better candidate than ! since + and * already have short words ("plus" or "star"), and visually delimit words.

* could be a possibility. Star is certainly a good short word and has a lot of positive connotations.

both are used in regular expressions .. see wildcard SSL domains *.google.com
however I am fine with "+"
+google

woops
google+ is already taken for a brand .. that might be good for google

then suddenldy we get

facebook+
youtube+
web+

you all know what that implicitly means

*raising hand for "+" at the end"!!
5%+

[Empirical1]

Maybe + or * is a better candidate than ! since + and * already have short words ("plus" or "star"), and visually delimit words.

* could be a possibility. Star is certainly a good short word and has a lot of positive connotations. 

Edit: Personally I prefer ! a lot in terms of looks. Can't beat 'Apple!' or 'Apple!com', just need a shorter word for it.

[theoretical]

RFC 3986 specifies reserved delimiters:

Code: [Select]

      gen-delims  = ":" / "/" / "?" / "#" / "[" / "]" / "@"

      sub-delims  = "!" / "$" / "&" / "'" / "(" / ")"
                  / "*" / "+" / "," / ";" / "="

I guess the idea is to include a reserved delimiter from this list, to have our domain names that deliberately violate RFC 3986 (and hence, will hopefully never exist in legacy DNS).

We need to select a character not used by popular applications.  Off the top of my head:

Code: [Select]

: is used by git, scp, and in proto:// syntax
/ is used in HTTP to indicate paths
? is used in HTTP to indicate query string
# is used to indicate an anchor in web browsers
@ is used by ssh and email

So here are the remaining possible delimiters:

Code: [Select]

[]!$&'()*+,;=

We probably want to stay away from things that might make quoting problematic, and grouping symbols probably won't look right.  Which leaves:

Code: [Select]

!$&*+

Maybe + or * is a better candidate than ! since + and * already have short words ("plus" or "star"), and visually delimit words.

[theoretical]

How about inventing or re-purposing a new one-syllable word for the ! used in this context?  Here are some ideas I had:

- Swoosh
- Swish
- Nim
- Bit
- Rex
- Zen

[Empirical1]

Ok this is my new ammended idea/concept for marketing this.  Obviously I know we're not really doing any of this, but I like thinking of ideas outside the box, following them through and sharing them, despite knowing very little about how this all works, so apologies for any inaccuracies or if I've misunderstood something basic, and for any distracting from the actual project,  but you never know maybe there's something useful in here.

(I don't know if the green tick idea is do-able or necessary but I know some were worried about copycatting & I got the idea from this post that it might be possible  https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=6778.msg90244#msg90244)

___________________________________________


TDI: The Decentralised Internet by BitShares


The Decentralised Internet, is an entirely new decentralised front end to the internet system that is based on a blockchain, much like Bitcoin.

Where the traditional centralised internet uses .TLD's such as .com & .org , The Decentralised Internet, uses _TLD's such as _com and _p2p and you could even have just a '_', as in apple_ or hotels_ as your web address.
Where the traditional centralised internet is accessed via programs like 'Google Chrome' and 'Internet Explorer', the decentralised internet is accessed via programs like 'BitShares Toast'. ('BitShares Toast' still gives you access to the centralised .TLD sites too, so the best of both worlds really.)

Why use The Decentralised Internet?

On the traditional centralised internet, because of the need to trust a central certificate authority, you can often be the victim of 'man in the middle' attacks and as whistleblowers like Edward Snowden have revealed, your internet actions are often spied on and recorded by 'Big Brother' and others against your will. However the decentralised internet is completely private and secure.

On the traditional centralised internet, sites can also be seized and blocked. However on the decentralised internet, sites can't be blocked or seized. The Turkish government for example, recently blocked, 'Twitter.com', but there would have been nothing they could have done about 'Twitter_com'.
 
How do I get a  _com or a _org?

They are sold via *incentivised auctions, which are started whenever somebody offers the minimum opening bid. (which decreases every month.)

* The next bidder is required to bid at least 10% more than you, and if somebody does bid higher than you, you get half the difference between their bid and yours.

Can anyone bid on and end up buying something like Nike_ or Apple_com?

Yes absolutely! And if you become the owner of apple_com, you can put whatever you like on the site & or sell it later. However only people who can also verify to the blockchain system that they are also the owner of the .com on the centralised internet by the same name will get a green tick next to their site. (To avoid copycatting)

Could these be worth a lot more in the future?

That's for you to decide, but quite frankly we believe the traditional centralised internet is obsolete. What kind of a company wants a site and an online brand that could be blocked or seized at any moment?  Who wants their information spied on all the time? In fact a recent poll showed that over 70% of citizens in many countries felt the current level of spying was 'unacceptable'.

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2014/07/US%20spying.jpg

Besides spying, there's also been significant increases in moves towards internet censorship in many countries all over the world. So it's quite possible that in the near future many people will have switched to using the decentralised internet and many famous businesses may wish to put their brands on it too. Youtube.com obviously wouldn't want to have to call themselves Youtub_com on the internet system of the future would they? So who knows how much a site like Youtube_ or Youtube_com could be worth in a year or two...

Could somebody offer a competing decentralised front end internet system other than TDI that everybody ends up adopting?

Yes, It's possible. But only BitShares has the underlying technology and wide support necessary to launch something like this at the moment. BitShares is also the only group to have delivered a working DAC so far, BitShares X. So a combination of wide support, superior technology and first mover advantage means TDI by BitShares has a very good chance of becoming the decentralised internet system of the future. 

 

[Empirical1]

Why don't we just remove the TLD and use the "!" namespace.

Apple!
Google!

 , I think we could sell other TLD's too, but that would be brilliant!   

[xeroc]

Why don't we just remove the TLD and use the "!" namespace.

Apple!
Google!

[bytemaster]

Why don't we just remove the TLD and use the "!" namespace.

Apple!
Google!

[Empirical1]

Wait I've figured it out ... 

The centralised Internet controls .com .org .net , & if we start .p2p,  there's a risk they use .p2p too. But it's not a problem because all they really control is a ' .  '

But you know what's much cooler than a  '.'? A '!' , and they don't control the '!'

So what about, instead of .TLD's, BitShares DNS takes control of  !TLD's?

BitShares!org, Apple!Com, Party!p2p

Now that is an interesting idea. Although one of the nice things about ".com" is that you can pronounce it "dot com". There's not an easy pronunciation of "!com". I've heard ! pronounced as "bang" but I think it would be a stretch to get people to say it that way.  How about "#com"? Could be pronounced "pound" or "hashtag".

Ampersand, perhaps? @ = "at", easy to pronounce

I agree with the pronunciation problem.
I just don't think you can beat the look of a ' ! ' It totally comes across as an improved dot. 
(I would also say @ is already associated with emails and # with things like twitter.)

 
Apple!com looks great! 

[amatoB]

Wait I've figured it out ... 

The centralised Internet controls .com .org .net , & if we start .p2p,  there's a risk they use .p2p too. But it's not a problem because all they really control is a ' .  '

But you know what's much cooler than a  '.'? A '!' , and they don't control the '!'

So what about, instead of .TLD's, BitShares DNS takes control of  !TLD's?

BitShares!org, Apple!Com, Party!p2p

Now that is an interesting idea. Although one of the nice things about ".com" is that you can pronounce it "dot com". There's not an easy pronunciation of "!com". I've heard ! pronounced as "bang" but I think it would be a stretch to get people to say it that way.  How about "#com"? Could be pronounced "pound" or "hashtag".

Ampersand, perhaps? @ = "at", easy to pronounce

[bdnoble]

Wait I've figured it out ... 

The centralised Internet controls .com .org .net , & if we start .p2p,  there's a risk they use .p2p too. But it's not a problem because all they really control is a ' .  '

But you know what's much cooler than a  '.'? A '!' , and they don't control the '!'

So what about, instead of .TLD's, BitShares DNS takes control of  !TLD's?

BitShares!org, Apple!Com, Party!p2p

Now that is an interesting idea. Although one of the nice things about ".com" is that you can pronounce it "dot com". There's not an easy pronunciation of "!com". I've heard ! pronounced as "bang" but I think it would be a stretch to get people to say it that way.  How about "#com"? Could be pronounced "pound" or "hashtag".

[Empirical1]

Wait I've figured it out ... 

The centralised Internet controls .com .org .net , & if we start .p2p,  there's a risk they use .p2p too. But it's not a problem because all they really control is a ' .  '

But you know what's much cooler than a  '.'? A '!' , and they don't control the '!'

So what about, instead of .TLD's, BitShares DNS takes control of  !TLD's?

BitShares!org, Apple!Com, Party!p2p

[Empirical1]

Nobody will use an alternate DNS system if it breaks the *entire rest of the internet*.

Maybe it just seems that way because ICANN is a monopoly system that hasn't had a competitor yet.

What if... ICANN is just a forum.  Web addresses are just people's forum usernames. No-one has a monopoly on usernames.

What did you do when BTSX started?

- You tried to register 'Toast'. Why?
- Out of all the usernames in the world someone had already registered 'Toast' on the very first day.
- How many BTSX would you/others have bid for 'Toast' on BTSX if it was resellable? 
- Why have you/someone else not paid 0.1 BTSX for something like 'Toast1', 'Toast2' or 'Toast.p2p' on BTSX yet?

& while someone may incorrectly send money to Toast on BTSX or get scammed by them, it's very unlikely.
Your reputation is based somewhere else,  and your signature at that location, clearly says  BTSX:  nikolai

So you're saying websites will advertise "go to overstock.com on ICANN" vs "go to overstock.com on BDNS" ??
People don't even know what DNS is, they're not going to be switching their DNS resolver depending on which site they want to visit...

Yes in a sense. Instead of marketing as a 'DNS resolver' I would start

  'The Decentralised Internet'

Which would be empty except for new.com's & .p2p's  (but could still take you to legacy .coms)

At first Overstock.com wouldn't know about it or find value in owning a  'decentralised Internet' username just like it took them a while to offer their customers a 'decentralised money' payment option.

When they did decide to offer their customers the option, they would want to be listed under the same user name 'Overstock' or 'Overstock.com' or have it re-direct to the ICANN overstock.com.
If they didn't get it they would have to put an alternative on their homepage  BDNS: Alittlebitextrastock.com which is why Overstock.com on BitShares DNS is valuable.

I would expect the decentralised Internet to leverage off the existing brands in lots of ways

If someone had a version of Youtube with no adverts, no sorry this can't be played in your country, no sign in to see boobs. I'd expect them to either want to be the decentralised youtube & or youtube.com or re-direct traffic from there.

When I Toast  amazon or amazon.com if it didn't take me to the original I'd be expecting to be re-directed to a decentralised market place or at least be marketed one.

If people we're looking for a decentralised more private facebook which they are they'd Toast 'Facebook' or 'Facebook.com' and then I'd expect them to be re-ridirected to somewhere like Keyhotee. Even better if Keyhotee formatted itself in a way that was very familiar to Facebook users. 'Keyhotee - The decentralised Facebook' . You just get so much leverage marketing & communicating yourself off existing brands people know & understand, like the first thing you mentioned in your snapshot announcement '.bit killer'

I'd expect someone if not twitter themselves to own a some kind of twitter that couldn't be blocked at twitter.com and when turkey blocked twitter.com I'd think twitter.com would also buy domains like Turkey.com or turkey.gov and redirect them to twitter.com just to rub salt in the wound. I.e people would buy & redirect  .com domains as a protest. If you Toasted USA.gov you might get to some kind of protest site.

Occasionally you'd get scams but people would know .coms on the decentralised/blockchain  Internet' are different

Having said that it seems to people my .coms are TOO much like .coms from a technical, legal & association POV even though they'd only be on the decentralised Internet and be orange.

[mdw]

To me, BitShares DNS s acting like it invented a browser window with some new complicated TLD system, & added security features and you want to make adoption as seamless as possible (Like chrome vs. some other browser)  but there's no need, unlike crypto, the gateway between the two couldn't be simpler. So to me we're underselling ourselves by not making all .com's and .orgs newly available on a superior system. (At the moment it's like we're sharedropping our most valuable product onto an inferior ICANN.)

How is a DNS resolver supposed to figure out which system's IP address to use? Surely you don't expect the whole world to abandon the existing DNS.

BitShares DNS - 'We're the decentralised orange one'
 
Everyone associates the existing TLD's with a blue colour, when you share them, or when you google/Yahoo them. By making ours Yahoo.com and BitShares DNS being a separate opt in browser everyone will know yahoo.com is not necessarily yahoo.com but there's a lot of value in an exact brand name.

The color displayed for a link is a decision made by the client. Speaking of which, the client isn't always a browser. Would the (alt)dotcoms work for email? Text browsers?

[theoretical]

A move to decentralized allocation of .com would be most successful if managed via an "airdrop" to current .com holders, if there was wide industry support.   

"Airdrop to current .com holders" is a technical problem.  I think I have a solution.

For this, I'll refer to "domains," "legacy domains" or "legacy DNS" as the mainstream technology most internet users currently use,
and "cryptomains" as the domains of some DNS replacement cryptocoin technology that attempts to airdrop to legacy
DNS domain owners.

So the goal is to give all (or almost all) legacy domain holders an airdrop of the corresponding cryptomain.  You need two things:
(1) An "inherited set" consisting of some big set of legacy domains, so they can't be registered unless you prove you own the legacy domain.
(2) Some way for current domain holders to prove their ownership and ("claiming your inheritance.")

To seed the inherited set before the genesis block:

- Obtain a list of domain names.  Common crawl [1] seems to be not under NDA, although it's hosted by a proprietary vendor (AWS).
Will probably need prefunding (in USD) to pay for AWS nodes to walk the data and extract domain names.
- Common crawl data is ~100TB, but most of that is content.  Verisign official .com database appears to be about ~2 GB [2].  So the per-node storage requirements for an airdrop to all existing .com domains would be reasonable.
- The base list is called the "crawl set."  This covers domains everybody knows about.  So google, yahoo, facebook, reddit, etc. will surely be included.
  No humans make decisions about what does or doesn't make the cut, and nobody at those companies has to be convinced to do anything special.  Most organizations
  that people actually care about will be included.

After the genesis block, the inherited set can be grown as follows:

- Any registered TITAN account can submit, for free, up to ~8 domains every ~24 hours, which will considered by the network for inclusion.  This makes up the "ping set."
- ~20 randomly selected delegates will ping each domain in the ping-set over ~60-day period by doing a DNS lookup (in legacy DNS) and seeing if it resolves.  We check the signature on the ping,
  and check that the delegate was the one randomly selected by the random process.  But the DNS lookup itself is not audited, because we don't want to DDOS anybody!  We just take the delegate's
  word for whether the domain worked or not.
- If >50% of the pings agree that the domain appears to exist, the domain is moved from the ping set to the launch set.
- Pings are initiated by ordinary users to make sure domains aren't inadvertently excluded.
- We may have a browser extension or DNS proxy, to aid in gathering domain names.
- ~8 months after launch, new pings can no longer be submitted.
- ~10 months after launch, the last pings are resolved and the inherited set is now fixed for eternity.

If you register a cryptomain, the process goes like follows:

- If the cryptomain is not in the inherited set, great!  You got your shiny new cryptomain.
- If you register a cryptomain in the inherited set, the registration will be ineffective until you prove ownership of the legacy domain.
- If your previously registered cryptomain gets at least 5 pings, with >50% success rate, at any point in time, the cryptomain will be suspended until either unsuccessful ping(s) bring the rate
  below 50%, or you prove ownership of the legacy domain.

You can prove ownership of the legacy domain by entering (the hash of) your account's public key in a TXT record in legacy DNS, and using that public key to pay a fee to the network.  ~200
randomly selected delegates check that the TXT record exists and contains the correct key over a ~60 day period.  If at least 20 such checks have been performed with greater than 90% success,
then you have successfully proven ownership of the legacy domain.

So basically:

- Holders of domains that were crawlable at the Common Crawl used to initialize the genesis block will have their domain reserved in the inherited set.
- Holders of domains that got / became popular enough that at least one user submitted them during ~8 months post-genesis will have their domain reserved in the inherited set.
- If you register a new cryptomain during the first ~8 months, you need to control the corresponding legacy domain to ensure the cryptomain won't be suspended.

The owners of ".com" would not want to give up their control and influence for nothing so they would have to be allocated a large stake in the new system.  But getting a government to agree to this is like getting the voting dac adopted by governments.

The beauty of an airdrop is that neither the ICANN administrators, nor the domain holders, need to consent ahead of time.  They're simply given a stake in the system that they can claim at anytime.

[1] http://commoncrawl.org/

[2] http://www.leandomainsearch.com/blog/16-how-to-get-access-to-the-official-verisign--com-zone-file

[toast]

Nobody will use an alternate DNS system if it breaks the *entire rest of the internet*.

Maybe it just seems that way because ICANN is a monopoly system that hasn't had a competitor yet.

What if... ICANN is just a forum.  Web addresses are just people's forum usernames. No-one has a monopoly on usernames.

What did you do when BTSX started?

- You tried to register 'Toast'. Why?
- Out of all the usernames in the world someone had already registered 'Toast' on the very first day.
- How many BTSX would you/others have bid for 'Toast' on BTSX if it was resellable? 
- Why have you/someone else not paid 0.1 BTSX for something like 'Toast1', 'Toast2' or 'Toast.p2p' on BTSX yet?

& while someone may incorrectly send money to Toast on BTSX or get scammed by them, it's very unlikely.
Your reputation is based somewhere else,  and your signature at that location, clearly says  BTSX:  nikolai

So you're saying websites will advertise "go to overstock.com on ICANN" vs "go to overstock.com on BDNS" ??
People don't even know what DNS is, they're not going to be switching their DNS resolver depending on which site they want to visit...

[Empirical1]

Nobody will use an alternate DNS system if it breaks the *entire rest of the internet*.

Maybe it just seems that way because ICANN is a monopoly system that hasn't had a competitor yet.

What if... ICANN is just a forum.  Web addresses are just people's forum usernames. No-one has a monopoly on usernames.

What did you do when BTSX started?

- You tried to register 'Toast'. Why?
- Out of all the usernames in the world someone had already registered 'Toast' on the very first day.
- How many BTSX would you/others have bid for 'Toast' on BTSX if it was resellable? 
- Why have you/someone else not paid 0.1 BTSX for something like 'Toast1', 'Toast2' or 'Toast.p2p' on BTSX yet?

& while someone may incorrectly send money to Toast on BTSX or get scammed by them, it's very unlikely.
Your reputation is based somewhere else,  and your signature at that location, clearly says  BTSX:  nikolai

[bytemaster]

A move to decentralized allocation of .com would be most successful if managed via an "airdrop" to current .com holders, if there was wide industry support.   

The owners of ".com" would not want to give up their control and influence for nothing so they would have to be allocated a large stake in the new system.  But getting a government to agree to this is like getting the voting dac adopted by governments.

[toast]

No, we won't be selling ICANN domains on BDNS.

Ok, yeah I wouldn't expect you to change the system you're working on. This one is completely different & there's a market for .p2p like there is for a .bit the BitShares DNS is much better than Namecoin, so the current version will be a success for sure. 

But I guess a future version could try this, if this approach may appealed to someone else who might be thinking of starting a decentralised DNS system, but it's just an idea. Most of my ideas that I come up with are not generally doable anyway.

Nobody will use an alternate DNS system if it breaks the *entire rest of the internet*.

[Empirical1]

No, we won't be selling ICANN domains on BDNS.

Ok, yeah I wouldn't expect you to change the system you're working on. This one is completely different & there's a market for .p2p like there is for a .bit the BitShares DNS is much better than Namecoin, so the current version will be a success for sure. 

But I guess a future version could try this, if this approach may appealed to someone else who might be thinking of starting a decentralised DNS system, but it's just an idea. Most of my ideas that I come up with are not generally doable anyway. 

[toast]

No, we won't be selling ICANN domains on BDNS.

[Empirical1]

A bold move to be sure... but also one that is inviting scammers looking to setup a site that mirrors apple.com and collects CC cards.

Yes, this is the biggest one.

But to me, it's not that big an issue. Because everyone will be clear the decentralised BitShares DNS .com is not the same as a centralised ICANN .com unless it's endorsed by the latter.

If BitShares DNS is marketed as a completely separate DNS system where all the domains are newly available and may or may not be owned by the same owners of the centralised ICANN.com then the chance of me, who is terrible with computers handing over money to Amazon.com is about the same as me handing money to Amazon.blueberry. unless one of them is endorsed at the amazon.com site that I access via google chrome that I already trust.

I would maybe have a clear Buyer Beware sign though on the interface.

Buyer Beware: BitShares DNS is a decentralised completely separate DNS system to the one you are used to accessing via say google chrome or explorer. Amazon.com on BitShares DNS may not be owned by the same people who own Amazon.com on ICANN unless they are endorsed by them.

I would also make the top 10-100 000 BitShares DNS .com and other TLD domains very expensive at the start of the DAC.

So when users try to go to Amazon.com for the first year of the DAC they will just see a for sale sign with a minimum opening auction bid maybe even in the $  thousands.  (Declining every month)

This way users will become very familiar that these are different .com's and they are for sale to anybody

[bytemaster]

A bold move to be sure... but also one that is inviting scammers looking to setup a site that mirrors apple.com and collects CC cards. 

[Empirical1]

Just wanted to say I wouldn't pick orange - its difficult to see.

Yes I agree.

I don't know what colour though. Red means danger. Purple is what a link looks like when you've already visited it in current search engines. And green is what the URL looks like under the name when you do a normal search and the https: is usually green.

First, what is BDSN for god sake? – Google suggests I misspelled BDSM, and it does not look like you mean ‘Berkeley Digital Seismic Network’

Second – we will have an excellent platform to parallel sell quit claim deeds for prime real estate in New York, LA, Moscow, Tokyo and where ever it is profitable.  It might turn this side business is even more profitable who knows.

You're right, Oops I was meant to be writing BDNS, it's just I think I've seen Toast referring to it by that abbreviation. I'll ammend my stuff to BitShares DNS in the post above.

[tonyk]

First, what is BDSN for god sake? – Google suggests I misspelled BDSM, and it does not look like you mean ‘Berkeley Digital Seismic Network’

Second – we will have an excellent platform to parallel sell quit claim deeds for prime real estate in New York, LA, Moscow, Tokyo and where ever it is profitable.  It might turn this side business is even more profitable who knows.

[sumantso]

Just wanted to say I wouldn't pick orange - its difficult to see.

[Empirical1]

All existing browsers link to one ICANN system. So we're used to telling the difference between domains by their extension. But this is a whole new superior decentralised system. It's not a leap for people to understand that domains are only owned by their ICANN owners on the decentralised BitShares DNS if they're endorsed by them. 

People will know Apple.com on BDNS isn't Apple.com on ICANN unless it's endorsed the latter. Just like we know apple.net may not be apple.com

However having the same Rolls Royce domain name that's going to be hitting the crypto-currency user market right from the start is immediately valuable.

Apple.com might show people breaking their iphones when blockchain was blocked. That's a lot more damaging than doing something on Apple.p2p and generates a lot more interest from users. 

Then in forum replies you just write

'Hey have you seen this on Apple.com?, hysterical!"

(People will quickly learn oh Apple.com means it's the one on BitShares DNS & the link could even hot link to the BitShares DNS download & quick marketing page.)

In Ideal world, our browser would identify both systems so Apple or Apple.com would take you to Apple.com in BitShares DNS and a search for Apple or Apple.com (if it hadn't been auctioned yet) would return both -

Apple.com 
Currently available. Minimum opening bid $800.Next 25% Decrease 01/09.

Apple.com
Apple designs and creates iPod and iTunes, Mac laptop and desktop computers, the OS X operating system, and the revolutionary iPhone and iPad.

Once Apple has been sold a search may return -

Apple.com
Hey Apple,  you dumb idiots blocking Blockchain users. I've got your domain on the DNS system we're all moving to. 'How do you like them apples!?'   

Apple.com
Apple designs and creates iPod and iTunes, Mac laptop and desktop computers, the OS X operating system, and the revolutionary iPhone and iPad.

This is also a much simpler system, and more marketable.

BitShares DNS - A superior system with all the exisiting domains newly available! But a BitShares DNS .com domain can't be seized or blocked and your customers can use it with much more security and privacy than an ICANN one.

In this we'll be offering a system with all the same TLD's people are familiar with using and see as having value. The only caveat is that a domain on the superior BitShares DNS system might not be the same as one from the inferior ICANN DNS system unless it's endorsed by them but I think this is easy to understand.

[Empirical1]

To me, BitShares DNS s acting like it invented a browser window with some new complicated TLD system, & added security features and you want to make adoption as seamless as possible (Like chrome vs. some other browser)  but there's no need, unlike crypto, the gateway between the two couldn't be simpler. So to me we're underselling ourselves by not making all .com's and .orgs newly available on a superior system. (At the moment it's like we're sharedropping our most valuable product onto an inferior ICANN.)

A .com on BitShares DNS has so much value because, once you have that your online brand can never be seized where as in ICANN they can take your online brand name away from you at any time. That is valuable, don't give it away for free!  The real $ are in selling .com & .org domains - the Rolls Royce TLD of value, status and recognition.

BitShares.org on ICANN may be blocked/seized at some point in the future. Wouldn't BitShares.org want to secure it's brand on BitShares DNS where it can never be touched/blocked by TPTB and where it is much more secure and private for it's users? I think BitShares.org would be willing to to pay & bid for BitShares.org on BitShares DNS.

Apple.com might not care about Apple.p2p but if we have a new superior DNS system that is growing in popularity with crypto-currency types and people who generally dissaprove of Big Brother then Apple.com will care about not owning Apple.com A LOT! If Ethereum.org doesn't secure Ethereum.org on the DNS system of the future, that's their loss not BitShares DNS!

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BitShares DNS - 'We're the decentralised orange one'
 
Everyone associates the existing TLD's with a blue colour, when you share them, or when you google/Yahoo them. By making ours Yahoo.com and BitShares DNS being a separate opt in browser everyone will know yahoo.com is not necessarily yahoo.com but there's a lot of value in an exact brand name.

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Unfortunately new businesses may not be able to build a strong brand identity around our .p2p TLD

-.P2P is unknown and has little value.
-.P2P the ICANN TLD could be bought/blocked at any time

Existing businesses wll already have a more well known ICANN TLD like Amazon.com or coinmarketcap.com that they've built their online brand and presence around, which they'd like to keep.  It's far easier for them to replicate that online presence & brand using their same TLD on BitShares DNS.

Instead of saying visit us at Bitshares.org or Bitshares.p2p  We could want to say  - 'Visit us at BitShares.org (Also on BitShares DNS)   

Now the rush will be on to secure the same TLD you brand your business by on BitShares DNS!

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While BitShares DNS is new and has little traffic, it solves all of the problems associated with ICANN. If it starts gaining traction within the crypto market, it will be incredibly important for businesses to future proof their online brand by securing their existing .com or .org  brand that they've worked hard to build on BitShares DNS, the DNS of the future!

Given the growing Big Brother trend and free people's antagonism towards it, BitShares DNS could easily be a likely sucessor to ICANN in just a few years and may perhaps be a preferrable choice for your target market, such as crypt-currency enthusiasts right away!  (Your business sales may increase by offering a BitShares DNS verson of your site.)

Will Coinmarketcap.com want to risk having built a brand name only for BitShares DNS to grow in popularity and someone offer a similar site under the brand name he's built?

---------------------------------

Has your  billion dollar poker brand, Pokerstars.com on ICANN been unfairly seized by an over-reaching government and all your customers blocked?
 
Pokerstars.com is still running!  'BitShares DNS users unnaffected!'

Has the oppressive Turkish government blocked Twitter.com?

Twitter.com is still running fine and is untouchable!  'BitShares DNS users unnaffected!'

Is bitcointalk.org  being spied on &/or having it's security compromised? Use bitcointalk.org for maximum security and privacy.

(In fact, given the tenous nature of Bitcoin legality can any Bitcoin related .com or  .org afford not to also put their online brand on BitShares DNS and will not many of their target market prefer & be comfortable using their well known domains on BitShares DNS in a very short space of time?)