tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8742720.post173553884010958493..comments2024-03-19T08:44:42.902-04:00Comments on Cubic: A call to open source developers: Let's eliminate ICANN.Thomas Hruskahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03374180853410256194noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8742720.post-10244501730077843222010-07-14T09:49:55.927-04:002010-07-14T09:49:55.927-04:00We seem to be headed to an era of search engines. ...We seem to be headed to an era of search engines. If you want to get noticed, you need to get onto the front page of the search engine for the search results. DNS is becoming less and less important every day as a result. Google does weigh the domain name itself into its rankings but there are plenty of other factors. However, the important aspect is just getting found/noticed in the first place.<br /><br />There are a lot of political issues and eliminating DNS is a fairly complex thing to accomplish. This is why I want to see a group of open source developers form to see if we can figure out something entirely different and unique. Perhaps DNS is the best we can do but I seriously doubt it.<br /><br />Part of the problem as well is URLs. One of the first questions I asked myself was, "What do I type into my address bar?" Then I realized that the URL itself is integrated with DNS. If we get rid of DNS as it exists now and replace it with something else, URLs need to go as well or change so dramatically that they will look totally different.Thomas Hruskahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03374180853410256194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8742720.post-20963056068728246582010-07-13T20:24:47.714-04:002010-07-13T20:24:47.714-04:00It seems to me that a DHT in the cloud would turn ...It seems to me that a DHT in the cloud would turn DNS into the "wild west". Wouldn't it have to work like the old IRC nicks where you have to constantly be connected (or pay someone to be connected for you) and sit on the name you want in order to keep it? What about a net split, or worse, a DDoS attack that causes you to permanently lose the brand you've been building?<br /><br />A good distributed name system seems hard to police (which seems like what you're advocating).<br /><br />The distributed/P2P systems I can think of either are mostly anonymous or have a centralized authority. Torrents are mostly anonymous. Skype has an authority that makes sure no one can use my account. Even the Linux kernel source code, which uses the oss community's own distributed source code manager, git, has a centralized authority--Linus Torvalds.<br /><br />While I agree with you that DNS is old and crusty, there is a non-technical, political issue that overshadows it.<br /><br />I may just be thinking inside the box, but it seems like a new systems simply means a transfer of that power and not a remedy. Sure, you could fix the unicode and privacy issues, but you would still be left with only one or a few powerful entities holding the keys.<br /><br />I'm just thinking out loud as well.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05400323909113317696noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8742720.post-25680666391478780022010-06-28T22:23:12.828-04:002010-06-28T22:23:12.828-04:00If we really need backward compatibility, most pro...If we really need backward compatibility, most protocols usually have subtle loopholes built right into them that would allow for switching to another protocol - many times even in the same request. DNS is a bit harder than most other protocols because it is byte-packed for efficient transport. However, I suspect it would be possible even there to piggy-back a new protocol on top of the existing DNS infrastructure to create a whole new protocol. The key places to get this new protocol would be e-mail clients and web browsers - they seem to be more accepting than OS integration authors - but maybe the BIND team is up to the task. Once accepted, it would probably take another decade before we could finally shed DNS completely. But the effort would be worth it.Thomas Hruskahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03374180853410256194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8742720.post-45205729726381558762010-06-28T21:20:35.304-04:002010-06-28T21:20:35.304-04:00Well written. I had never given much thought to DN...Well written. I had never given much thought to DNS, so thank you for enlightening me. It's astonishing how much the internet relies on these old and fundamentally flawed processes and technologies. It almost seems as though the internet needs to be re-written from scratch. I don't doubt though that the so-called "requirement" for backwards compatibility will cripple any significant enhancements in current-day technology.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08608618081063717772noreply@blogger.com