Mike Hearn wrote:
> Hi Thomas,
>
> FYI there is a company called Netki is also working on a kind of DNSSEC
> integration with BIP70,
> there's a thread here about their efforts:
> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/bitcoinj/dnssec/bitcoinj/QFAH1F2dEwE/36oWDwREEV4J
Hi Mike,
Thanks! I believe it is better to keep the current discussion on
bitcoin-dev, though.
> If you would like to work on this, perhaps it's worth teaming up with them?
> Obviously they plan to have an open spec and open source implementation.
>
I would love to work with Netki. However, it's not clear to me what they
are selling. OpenAlias is an open standard, not a company. In contrast,
Netki have very long Terms of Service, that do not help understand what
part of their solution is open-source, and what is the product. They
surely know about OpenAlias, it would be nice to hear what they think
about it.
[FROM JUSTIN]
Hi there. You are correct that we are a company providing a service, however, that service is also based on an open standard which we are proposing. I'll be honest that we haven't done the greatest job in promoting the standard so far. More coming soon on that front. Any of the Open Source Wallet Name resolvers that we have created do lookups against the standard record formats, and not directly against our servers in any way. Information on the record formats as well as links to the lookup API server and some early libraries can be found here: https://www.netki.com/#/developers and here: https://github.com/netkicorp
To break it down briefly, we have an open lookup standard based on both the namecoin blockchain as well as traditional DNSSEC. (You can choose your own adventure of using namecoin based names or traditional ICANN names). We DO provide a service where we will register or host names on your behalf. However if you follow the format and host them yourself, everything will work just fine, and our open source lookup server and libraries will provide those results exactly the same as if the names were hosted with us. To that end, we have had conversations with several companies in the space who intend to host their own names, and we intend to work with them on the effort to ensure our documentation is sufficient to ensure they can successfully do so.
In terms of comparisons to OpenAlias, I think there are a lot of similarities, but a few differences. First the similarities:
1> We both use DNSSEC.
2> We both have the option of storing the address directly in the DNS record.
Differences:
1> We do not use DNSCrypt. I understand why you chose to, but we were concerned about broad interoperability and easy broad distribution of hosting, so decided not to use it. We have other ways of achieving privacy, using HD Wallets and Payment Requests.
2> We have the option of storing a URL rather than just a wallet address in the TXT record. This allows a second level lookup against the URL to get back a unique HD Wallet address or Payment Request each time, further protecting user privacy and security. Using Wallet Names with Payment Requests allows for the user experience of typing in an easy to remember name and getting back the "green lock" and who the validated recipient is. This also provides an auto audit of the end to end DNS SEC process, in the case the path were somehow compromised, the signature on the payment request can provide an additional check.
3> We use a 2 tier lookup format. The first lookup returns a list of currencies or payment types supported by the Wallet Name. The second lookup goes to a record specific to that currency type to get the address to go to. We believe this to be a more scalable solution in a world where someone can have both multiple digital currency types, but then also multiple types of colored coins, and wants a simple way to share a single name for all of those different addresses. This allows the wallet to do the work behind the scene of choosing the currency it wants to send, and automatically getting back the right address to send to, without the user having to do anything different.
4> We mandate DNSSEC while you make it optional. We did this because we believe giving the user the option of NOT using DNSSEC is like letting them order a car with no brakes. We weren't sure how we would explain to them why their money was gone when they really didn't understand the risks they were taking up front. We had a lot of discussion about it before coming to the decision we did, and I can see why you went the other way, although I do believe we made the right choice.
Additionally, we just released another open source API server to help with the "other half" of the lookup problem. Its in its infancy, and we are certainly taking feedback on it at this time. It is called Addressimo <https://github.com/netkicorp/addressimo> and will serve unique HD Wallet addresses or Payment Requests for every lookup, thus allowing a user to have a private, secure way to share a Wallet Name that can be used to send them any digital currency.
I'd love to talk here or offline about merging standards going forward. As an FYI, Verisign has also delivered a standard to the IETF using DNSSEC to pass payment information here: https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-wiley-paymentassoc-00 We have started discussions with them about merging standards as well.
They actually have a really nice way in their standard to encode email addresses that more or less ensures that there won't be name space collision in the case that there is already a record "joe.user.com" and you want to create one for "joe@user.com" that we are looking at adding to what we are doing in the next update to our record formats.
In any case, I'd much rather we had one effort going forward than multiples, so let's talk!
[/FROM JUSTIN]
Justin W. Newton
Founder/CEO
NetKi, Inc.
