Preface: I only assume that this Nickname System will hinder squatting. It is not a preventative system. However it is extensible. Increasing the Verification Code (three characters after the name) to four, or even five characters increases the pool of options exponentially with little to no impact on the Paper Napkin Problem. Keep in mind these are all arguments pertaining to the naming system. So if what we’re debating here is ultimately the scalability and longevity of the SAFE Network, then we got bigger problems than DNS.
To prove ownership of the site, and to discourage transfer of the site per @dirvine:
Per the end of my write-up here:
In regards to Nickname (domain name) transfer, if an entity wished to ‘purchase’ a domain name, they would have to cultivate a new Public Persona that shared the same SHA512 of the Identifier as the existing site admin. This is prohibitively hard. It would be much easier to create a new domain with the same name, but use a new public key for the new Identifier - now the last three characters will be different to the Paper Napkin Problem: the .abc, .123, etc. Also, if it really was a friendly sale, the website would be able to broadcast a (signed) update notifying all of the Petname Systems of the change. To the end user nothing would look different (perhaps maybe a warning message). Only under the hood would the addresses be different (totally new SHA512 of the Identifier + Nickname).
Keep in mind this Nickname System works on the two levels of readability as the DNS system today does. On top, it’s the user-chosen string concatenated with the first three characters of the SHA512 of the Identifier. That actual address - the IP address lookup in the DNS system - will be the SHA512 of the Persona’s Identifier + Nickname.
This leads to being able to say to another user “Go to my location with this Nickname”, and since they already have your Identifier, they can SHA512 that concatenated with the Nickname you give them and receive the unique name of your site. (as it would appear under-the-hood).
Correct, but accounts are restricted to 2 or 3 Public Personas a once. So if you wanted to squat while maintaining all of your personas, you would have to create many different accounts and then register all of the accounts as the admins of their particular site.
I forsee any Public Persona created after the initial one to incur a payment to the network, and then a payment to the network to register a Nickname. While not outlined in my initial write-up, I do believe that would be beneficiary to the network as it would be a source of revenue, while still allowing Secure Access For Everyone. (I got a couple of thoughts about that, but I’ll save them for a later time).
That being said, assuming that both Public Persona and Nickname creations remain free, the only two factors that it employs to slow down squatters are time and processing power, which is not insubstantial.
exactly
Yeah. Plus, if a squatter is attempting to hijack a site, they can use as many Personas as they want to try and get one. You the user get exactly one if you’re trying to link it to your existing Persona. Something I need to think about. Something along the lines of - the more sites there are with the same name, the less reputation that they start out with. But that brings us back to @Seneca’s proposal. I’ll have to work on that.
P.S. Thank you for these talking points. They are really helping me flesh out this idea.