Ben wrote:The ICANN domain namespace is packed with squatters, do they then get a free ride to Namecoin? If you're going to do it like that why not look at an actual TM database and figure it out that way?
As you observed correctly ICANN is a centralized system and was still not able to solve this problem. How should they resolve this problem ? Blocking reservation of the most important names like Google and Microsoft wouldn't resolve very much because many people reserve M1crosoft or Gogle or G00gle or Go-ogle and the most names wouldn't be covered at all but they would have increased costs.
By a decentralized system it is even more difficult to make a good solution.
Namecoins most important properties are decentralization(with censorship resistance) and privacy.
Keeping this valorous properties it is not easy to find an ideal solution(especially for all parties) especially by the domain name reserving.
Namecoin is in continuous development and this year here has been done much more than any other alt-coin.
At the beginning it was criticized that the fees are too high so they were reduced. After that it was criticized that is to low and squatters reserved many names.
Now the developers are working on the client rebase because this was considered as the most urgent. The fee restructuring will be implemented after the rebase is done.
Another issue is that we must regard balanced the question. You shouldn't imagine those who reserved hundreds of good names as evil persons. Some people have hundreds of ideas and why they shouldn't have a domain for every idea. Especially if they had those ideas before the others had.
And there is no technique in the world which can say if somebody reserved 100 names for himself or with the intention to sell it or to make something good/bad with them, especially no decentralized one.
biolizard89 wrote:
virtual_master proposed an auction-based system with a maximum fee:
https://dot-bit.bit/forum/viewtopic.php ... 9982#p6653
A few notes on this that weren't addressed in his post (read his post before you read the following):
(1) I think if his proposal were implemented, all domains currently owned should go up for auction at a prechosen block height, with the "initial owner" being the person who owned it at the previous block. This means that everyone who owns a high-value name now can keep their name if they're willing to pay e.g. 200NMC for it, which will rate limit squatters into extinction but will be fine for people with 1-2 high-value names.
(2) This interoperates fine with Greg Maxwell's proposal to hash/encrypt names, because it's trivial to do a dictionary attack on registered names but not a brute-force attack. So if someone registers a high-value name that's already in the dictionary (e.g. a trademark database), it can be contested, but if I register a high-value name that no one else has thought of, no one will contest it, which is good, since it's rightfully mine.
(3) The choice of maximum fee should be able to float with the exchange rate based on supply/demand; I proposed a median consensus mechanism to do this. Each miner embeds some text in their block which states their choice of max name fee; the effective price is the median of e.g. the 2048 previous blocks. This allows the number to be adjusted without a hardfork (including by default settings changes in namecoind if the miners don't object), but a single malicious user can't give himself a cheap name by mining a couple of blocks himself. (Maliciously changing the max name fee would require 51% of mining power, in which case all security bets are off anyway.)
EDIT:
Regarding your first point, the issue is that blocks are checked for validity regardless of age. So how would you be able to verify blocks containing an expired .com domain?
Yes. Thanks for pointing this solutions.
As Biolizard already wrote we think that we found an optimal solution which is even more balanced and righteous than ICANN is from every point of view. We should have the best solution to preserve the interests of the users, miners, legitimate name owners and the interests of the Namecoin network.
I would add the proposed solution to balance the ownership of the already reserved names with a domain name contesting system which should simulate a process which is in the real society with ICANN domains.
If a domain name is reserved by somebody who is not the owner of that registered brand name than a lawyer is payed to sue the actual owner and the legal system is eating tens or millions of dollars until they resolve the dispute.
By Namecoin sometimes will be not possible to know the owner of the registered name but we should find a good solution for this problem. So with implementing the domain contest this dispute would be resolved inside of the Namecoin economy and the dispute fees would come to the network as miner fee + network fee combination. The network fee would be not a coin destruction but a coin-blocking.
Anybody could contest a domain(1000 block waiting for ex) as long as the payed registration fee is lower then the maximum fee(200 NMC proposed). So if somebody reserved Google with 0.02 NMC Google can contest it for ex with 0.04 NMC and if nobody offers more in 1000 blocks ~ 1 week then it belongs to them. If somebody offers more then who has the max offer will take it.
If the max fee is payed then it cannot be contested any more.
The max. limit would be necessary to protect legitimate name owners which don't have much money.
I would propose also a 2x factor for new bids(by the contesting person)to protect poor people but with many good ideas that others take it easily from them the domains. Original registrants can always defeat the contestation if paying the same amount as the contestant.
If somebody have lost his domain by a contestation that person should receive back his locked coins after the locking period but payed miner fees should remain by the miners as it would be difficult to bring back from the miners.
This is not a perfect solution but would reduce name squatting to a minimum and would defend also legitimate but poor name owners. The miners would also receive their reward for solving this conflict in the blockchain. The coin-locking fees would be necessary to avoid that miners can abuse this system and also to redirect a part of this fees to improve the long term hash-rate of the network. All parties will have the possibility to come to their right and the miners and the network would also profit as an internal economic enhancement.
Of course we can discuss about where to put the balance between this interests and every idea and proposal is welcome.