Nostr and running a node has gotten me thinking of all the other things that need to be decentralized just to operate in today’s world without fear of censorship.
For example, decentralized domain names, web hosting, email type communication services, image, audio, video hosting, etc.
Anyone else thinking about this?
Anyone else creating or using services like this? Recommendations?
Decentralizing DNS is tricky, but there are a few projects out there in the wild attempting to do just that.
Isn’t DNS naturally decentralized? Sure of course there are many that are owned/controlled but the concept is just the broadcast/transmission/communication of domain name to ip addresses. Each DNS is linked to others and updating each others records. Anyone can set up a DNS.
No, DNS is not decentralized. There is a trust issue with decentralizing DNS. The way it works right now, you send your DNS query to a trusted nameserver like Google (8.8.8.8) or Cloudflare (1.1.1.1), and trust that the nameserver returns a correct DNS record. To decentralize this, you would need a way to verify that the DNS records are valid, and not directing you to a malicious phishing site or something like that.
Ahhh, okay. That does make it more tricky.
Would could say that “DNS isn’t decentralized per se, but it is partially distributed—hierarchically with a central master registry through which all information must ultimately pass.” Is the central master ICANN?
Yes ICANN is the top level authority for DNS.
https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/what-icann-does-22jun12-en.pdf
