Public ID's (Discussion)

You reversed it. The problem is when scammers do register those names. Not that the names are registered by others. The point is about scammers scamming and not valid uses.

This is halfway to the system I am suggesting, the other half is having a personal register of names. Thats it, thats all you need to start.

The point is that SAFE tracks the usage, even if it doesn’t track the reason or the what. And SAFE doesn’t do that, not only is it insecure but its a ton of core code to do it.

Actually that is what is done NOW. When you generate an ID it is actually a 128 bit (or 256 bit) value (key pair) and the DNS maps a readable name to that ID.

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The beauty is that we can have both. You don’t like the current method then set up a personal list and have a ADDON like @happybeing suggested and then expand that ADDON to look at your personal list of ID <—> Names. Then use the SAFE system for any ID that is not in your list or your registered list providers.

Personally I think we have to put in some effort to remove the centralisation and return control of our naming services to the user. Both in their personal lists and the naming services they subscribe to.

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That’s the problem… maidsafe already build it into their “core” system. So it’s not really an option.

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Is it in the core? Or just at the APP level. It is a mapping function. In any case APPs could have their layer above that and only use SAFE’s if they cannot resolve a particular Name or ID.

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Then I’d postulate that any name that is easy to remember is not unique because any name that is simple enough to remember is not complex enough to be unique especially over the long term which is WHY it quickly runs into conflicts with others seeking the same name.

We’re not trying to create a bloody patant office. We’re trying to allow everyone to make as many websites as they like and a sustainable encrypted internet. What benefit is it to create a limited number of memorable names people can choose from? The uniqueness should not be stressed on the memorable name but rather on whether the ACCOUNT can be considered DIFFERENT than the next one. Is this website or user different than the one next to them that has the same name or is running the same named service? Is John Smith Apple Farmer the same person as John Smith Apple Farmer #2? Well no because John Smith Apple Farmer #1 comes from a different location and/or has a different seriel number so we immediately can tell the difference. The reason the username should not be what is considered unique is because it’s required to be memorable. Memorable data is limited to a given narrow field of data by requirement to make it memorable and contextually relevant. How many times do i have to explain this? Therefore memorable data should not be considered to be what makes someone unique by itself. You keep citing the memorable data as uniqe but this is a conflict in terms. The public id by itself CANNOT BE the unique identifying data BECAUSE it needs to be memorable AND because so far it cannot be recycled on the SAFE network! Therefore one needs to add a secondary piece of data that CAN truly be randomized and DOES NOT require to be linked to human language. A 7 digit number can be sufficiently random and when combined with two pieces of human alphanumeric phrasing such as the publicid and service reduces the odds of introducting conflict substantially. No conflict then the fact the SAFE network doesn’t recycle such data or domain squatting becomes less of an issue. You see on the clearnet domain squatting is an annoyance but isn’t that much of an issue because people can just recycle domains. Even a domain squatter needs to keep renewing the domain from ICANN or wherever else. On SAFE however registering a public ID is free and lasts FOREVER even if the squatter up and DIES the public id they aquired is never recovered. So you could have someone racking up hundreds of public ids in an attempt to gain profit, then have a heart attack and then they’d be lost for all time. Not only is the public id squatting problematic in and of itself but the potential loss to the entire network over the long term is even more so. Therefore making squatting on IDs or in general making it hard to conflict one public identity with another public idenity is VERY important. Your public name should not be the sole way to identify you on the SAFE network because that is extermely limiting to a network that NEVER FORGETS OR RECYCLES INFORMATION!

Also to answer your question about “reletively unique”. Nothing is truly unique. Something is only unique when measured in COMPARISAN with something else and therefore when I say relatively unique I mean something substantially unique in comparisan to something else for the purposes required. A rare gem may be considered unique when measured against masses of sand, iron ore, and other common metals. But when viewed from a planetary scale that same gem might be considered quite common. In a town there might be one genius. but planet wide there may be more and a whole community of them. Uniqueness is relative to what you are measuring.

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I’m sorry but the Network couldn’t even function if this were the case. I even fully explained and provided the Dictionary definition, yet you still maintain that this definition is entirely wrong and according to you we can in fact have degrees of uniqueness. There’s no point arguing with you…lol
It seems a lot of what you propose either already happens or doesn’t happen for good reasons yet you appear to refuse to take any of these reasons on board. You again repeat the issues around squatting and ID loss etc but I have already made suggestions about thiswhich you haven’t really responded to so I’ll leave it there. :smile:

Oh dear…yes, a rare gem would be unique within the pile of sand. A rare gem in the Universe would not be unique within the Universe.
Uniqueness is not relative - it either is or isn’t within the “Universe” you are dealing with. In this instance the Universe is the Safe Universe.

The fact someone CAN come up with the same public ID as someone else proves that publicID is not unique. The mere fact you need to write a rule saying that if this memorable name is taken restrict it from being used by someone else proves it’s not unique. Something unique would not be used again by someone else. It’s like saying you have a blue blanket so NO ONE can ever use a blue blanket but you even if someone else can clearly create another blanket and dye it blue, it is forbidden for them to use it. Owning a strange transdimentional sheet that can change your species, make you invisible and cause you to fart out billions of dollars would instead be truly unique because it would exist no whee else and would be impossible to replicate. A memorable username is NOT a unique name. That’s the point! Even by that dictionary definition a memorable name is NOT unique.

What a ridiculous statment. All of cryptography functions because this is the case. This is the whole principle behind brute forcing passwords or deciding relatively how strong one’s crypography needs to be. All security can be broken given enough time and resources. This is the wole reason you have a high level password containing letters, numbers and symbols rather than using a password like love, sex or God.

In any case I think we need competition for the DNS system and the petname system seems to have some serious weight to it.

I would concede that this would be the case if this was a fact. I was under the impression that a hash is made of the Public ID. If the Public ID is not unique, then neither would the hash be would it? Hence why I said the Network couldn’t function with non-unique IDs.

I’m sorry, I’m not following your logic here - as it would appear to suggest the exact opposite.

No…it isn’t…that’s a false analogy I think …here’s why:

They can’t physically create it in the 1st place. It is more than that they are forbidden to use it, it is that they are technically prohibited from creating one.

No, that’s a false argument. The properties you describe do not in any way prove uniqueness, they may speak to rarity, but not uniqueness. The properties are irrelevant. You assume that it exists nowhere else in the Universe because of the rareness of the described properties, you have not established it as unique.If you have one, then why can’t you make another for one thing, you’ve definitely not explained why it would be “impossible” to replicate.
If it really existed nowhere else in the Universe, then it would indeed be 1 of a kind and be unique. :smile:
Let me expand on your analogy. Imagine we could “zoom out” as you described earlier to the planetary scale, in fact even further out of the Universe and into the Multiverse. Then imagine we also “zoom in” and investigate all the hidden curled up tiny extra dimensions in the quantum foam, postulated by String Theory. Then imagine we investigate all the possible alternate realities there may be…then we will probably discover that you can still be considered “truly unique” in your belief that you are making much sense here… :smile:

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I’m confused :confused: ( sorry slow day) :flushed: but doesn’t the concept of infinity suggest there is no such thing as unique? Current theoretical science seems to support this. Plus where the hell are we in this thread? Fencing practice or some shrit? Petname system, overlay dns system, joop pa drin zooko fractal addressing system, blah blah :weary:
It’ll all come in due time. Even the current dns system can be swapped out if data chains is designed robustly (it is). So fun times ahead. So please just shake hands AND GET BACK TO THE LERNINS!!! :confounded: Sorry about that :innocent: I would just rather see ya both making cool sites apps than squabbling.

So here’s some good trees, smoke up AND HIT THE BOOKS! :rage::v: :innocent:

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Lol…we’re not squabbling, we always go on like this (me and blindsite)…it’s just friendly banter… :smile:

No, I wouldn’t say so, “uniqueness” has to be tied to a particular thing or place to be able to call it unique. I mean something could be unique within the context of the SafeNet whether the Universe is infinite or not.
The only thing you could say about an infinite Universe is that you couldn’t say with any certainty that anything unique existed within it.
This would not affect the fact that it would still be unique to the SafeNet…
You seem to be using a variation of Blindsite’s argument only based on the infinite properties of the place rather than the complex properties of the ID . The properties are not important, other than whether it is one of a kind within whatever context you are claiming something to be unique. :smile:

Incorrect. I enter the name “Al-Kafir” as a public ID but you have already entered it and I get an error saying it already exists. That is not my inability to come up with the phrase Al-Kafir and possibly annoy you but rather the system forbidding me from using it because you have gotten there first. Al-Kafir is not a unique phrase. No more than Adam or Bob or Charlse or Dennis is. There are plenty of people, very different people named Adam or Bob or Charles. Imagine you wanted to name your child Bob and went to register the name but the government said “Sorry that name is taken, please choose a different more unique name.” But we already know there are dozens of people named Bob and people tell them apart just fine.

But people aren’t identified by a hash. They are identified by a NAME. You don’t register a hashe you register an alphanumeric phrase for people to see. The hashe is created based on that phrase. The HASH is unique the name is not. Certainly you can make a unique piece of data based on a memorable piece of data but given there are only so many linguistic combinations and given there is no recycling on safe again those names are going to run out sooner or later.

Al-Kafir is about as unique as it gets… :smile:

Lol…yes, I get your point, but think there may be some confusion and we’re talking at cross purposes here. What you are describing is how I last heard DIrvine explain how it would work…multiple bobs and not sure if changed or not.
All I’m saying is that from my basic conceptual, non technical understanding which I concede I may be wrong about the “Bob” must logically have some “additional” input added prior to hashing in order to maintain uniqueness. I’m just reasoning that “same” user names cannot result in different hashes otherwise.
I agree you can have multiple bobs, but the “bob” alone cannot be hashed - I thought this was how it worked anyway but will read up.[quote=“Blindsite2k, post:135, topic:9933”]
But people aren’t identified by a hash. They are identified by a NAME.
[/quote]
My understanding was the Network identifies by hash and users by name…

Just to mention that if you take the multiple word idea as just 1 example and used say a choice of 4 words from 4 random columns containing say 50 words each, taken from say 20 or so possible columns, I think you could be generating somewhere in the region of billions of unique names - wouldn’t you?
The thing that stands out to me is that we are talking about something that will affect a minority of users (businesses etc). Otherwise, this is analogous to treating the use/ownership of “vanity” personalised car number plates as if it were a Human right.
The only right a user should have is to a unique and memorable name - unless they pay. And if they pay, then the admin work and rewards etc should be the property of the Community, rather than Maidsafe, (I think they’d agree) which can only be achieved in the form of a Dao. :smile:

How is uniqueness NOT relative but relative to the universe? I’m confused. Seems contradictive. Sorry. Again, slow day :sleeping:

relative to the Universe?

So am I…

It is…who said it? :smile:

Ok, say I am the only white person in a classroom of black people - I would be unique within the context of the classroom - not relative to it. I couldn’t be relatively unique, I either am or I’m not.
However, if we look within the context of the whole school, there is 1 other white person. I am still unique within my class, but not my school. My colour is relatively uncommon, not relatively unique.
You can’t call something unique without giving it some context.
You also can’t say something is more or less unique relative to something else - it either is or isn’t.
That’s how I see it anyway… :smile:

Reminder

SAFE: Safe Access For Everyone

Not

SAFO: Safe Access For Only those that are prepared to spend 15 hours trying to figure out how to get connected to the safenet and then another 10 hours trying to figure out how to setup a counterintuitive identity system, and then another 5 hours trying to find someone by some ultra dumb anomalous moniker.

Reminder:
Safe : Secure Access for Everyone

Not

Safe Access for Everyone.

Btw, who’s/what idea are you addressing here, as unclear?

Safe, yes. Sorry, my bad… too early, not enough coffee. Tks.

K.I.S.S.

Edit *Secure , duh!

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I’m scanning through threads to find what the latest actual ID implementation plan is actually. I’m still working from idea at beginning of this thread last year - is this still current or is it summarized somewhere do you know? Cheers

2 posts were merged into an existing topic: SAFE Browser v0.8.0 - Release

Apologies ahead of time for the long post…
Quick Summary => SUDS/SUDO evolution via Public ID dictionary prefixes


I just started up the web hosting manager and it asked me to type in a “public id”, so I came to the forum to look for suggestions on id names and found this thread. Very informative.

I can see the positives and negatives to both sides to the argument. On the one hand you have the entrepreneurial minded who want to keep things familiar and easy to use for the masses while at the same time initiating a gold rush via simple word registrations, thereby monetizing the safe dns to the future benefit of either the site owners who get lucky enough to register first, or the network itself by holding certain names ransom (I think that discussion might have been on another thread). On the other hand you have those that are tired of domain squatters making creative life difficult on the oldnet and view that model at work in perpetuity on SAFE as an unholy union. After reading over some of your solutions to various concerns I’d like to offer a hybrid approach which I personally feel to be the best of both worlds. Perhaps this has been mentioned before on the forum and if so I apologize. Otherwise, please consider the following:

When I first browsed the internet years ago I relied a lot on directories, some people still do (craigslist, 4chan). Why not use the safe dns as a built in self-subscribing low-level directory feature. This would be accomplished by having the network reserve every single word in all human language dictionaries prior to launch. To some extent you could view this as the reverse of the .com,.net,.org dns extensions of present day where instead the SAFE network uses common language safe dns prefixes in order to guide the structure of this “safe universal directory structure” (suds) in a more egalitarian manner. For example:

safe://ants
safe://fourmis
safe://ameisen
safe://leannáin
safe://bird
safe://vogel
safe://cat
safe://chat
safe://dogs
safe://chien
safe://fish
safe://forums
safe://net
safe://news
safe://networks
safe://org
safe://organizations
safe://com
safe://gov
safe://government
safe://state
… etc

So when someone tries to reserve the easy dictionary words (in any language), they would already be taken, but an individual could still have something personalized like:

safe://debate.jlpell
safe://news.jlpell
safe://science.jlpell
safe://technology.jlpell
safe://engineering.jlpell
safe://mathematics.jlpell
safe://apps.jlpell

safe://comments.jlpell

If someone wanted to use sentences like:
safe://ilovesquattingsafesites
safe://safe.is.the.best.forever…

or if they just wanted some unique hash:
safe://5asldjsfl0q39rie2lendfslef2ds

they could do that too. It might also be good to reserve some space for traditional nationalities (cities, towns, and map data as well) for the good karma, although a lot of those will come out of the dictionary search:
safe://scotland
safe://australia
safe://usa
safe://london
safe://paris
There might be some name collisions, but MaidSafe along with the community could get some kind of consensus to sort them out pre launch.

Essentially I am suggesting that MaidSafe do the dictionary attack ahead of time and sequester those names. Next, I think you could take things one step further. if someone where to actually visit the root safe://mathematics id, it would provide some kind of an index with descriptions of all public id extensions that are found by longer id word combinations. This could be through users posting to some kind of a wiki, with user ratings and comments, or there could be a crawler app located there that would run GETS to crawl, summarize, and organize all the public ids under a given safe dns prefix.

Let’s face it, claiming a single word out of the dictionary to be your own personal domain is not really that creative. And if there are businesses on the oldnet that have chosen their business names that way then they will need to be creative in order to differentiate themselves. (ex: safe://apple.farmers.of.new.york vs. safe://apple.computers)
Maidsafe could probably put out a CEP for the best dictionary attack script and then use it prior to launch. Under this system you would still get some squatting with two and three word dictionary attacks and that is probably just fine. People that come up with a single word that’s not in the dictionary would be just fine too. At least the low hanging fruit will be set aside and people would need to show some innovation. Due to the perpetual nature of SAFE, I think it is too just dangerous to allow for the possibility that common language dictionary words could EVER be locked down. How far would we be if words used in computer languages were copyrighted FOREVER and only one person could use ‘if’ or ‘else’ or ‘while’ or ‘do’ or ‘main’? It seems like this type of self-subscribing directory structure would help ensure “Satisfactory Addresses For Everyone”.


EDIT: This concept for a “public reserve” or “game reserve” (analogy to reserve land set aside for endangered species) for Public IDs would address some of the discussion about domain squatting that took place in a related thread.

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