What is NameCoin?

HISTORY OF NAMECOIN

After the departure of Bitcoin in 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto and Gavin Andresen proposed converting Bitcoin into an effective domain name service or DNS. This proposal was initially called BitDNS. With it they try to create a fully decentralized and secure DNS system.

In order to understand the impact of what Nakamoto and Andresen were suggesting a bit more, we need to know a bit more about DNS.

DNS servers are responsible for the entire infrastructure that facilitates access to Internet resources. These go like a kind of telephone book relating the IP addresses of the servers, with a simple name to remember. Thus, to access a website, for example Fb, you just have to put its address (fb.com) and not its IP address (157.240.14.35). This makes the use of the Internet easier for users all over the world. However, these servers operate centrally, making them susceptible to censorship, espionage or other computer attacks. In truth, it is the easiest way used by governments to censor or spy on citizens.

Faced with this fact, the decentralized structure proposed in BitDNS radically changed this situation. BitDNS ensured that no government or person could censor or attack this service. This translated into an improvement in the quality of the service, providing security and privacy.

HOW NAMECOIN WORKS

How does it Work

As we have already mentioned, the functionalities of Namecoin are: to provide a decentralized DNS system and to handle cryptographically secure identities. To understand the two functions, we are going to explain each one of them and we are going to give some easy examples:

This is the primary functionality of Namecoin and the origin of its birth as a project. The reasons for creating a decentralized DNS systems from these peculiarities are:

Avoid censorship by Internet distributors, companies or governments. Threats such as phishing, DNS swapping or DNS poisoning can be avoided with this system. Create a decentralized structure controlled by its users to register new domains easily, quickly and economically. This seeks to create a decentralized and secure structure that can be complemented with services such as TOR or I2P. To achieve all these points, Namecoin’s DNS operation is very simple and secure. Users can register the domain name they want, as long as it is not in use. These domain names are assigned the ending .bit. These records have all the data structure of a normal DNS domain, with the plus that a cryptographic identity is created for said domain. This unique mark serves to distinguish the different registered domains and avoids duplications.

Once the domain is created, it is transmitted to the entire network in order to decentralize its location. Thus, it is ensured that the domain will always and at all times be free on the Internet, regardless of the slightest blockages or censorship applied.

For users to be able to use these DNS, simply point to proxy services or have a client node of the Namecoin service to search the registered domains successfully.