[HN Gopher] Brave Integration Deepens Support for Unstoppable Do...
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Brave Integration Deepens Support for Unstoppable Domains
Author : fariszr
Score : 60 points
Date : 2022-09-07 16:34 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (brave.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (brave.com)
| cristiioan wrote:
| Why do we need another type of domains? IF you need a domain,
| just buy one normally. You have more control over it, and it is
| fully accessible from the open web.
| ur-whale wrote:
| https://seized.anom.io/
|
| https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/weleakinfoto-and-related-...
| mmastrac wrote:
| Regardless of our thoughts on Web3, I find it amusing that
| the FBI asks you to provide all your personal info (including
| SIM/IMEI) to determine if you are "part of an investigation".
| cauefcr wrote:
| The most obvious honeypot in existence.
| rvz wrote:
| > You have more control over it, and it is fully accessible
| from the open web.
|
| Do you want this again? [0] [1]. The so-called 'open web' is
| complete nonsense which technologists at large tech companies
| have taken control to push on their next grifting and
| surveillance products.
|
| For example, Google Chrome being used as the dominant browser
| and Google already leading control over web standards, privacy
| violations and sabotaging other browsers like Firefox for their
| own gain.
|
| There is no such thing as the 'open web'.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21611677
|
| [1] https://thehackerblog.com/the-io-error-taking-control-of-
| all...
| ahurmazda wrote:
| > "... explore the Internet without sacrificing their privacy or
| their autonomy, ," said Brendan Eich ...
|
| My irony meter exploded
| CharlesW wrote:
| I'm not a grifter pushing Web3 or NFTs, or a sucker who's in the
| market for either, so I guess I'm not the target market for
| Brave.
|
| But honestly, what is the strategy here?
| dmje wrote:
| Here, specifically, I don't know. But in general I like Brave.
| It's Chrome but less of the GBollocks.
| smt88 wrote:
| How is it better than Firefox + uBlock Origin?
| somenameforme wrote:
| Greater web compatibility, and most features you need are
| built-in instead of third party plugins. With 1 click you
| have the ability to access or change a native: ad-blocker,
| https everywhere, script blocker, anti fingerprinter,
| cookie blocker.
|
| And everything has an excellent UI for configuring things
| which can be done on a per site or global basis. So for
| instance just blocking 'x' script, or only blocking cross-
| site cookies, or whatever else. I believe Firefox was
| adding in some of these features back when I swapped, but
| they've been playing catch up for some time now.
|
| There's also lots of other neat features like the topic of
| this thread, single click support for TOR, and I'm sure
| plenty of stuff I'm leaving out. I also find it to be
| vastly more performant/memory friendly if you're anything
| like me and happen to leave a gazillion tabs open because
| I'm totally going to eventually go read that really
| interesting sounding article that I opened 3 months ago.
| guywithahat wrote:
| It uses chromium and has a few other nuanced privacy
| features under the hood (for example it doesn't tell
| websites it's a brave browser, it tells them it's standard
| chromium)
| bzxcvbn wrote:
| Of course, telling websites that you're chrome while
| acting slightly differently than chrome is a surefire way
| of getting fingerprinted and identified as a brave user.
| 42e6e8c8-f7b8-4 wrote:
| I guess if you evaluate your product as "all or nothing", then
| this product couldn't possibly be for you, but then what
| product would be for you? I use Brave for the integrated ad
| blocking and integrated TOR and I skip the crypto-coin stuff. I
| don't think I'll use this new feature either, but then I'm
| content with a product doing more than the things I use it for.
| CharlesW wrote:
| Your reasons for using it are totally reasonable and logical.
| I'm choosing not to use it on principle, which makes it an
| emotional decision.
|
| > _...but then what product would be for you?_
|
| All else being equal, my preference is browsers that focus on
| internet standards rather than propping up bottom-feeders who
| want to privatize DNS. My daily driver is Chrome on desktop,
| and Safari on mobile. I really like Vivaldi, too.
| somenameforme wrote:
| As you sound quite reasonable and self-aware, can you
| explain your rationale more? I have difficult understanding
| it.
|
| I had the exact same idea as this company and I'm sure
| thousands of others did as well. The goal wasn't to make
| money (though that's obviously a pleasant aside), but to
| fix something that, from my perspective, is very broken.
| Our current DNS system entails you paying an ever-
| increasing and perpetual rent to a company for them to do
| literally nothing. You are paying them to _not_ remove your
| name from a database, which is less work on their part than
| deleting it would be. That 's seems just so dysfunctional
| and exploitative.
|
| And just to also make sure we're on the same page here -
| when this company distributes your domain, they no longer
| own it in any way, shape, or form. Even if they wanted to
| go scummy and swap back to our current model (perhaps after
| gaining large marketshare), they'd be literally unable to -
| because they do not control, in any way, these domains once
| they are distributed.
| mmastrac wrote:
| Tech seems to be dividing into a "web3" camp and everyone else. I
| don't run in web3 circles, so all of this stuff just seems like a
| big, continuing grift. I still remember my feelings after seeing
| the Matt Damon ad.
|
| Really sad to see so much energy put into this space. Out of all
| the web3 use cases, maybe 5% at the most are truly useful to have
| on the blockchain, while the rest are just databases wearing
| blockchain clothing. The really useful cases probably aren't as
| valuable as selling a landgrab, however.
| suoduandao2 wrote:
| Do you see the underlying desire for Web3 (true democracy)
| being served anywhere else? There is certainly an eternal
| September problem in the space, and unfortunately many
| incentives to fleece the freshmen, but do you know of an
| alternative for those of us who believe in the ideals?
| [deleted]
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Do you see the underlying desire for Web3 (true democracy)
|
| I don't see that as the underlying desire for Web3. Not in
| the slightest.
| mmastrac wrote:
| > true democracy
|
| I don't see that at all. What I see are a bunch of predatory
| projects trying to make a bunch of money before the music
| stops.
| suoduandao2 wrote:
| Whether you think it's an insincere sales tactic or not is
| immaterial to my question, which was, is anyone else trying
| the same sales tactic?
|
| If a particular set of ideals are being used in marketing
| for only one space, that space is going to attract people
| who care about those ideals. Currently I see those people
| flocking to Web3, if there's an alternative I'd be
| interested to hear about it.
| MikePlacid wrote:
| > Currently I see those people flocking to Web3, if
| there's an alternative I'd be interested to hear about
| it.
|
| Freenet is decentralized and so far is unstoppable. You
| probably would not like 80% of information that's being
| exchanged there... but that's actually a sign of quality,
| if you think about it.
|
| Speaking of which , if I say write an anti-Putin
| manifesto on Web3 - will Putin's thugs be able to stop me
| digitally or biologically? What are my protections?
| mmastrac wrote:
| > anyone else trying the same sales tactic?
|
| Amway, Avon, and door-to-door knife sales were three that
| I recall.
| m4jor wrote:
| I'm sure many people thought the same exact thing about the
| internet...
| godelski wrote:
| Show me how web3 actually addresses decentralization and
| isn't just replacing the current winners with a different
| set of winners. Are you going to take down Binnance and
| Coinbase and allow no exchanges? No custodial wallets at
| all? I'm not going to hold my breath.
| TylerE wrote:
| All I see when ever I hear anyone shilling web3 isn't
| "democracy", it's just that THEY want to be the middleman
| (often in transactions that don't traditionally have one).
| abecedarius wrote:
| All the people so confident that suoduandao2 and I don't
| exist [0] might want to reconsider their info diets.
|
| [0] Heavy downvoting of the parent, + three replies all
| saying "don't see it". A decent place to start:
| https://vitalik.ca/index.html
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "The motivation is _claimed_ to be democracy, and some
| people even believe it " and "the motivation _is_ democracy
| for an appreciable portion of the promoters " are vastly
| different things.
| jl6 wrote:
| It is important to recognize that democracy is not something
| that happens online or through technology. Those who wish to
| strengthen democracy would do better to turn the computer off
| and engage with some real-world people.
| leijurv wrote:
| One person one vote is democracy, one dollar one vote is
| web3. Very different.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Do you see the underlying desire for Web3 (true democracy)
| being served anywhere else?
|
| Yes. Peer-to-peer networks have existed long before Web3 ever
| became a thing. Bittorrent worked fine without a blockchain.
| IPFS works fine without a blockchain. Soulseek and Limewire
| didn't need blockchains, same as Napster.
|
| The idea of digital currency is definitely geek pornography,
| but it's a much more complicated issue in the real world. All
| signs seem to indicate that the further a protocol distances
| itself from money, the better chance it has at succeeding in
| the long-term.
| type0 wrote:
| > I still remember my feelings after seeing the Matt Damon ad.
|
| Btw, speaking about Brave
|
| _Matt Damon told me "fortune favors the Brave" and I lost all
| my f#cking money_
|
| ( for context - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twpEgYnc-jA )
| mmastrac wrote:
| It was my shoeshine boy moment, for sure.
| googlryas wrote:
| Weirdly, I'm fairly confident Damon didn't accept his $X
| million payment for the commercial in crypto.
| guywithahat wrote:
| I sort of feel like this is how tech has always been. A new
| technology comes around, people use it for everything, and the
| bad use cases filter themselves out while the rest stays
| around. Personally persistent, decentralized domains sound like
| a useful tool to a lot of people, and I hope it sticks
| godelski wrote:
| Personally I'm pretty cynical about web3. I don't see how it
| becomes any less decentralized and rather just appears to me an
| attempted coup where a different set of leaders take over the
| internet. Decentralization is an incredibly difficult problem,
| especially when infrastructure is non-trivial. People get mad
| at me all the time for pointing to email (or even the internet)
| as an example of this, but we just had a top page post the
| other day about this exact issue with email AND browsers. Sure,
| it isn't 100% centralized, but that isn't a requirement for
| centralization. We consider Coke to be monopolistic but it
| couldn't even perform a 51% attack, though it could with Pepsi
| (which has half the market share that Coke has).
| Decentralization is difficult because momentum is a key
| principle and there are natural monopolies. These especially
| arise when there are network effects. So until I hear a
| compelling reason that this force has been overcome
| (extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence) then I'm
| not a believer. If you are still in prototyping and using big
| names to sell your product, I'm going to think you're a
| grifter.
|
| I even say this as having a belief in some of the values of
| cryptocurrenceis and a desire to have what web3 claims to be. I
| see high value in a private (ZKP), secure, quick, digital
| currency, but it must also be better than what we already have,
| meaning that if it doesn't allow for things like clawbacks
| (being able to play within the judiciary), then it is dead in
| the water. I really do want to see a decentralized internet
| like web3 seeks, but I haven't seen any extraordinary evidence.
| Maybe there is a signal in all the noise that I can't see, but
| if there is, then maybe the true believers need to rid the
| space of the grifters (there is zero doubt that there are a
| large number of grifts making hand over fist) and build trust.
| If you can't convince a bunch of techies of your cool tech
| product you're not going to convince the average public. It
| just builds distrust, which will be almost impossible to
| recover from. But I'm still waiting to see if there is a signal
| in all that noise.
| Imnimo wrote:
| Is there someplace that spells out exactly what an unstoppable
| domain is and how it works? I looked at their website but it's
| hard to find clear technical details.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| I don't trust Brave. Brave makes statements like this:
|
| >a secure and privacy-centric browser that allows you to explore
| the Internet without being tracked
|
| But you can find info on Brave's in-browser analytics:
| https://brave.com/privacy-preserving-product-analytics-p3a/
|
| And you can find out how the Brave browser itself tracks the ads
| it shows you, while providing aggregated info to Brave's
| advertising engine: https://brave.com/intro-to-brave-ads/
|
| Brave appears to have simply replaced other tracking with itself,
| even if they claim to use aggregation to provide anonymity. To be
| clear, the Brave browser tracks you in multiple ways, claiming to
| do this in a privacy preserving way.
|
| If you are not into crypto, and buying into Web3, then I have no
| idea why you'd use Brave.
| somenameforme wrote:
| Brave not only shows 0 ads to you, but also blocks all ads,
| unless you actively _opt-in_ to a system they have where you
| 're paid 70% of the revenue gain from the ad in the form of a
| token. I do not, and will not ever opt in.
|
| The browser itself is also fully open source and you're free to
| verify that they're sending exactly and only what they say
| they're sending. You can also disable what limited analytics
| that they do use if you'd prefer them not see hyper-sensitive
| information like a bucketed grouping (1, 2-5, 6-10, 11-50, 51+)
| of how many tabs you have open.
| ghostwreck wrote:
| Very excited for more people working on identity and ownership.
| Everyone calls web3 a grift because the stack is too young to see
| the truly useful applications, so all we've seen are some scammy
| NFTs and coin drops. We're at web browser state of 1993 where the
| core pieces have just launched but nothing has been proven.
|
| It's actually very hard to develop a real app in smart contracts.
| We're missing the ability to store private data. Tooling is
| highly lacking for anything beyond deploying a simple 100 line
| NFT contract. As soon as these problems are solved, we'll start
| to see some traditional applications rebuilt in a way that gives
| users ownership of their own data.
|
| That's the goal of web3 to me, not specifically the exact
| implementation of whether we're on a blockchain or doing peer to
| peer file storage. Web3 means I have all the rights to my data,
| and ideally, applications can live on beyond their creators.
| jl6 wrote:
| > because the stack is too young
|
| The components that get called Web3 may be younger than some
| other parts of the internet, but they have been available for
| nearly a decade now (depending on when you start counting), and
| in that time I haven't seen any useful applications emerge.
| Well, maybe a few that are useful to criminal gangs.
|
| How long do we have to wait?
| ipaddr wrote:
| Like what twitter, facebook, instagram? What is useful to
| you?
| classified wrote:
| > How long do we have to wait?
|
| Until Godot finally arrives.
| nawgz wrote:
| > Everyone calls web3 a grift because the stack is too young
|
| I don't think that's true. I think people call it a grift
| because "identity" and "ownership" are not topics that require
| whatever "Web3" constitutes to be implemented, and the idea
| that we require web3 to allow a user to "have all the rights to
| [their] data" is equally facetious.
| jchanimal wrote:
| > Web3 means I have all the rights to my data, and ideally,
| applications can live on beyond their creators.
|
| Thanks for this, I agree. For those of us working on the
| application stack, web3 is about human rights, and building
| global scale utilities that are run by networks not companies.
|
| If this view of web3 is alien to you, I suggest starting some
| place like this blog post:
| https://jaygraber.medium.com/web3-is-self-certifying-9dad77f...
| rakoo wrote:
| > Web3 means I have all the rights to my data, and ideally,
| applications can live on beyond their creators.
|
| I don't understand how this isn't already solved by existing
| FLOSS
| mmastrac wrote:
| > We're missing the ability to store private data.
|
| This is solved off-blockchain.
|
| > Tooling is highly lacking for anything beyond deploying a
| simple 100 line NFT contract.
|
| This is solved off-blockchain.
|
| > we'll start to see some traditional applications rebuilt in a
| way that gives users ownership of their own data.
|
| This is solved off-cloud, or if you pay for storage. I can
| download my photos and documents locally from Google Drive just
| fine.
|
| > Web3 means I have all the rights to my data
|
| You already do, if you store it off-cloud or pay for storage
|
| > applications can live on beyond their creators.
|
| This is solved off-cloud. I can still run executables from the
| 90s.
| rvz wrote:
| > > We're missing the ability to store private data.
|
| I don't think anyone here said _' store private data on
| blockchain'_.
|
| > This is solved off-cloud, or if you pay for storage. I can
| download my photos and documents locally from Google Drive
| just fine.
|
| Better not have your child's photos on Google or iCloud, and
| possibly reported on your device due to excessive CSAM checks
| [0] [1].
|
| Their solutions have created more problems in the background
| which are no better, and will get worse with the big tech
| companies over time.
|
| Skiff looks like it is going in the right direction so far in
| how they are using IPFS, ENS, Mail, etc. [2] Watching them
| closely.
|
| [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-
| surveil...
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/matthew_d_green/status/14230711866160
| 005...
|
| [2] https://skiff.com
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Better not have your child's photos on Google or iCloud,
| and possibly reported on your device due to excessive CSAM
| checks.
|
| If a single "it went badly enough to wind up in the NYT"
| case means Google is a no-go, I've got _really_ bad news
| for you about blockchains.
| rvz wrote:
| > If a single "it went badly enough to wind up in the
| NYT" case means Google is a no-go,
|
| I think we are beyond 'one' case going wrong with Google
| services like YouTube, Drive, etc which the result of
| automated bans have made people realize that Google owns
| whatever you put on their services and can remove
| whatever they _' think'_ violates their ToS.
|
| > I've got really bad news for you about blockchains.
|
| Yet, I made no mention about or storing data on the
| 'blockchain', since IPFS is not a blockchain.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Then solve it off-cloud. These companies draw clear lines
| on acceptable use, and you agree to their TOS. You reserve
| no right to have service restored when you violate those
| terms, period.
| rvz wrote:
| > You reserve no right to have service restored when you
| violate those terms, period.
|
| You're right. Don't complain if Google Drive, iCloud, etc
| bans you via an AI or bot automatically over an alleged
| ToS violation. Same with Twitter and the rest of them or
| even payment companies like PayPal. When your account is
| banned, that is that. Period.
|
| As these services are free to do business with whoever
| they want, you are free to choose alternatives to these
| services, since at the end of the day, they will never
| change.
| mNovak wrote:
| > This is solved off-cloud > You already do, if you store it
| off-cloud > This is solved off-cloud
|
| Yes, but I think the goal is to have these things AND be on-
| cloud
| techdragon wrote:
| And I would like my cake to re-appear after eating it. But
| it doesn't happen.
|
| While I'm not anti-web3 I'm sceptical the promised results
| will appear not for technical reasons but due to misaligned
| incentives. At the end of the day someone has to pay for
| the storage or compute and we're back to systems of
| exploitative extraction by proxy. Your personal data pays
| for service X via advertising and you pay directly for
| service Y by volunteering cryptocurrency based information
| exchange tokens so that blah blah blah it's normally just
| tokens automatically created to track what you do which
| makes it just the same as advertised, arguably more creepy.
|
| It's a very lofty technical goal, I fear will fail for very
| normal human psychological reasons.
| hardnose wrote:
| The name says "unstoppable", but the fees paid to a centralized
| authority tell me that these domains are, in fact, quite
| stoppable.
|
| [EDIT - strike the incorrect "yearly" from the "fees paid"
| statement]
| somenameforme wrote:
| To be clear on one thing, the entire point of decentralization
| is that while Unstoppable is 'distributing' these domains, once
| distributed they no longer own them and can in no way
| whatsoever do anything with them, even if they wanted to
| regardless of the consequences.
|
| Decentralization in the web basically turns many "digital
| products" into something closer to their physical analog, in
| terms of ownership. What I mean there is that if you buy a
| Widget from the Widget Mart, Widget Mart no longer has any
| ability to impact that Widget in any way whatsoever. It's the
| same with these domains.
|
| You buy it, it's yours. Somebody can only take it away from you
| in the same ways that they might take away your Widget.
| hirundo wrote:
| Second paragraph:
|
| > Unstoppable domains are yours for life with no renewal fees,
| eliminating the risk of losing a domain because you forget to
| renew or because the registrar takes it away.
|
| Is this not correct?
| hardnose wrote:
| My bad! The fees are apparently only paid once. However,
| since a central authority acts as a gatekeeper into that
| decentralized system, the same criticism still applies. I
| updated my original post, thanks for pointing that out.
| IanCal wrote:
| Are they a gatekeeper? Do they even have the ability to
| stop someone registering something?
| schoen wrote:
| The good thing is that you would never _start_ using a
| domain that you didn 't manage to acquire permanent
| ownership of. You wouldn't tell people to try to contact
| you via that domain.
|
| From a marketing point of view, this means that effort you
| spend on publicizing that domain and getting people to
| remember or recognize it wouldn't be wasted by having
| someone else take the domain away.
|
| From a security point of view, this means that people who
| are expecting to use your domain to reach _you_ and _your
| service_ can 't be fooled into reaching someone else by
| having the domain reassigned to someone else.
|
| There are also security downsides around squatting and
| typosquatting; if some people explicitly or implicitly
| assume that domain ownership follows trademark ownership,
| it will be easier for someone to impersonate a famous brand
| or site, with greatly reduced recourse for the famous
| entity.
| deepstack wrote:
| and also _> Now, we're deepening our integration beyond .crypto
| to include more top-level domains - including .nft, .x,
| .wallet, .bitcoin, .blockchain, and .dao. _
|
| Hmm, for something to claim to be Unstoppable Domains, why not
| include .onion as well, seems like that is more an unstoppable
| domain than what Brave is offering. Any comments on that Brave?
| smegsicle wrote:
| don't they already have tor integration built-in? what's
| there to comment on?
| spijdar wrote:
| Correct, some information is available here:
| https://support.brave.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/360018121491-Wha...
|
| It doesn't explicitly mention onion addresses, but I don't
| see any indication it's not supported.
|
| (Tor is also not supported on the Android or iOS versions
| of Brave)
| jedimind wrote:
| this is exactly kind of stuff that makes me distrust brave, they
| give off shady sell out vibes with terrible partnerships like
| this
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