News

Lightweight SPV Lookups: Initial Beta

If you watched my lightning talk at Decentralized Web Summit 2016 (and if you didn’t, shame on you – go watch it right now along with the other talks!), you’ll remember that I announced SPV name lookups were working. I’m happy to announce that that code is now published in preliminary form on GitHub, and binaries are available for testing.

You can download it at the Beta Downloads page. Once installed, it’s basically a drop-in replacement for Namecoin Core for any application that does name lookups (such as ncdns). Test reports are greatly appreciated so that we can do a proper release sooner.

Initial syncup using a residential clearnet cable modem connection takes between 5 minutes and 10 minutes, depending on the settings. (It is probably feasible to improve this.) Lookup latency for name_show varies from 2 seconds to 4 milliseconds, depending on the settings. (It is also probably feasible to improve this.)

This work wouldn’t have been possible without the work of some very awesome people whom I need to thank.

First, I need to thank Ross Nicoll from Dogecoin (warning: non-TLS link) for creating libdohj, an altcoin abstraction library that has prevented Namecoin from needing to maintain a fork of BitcoinJ. We’re using the same AuxPoW implementation from libdohj that Dogecoin is using – a fitting repayment, since Dogecoin Core uses the same AuxPoW implementation that Daniel Kraft wrote for Namecoin Core. We look forward to continuing to work with Ross and the other excellent people at Dogecoin on areas of shared interest.

Second, I need to thank Sean Gilligan for his work on bitcoinj-addons, a collection of tools that includes a JSON-RPC server implemented using BitcoinJ, which can substitute for Bitcoin Core. Sean is also a big Namecoin enthusiast. (I also finally got to meet Sean in person at DWS.)

Last but not least, I need to thank Marius Hanne, operator of the webbtc.com block explorer. The SPV lookup client currently is capable of using webbtc.com for extra efficiency (either for checking the height of blocks to download over P2P, or for downloading merkle proofs). Marius has been incredibly helpful at customizing the webbtc.com API for this purpose. webbtc.com is under a free software license (AGPLv3), so you can run your own instance if you like.

Remember: this is a beta, for testing purposes only. Don’t use this for situations where incorrect name responses could lead to results that you aren’t willing to accept.

In addition, some notes about security. SPV protects you from being served expired name data, and protects you from being served unexpired name data that isn’t part of the longest chain. However, the SPV modes other than leveldbtxcache (see the documentation) don’t protect you from being served outdated name data that hasn’t yet expired, nor does it protect you from being served false nonexistence responses, nor does it protect you from someone logging which names you look up. We made an intentional design decision to trust webbtc.com here, rather than the Namecoin P2P network, because the P2P network is unauthenticated, trivially easy to wiretap, and trivially easy to Sybil. leveldbtxcache mode avoids these isues, although it takes about twice as long to synchronize. We have plans to add further improvements in these areas as well. SPV also doesn’t protect you from attackers with a large amount of hashpower. As with Bitcoin, a major reason that miners can’t easily attack end users is because there are enough full nodes on the network to keep the miners honest. If you have the ability to run Namecoin Core (syncup time of a few hours, and a few GB of storage), you should do so – you’ll have better security for yourself, and you’ll be improving the security of other users who can’t run a full node.

Have fun testing!

Decentralized Web Summit Recap

As was mentioned on the forum and /r/Namecoin, I represented Namecoin at the Decentralized Web Summit at the Internet Archive in San Francisco, June 6 - June 10. Lots of awesomeness occurred.

I participated in a panel on naming and identity systems on Wednesday. Other panelists were Christopher Allen (Blockstream), Muneeb Ali (Blockstack), and Joachim Lohkamp (Jolocom); Chelsea Barabas (MIT Center for Civic Media) moderated. The panel had a diverse set of perspectives, and I think the discussion was informative.

On Thursday, I did a lightning talk. The talk briefly introduced Namecoin, and then went on to new developments, specifically new announcements about HTTPS and SPV. The lightning talk concluded with an invitation to talk to us about collaboration, and a plug for my workshop (which immediately followed).

The workshop was basically an intro to actually using Namecoin. I walked the attendees through registering domain names and identities, viewing domain names with ncdns, and logging into websites with NameID. We had some minor technical issues during the workshop (which is to be expected), but nothing too bad. At the end of the workshop, I showed a demo of the TLS code working. (Major thanks go out to fellow Namecoin developers Brandon Roberts, Jonas Östman, Joseph Bisch, and Cassini for helping me put together the workshop.)

But of course, I didn’t fly to San Francisco just to do a panel, lightning talk, and workshop. A major goal was to talk to as many other projects as possible to see where we could collaborate. (No single project is going to decentralize the entire Web, but working together, we might have a shot.) I won’t list all the conversations I had on this post, because I want people to be able to talk freely to me at conferences without being worried that the conversation will be posted for the world to see, but the number of orgs I talked to stands at at least 23. Hopefully we’ll be able to announce some results of these conversations in the near future.

And of course, it wouldn’t be an event by the Internet Archive without archived videos, so here are some of the highlights that Namecoiners will find particularly interesting:

Lightning Talk: Jeremy Rand of Namecoin

Builder’s Day Interview: Tamas Kocsis of ZeroNet (uses Namecoin)

Lightning Talk: Tamas Kocsis of ZeroNet (uses Namecoin)

Naming and User Identities Panel

Overall, it was an excellent event. I highly recommend watching all the other non-Namecoin content as well: full archives of all the talks are here.

I also want to thank Brewster Kahle and Wendy Hanamura for organizing the summit, and Kyle Drake of Neocities, Greg Slepak of okTurtles, and John Light of Bitseed for inviting me to attend. Also thanks to all the other organizers, speakers, and attendees: you’re all awesome. I really hope that Internet Archive makes this a regular event.

NMControl 0.8.1

UPNP Vulnerability in Bitcoin Core affects Namecoin

A vulnerability was found in Bitcoin Core. It allows an attack from malicious peers in the local network via UPNP. Namecoin is affected, too, so everybody should turn off UPNP until further notice.

Fix for OpenSSL Consensus Vulnerability has been deployed on 100% of mining hashpower

Fix for OpenSSL Consensus Vulnerability has been deployed on 100% of mining hashpower. Users of NamecoinQ (i.e. namecoind/Namecoin-Qt 0.3.x) are on semi-SPV security, and should wait for at least 6 confirmations for incoming transactions. Users of Namecoin Core (in beta) are on full-node security. Thanks to the miners for their quick action and everyone else who assisted in the response.

OpenSSL Consensus Vulnerability affects Namecoin

Namecoin Bounty Cornucopia

Namecoin’s 4th Birthday

The Namecoin blockchain is now four years old. Happy birthday!

N-O-D-E Interviews Daniel Kraft

Interview with Namecoin lead developer Daniel Kraft.

Softfork Upcoming

Softfork upcoming with block 212500 (around New Year’s Eve). Pool operators and solo miners please update to v0.3.80 asap. Regular users are recommended to update, too. See the Release notes.

Happy Halving Day!

As of block 210000 the Namecoin block reward halved to 25NMC. Happy halving day!

New Website

Thanks to Shobute for designing and Indolering for pushing the new website.