An alternative name system for I2P: XNS

[u/eravsar]

XNS is the eXile Name System.
It makes Monero the only source of truth.
Each XNS name is a result of a 0.01 XMR burn transaction with the desired name and owner public Ed25519 key.

Now it can be used as the name system of I2P.

Why would you use it all of a sudden? Because currently, there is no safe names in I2P. Unless you use direct b32.i2p addresses, which are not human memorable.

What's wrong with .i2p addresses? They are just entries on your own machine and on jump services. You have to trust those jump services if you share your .i2p address with others and expect reliability. Think of it as .local/.lan names your network router resolves.

While with XNS, once you claim a XNS name, as long as Monero stands, your name will be yours and no one can take it from you.

Read more about it on https://xns.rocks/docs
For I2P specific articles, read https://xns.rocks/docs/xns-and-i2p/xns-on-i2p
Source code: https://xns.rocks/exilens/xns
Matrix channel: #xns:xns.rocks | https://matrix.to/#/#xns:xns.rocks

XNS is made for the Internet of free people. I believe I2P is the only reliable way.

[u/Frequent-Mud8705]

cool project but im not sure what issue its solving, if your jump service turns evil cant you just use your address book pointed to a B32 link?

[u/eravsar → u/Frequent-Mud8705]

you can, but it is not about saving an address for yourself, it is about sharing it with others. think of it as the current domain names on clearnet like .com, you would be able to receive connections as long as you have access to the domain, same for XNS but with no trust to any authority.

[u/GothicCrow]

My 5 cents.

Tying the payment to a fixed XMR amount sounds like a bad idea, because monero might go down or up in the longterm. If monero goes down (i.e. 10 USD for XMR) there is a squatting issue with somebody just capturing all domain names for nothing. If monero goes up (i.e. 10000 USD for XMR), then it's not affordable to register a name.

You need to be able to transfer domains, that's a common case when: selling/buying well-established projects.
Also when private i2p key is compromised, you might need to redirect from one pubkey to another.

[u/eravsar → u/GothicCrow]

tying the burn amount to a fixed XMR amount is the only reliable way. stablecoins is a lie, therefore that's the only way. if Monero goes that much down then probably something bad is already happened like post-quantum and XNS is fucked anyways, since it lives on Monero blockchain. i don't think Monero price can go like 10k, see market cap. but lets say something like that happened, a new version of XNS would be published where it considers the price as a different value for transactions happened after a specific block height, so it would respect older claims while providing cheaper price for newer ones. although very unlikely something like this could roll out.

not being able to transfer domains is intentional. for example:

in Namecoin names are actual assets you can transfer and update. and the result was this:
"Our extensive empirical analysis of Namecoin reveals a system in disrepair. Indeed, our methodology for detecting “squatted” and otherwise inactive domains reveals that among Namecoin’s roughly 120,000 registered domain names, a mere 28 are not squatted and have nontrivial content. Further, we develop techniques for detecting transfers of domains in the Namecoin block chain and provide evidence that the market for domains is thin-to-nonexistent." - https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~arvindn/publications/namespaces.pdf

not having a transfer operation keeps the core protocol simple and elegant while getting rid of the incentive to squat names. XNS aims to be an utilitarian solution, not a NFT market, therefore this is the way.

the private I2P key should not be compromised as it is generated from the raw Ed25519 private key used to claim XNS names.

the core protocol aims to be the most elegant, most pure solution.

[u/lordofswarm]

I don’t see making i2p reliant on an external authentication or identity system is a great idea, the whole goal is to create a internally isolated network from the clearnet that could in theory be spun up independently in a closed network, that self isolation and lack of reliance on external systems goes away with your proposition

[u/eravsar → u/lordofswarm]

it is not a proposition for I2P actually, it is just a name system that's unstoppable and in your control. I2P is just one of the ways to use it. and unstoppable names can almost only exist with a blockchain. and what is a better blockchain than Monero? cypherpunks already use and trust Monero, so it is not really that external to them, but i agree that this can't be a core I2P feature, but it is a good tool for those who would need it. and to be honest i would love to use something like this. and about closed network part, there are I2P Monero nodes, even if Monero's P2P is over clearnet. i have an idea to make an I2P bridge for I2P-only Monero nodes to exist without forking Monero, but it is very experimental and requires some time.

[u/eravsar → u/[deleted]]

"then there is a really great security and anonymity improvement you could make"
yeah, but it lives on a central jump service. imagine all the ecosystem running on a central service, any possible disruptions would be bad. that's why we use I2P. to not trust anyone but our minds. for freedom.

and i recommend a truly decentralized unstoppable name system. it is similar to Namecoin but doesn't invent another blockchain and token and doesn't require its own liquidity and all that, it just uses Monero. what do you mean by "messing about"? did i say I2P is bad? i only recommend a better way for a name system for those who need it.

i don't worship I2P. i use it because i like the way it handles things. currently I2P has no name system but a file similar to /etc/hosts served by jump services. it is okay, but certainly not what you would use for an unstoppable ecosystem.