Internet without DNS
Sunday, 28. June 2009, 18:44:08
One common complaint about Opera Unite is that Opera controls the operaunite.com domain, and that this reduces the freedom of the user that just want to share some stuff, or access personal data from another machine, Opera will be the one providing your computer with a name so that you can find it.
This is nothing new, DNS is already a system where you have to go to some of the providers of top domains, and ask them kindly to get an address. (if not a domain name speculator has already got the address you are looking for)
For each new social site, you usually have to create a new name in that name space. One difference with Opera Unite is that not all people have a domain name, but needs one to be able to find the machine, and that motivates why Opera provides the operaunite name space.
But, I do think that name spaces for social sites, for Opera Unite, and even the regular name space for DNS is bad. We hand over the decision of how to reach your own computer, what to call it, to someone else.
DNS was probably invented to make it easier to find a machine without having to remember the IP address. But, now we have search technology that can help us find content, the name of the site does not matter that much anymore. If search technology had been in place before DNS was invented, maybe DNS would not have been there.
Think about it, a DNS free Internet, where you can use some kind of certificates to make sure that you are on the site that you think you are. (the way we look at security by looking at the domain name will of course need to be replaced by some other mechanism)
This is nothing new, DNS is already a system where you have to go to some of the providers of top domains, and ask them kindly to get an address. (if not a domain name speculator has already got the address you are looking for)
For each new social site, you usually have to create a new name in that name space. One difference with Opera Unite is that not all people have a domain name, but needs one to be able to find the machine, and that motivates why Opera provides the operaunite name space.
But, I do think that name spaces for social sites, for Opera Unite, and even the regular name space for DNS is bad. We hand over the decision of how to reach your own computer, what to call it, to someone else.
DNS was probably invented to make it easier to find a machine without having to remember the IP address. But, now we have search technology that can help us find content, the name of the site does not matter that much anymore. If search technology had been in place before DNS was invented, maybe DNS would not have been there.
Think about it, a DNS free Internet, where you can use some kind of certificates to make sure that you are on the site that you think you are. (the way we look at security by looking at the domain name will of course need to be replaced by some other mechanism)
WIDGETIZE