The Pirate Bay Co-Founder Starting A P2P Based DNS To Take On ICANN

[Eugen Leitl]

(So what's wrong with 

http://127.0.0.1:3456/uri/URI%3ADIR2%3Adjrdkfawoqihigoett4g6auz6a%3Ajx5mplfpwexnoqff7y5e4zjus4lidm76dcuarpct7cckorh2dpgq/

?)

http://digitizor.com/2010/12/01/the-pirate-bay-co-founder-starting-a-p2p-based-dns-to-take-on-icann/

The Pirate Bay Co-Founder Starting A P2P Based DNS To Take On ICANN

Written by Ricky on December 1st, 2010   Link to this post   

The Pirate Bay Co-Founder, Peter Sunde, has started a new project which will
provide a decentralized p2p based DNS system. This is a direct result of the
increasing control which the US government has over ICANN.

The recent seizures of around 80 domains by the US authorities only goes on
to show the amount of influence the government have over the internet. There
is a fear that if the US Senate passes the Combating Online Infringement and
Counterfeits Act, such instances will increase b becoming a threat to an open
internet.

As long as there is a centralized root, there is always the possibility of
interference from government and other agencies. To counter this threat what
Peter Sunde is suggesting is a new Domain Name System based on peer to peer
technology. Such a system will be completely decentralized and hence almost
impossible for the government or any other agencies to control.

The P2P-DNS is the name of the project which aims to do this. According to
the projectbs wiki, this is how the project is described:

    P2P-DNS is a community project that will free internet users from
imperial control of DNS by ICANN. In order to prevent unjust prosecution or
denial of service, P2P-DNS will operate as a distributed and less centralized
service hosted by the users of DNS. Temporary substitutes, (as Alpha and Beta
developments), are being made ready for deployment. A network with no
centralized points of failure, (per the original design of the internet),
remains our goal. P2P-DNS is developing rapidly.

This system will work only with a .p2p TDL, other TDLs will be passed through
to be handled by the default DNS server. This is stated in the projectbs goal
as:

    Create an application that runs as a service and hooks into the hostbs
DNS system to catch all requests to the .p2p TLD while passing all other
requests cleanly through. Requests for the .p2p TLD will be redirected to a
locally hosted DNS database.

While the idea of a completely decentralized internet free from the
governmentbs interference is a very tempting one, it is not without its own
sets of problems. One of them has to do with trust. With the current setup,
we are putting our trust in the DNS servers like OpenDNS, Google DNS etc. to
point us to the right direction when we want to access a website. With the
scheme that P2P-DNS is proposing, we will have to rely on others in the
network to direct us. It is one thing to trust OpenDNS, Google etc. but
completely another thing to do the same with a random computer. Such a system
is also harder to secure and tends to be slower.

This is not the first time that an alternative Domain Name System has been
proposed. Starting with AlterNIC in 1997, alternative DNS has had a
controversial history. Many have ceased to function now because of the lack
of adoption from users. However, coming right after the controversial seizure
of 80 domains by the US government, P2P-DNS might just get enough support to
make it a success.