[charcircuit]

>There's no such thing as a TLD that's uncontrollable by any entity.

Think .crypto but without the ability to upgrade the smart contract to censor domains. The registry is spread out across a whole decentralized network of computers of which has another decentralized network of computers that proxy requests exists.

>how does it stand up to me editing the hosts file, or the browser's source code?

No one can force you to resolve domains YOU don't want to. You can of course blow up your computer and then you definitely can't resolve the domain. What people mean is that the user is free to still resolve it if they want.

[wizzwizz4]

What does "the user is free to still resolve it if they want" mean in a world where people do not control, or even understand, the software running on their computers? (Because I can tell you, I certainly don't.) This abstraction is a nice idea, but it's unrealistic as part of a serious threat model. Does Joe Q. Public know about the hosts file, or how the Windows network stack selectively overrides its entries, or how some of the Linux userspace uses systemd-resolved, or the things that I don't even know to write here? I'M not the one resolving domains: the software running on MY computer is.

And even if I'm a super genius who's written my own full-stack operating system on my souped-up speccy, I'm still bound by the laws of information theory. If you need information that you don't have, you're necessarily requesting it from a source (here, a computer) external to you (here, outside your control). A complicated network protocol doesn't make that fact go away, and doesn't allow you to ignore it. (It might mitigate various censorship or spoofing approaches, but you only know that if you check: the abstraction won't save you merely by virtue of being an abstraction.)

[deathanatos]

> The registry is spread out across a whole decentralized network of computers of which has another decentralized network of computers that proxy requests exists.

Ultimately, someone has to be in control of who is or is not part of that decentralized network that is the registry. (Or, alternatively phrased, how are you preventing me from saying "I'm part of the .crypto registry, totes.")

Aside from that, the root nameservers is still an entity that is controlled (by ICANN, specifically).

[charcircuit]

>Ultimately, someone has to be in control of who is or is not part of that decentralized network

Ethereum is an unpermissioned network. Anyone is free to join or leave at anytime.

>how are you preventing me from saying "I'm part of the .crypto registry, totes.")

The registry would be a smart contract. There doesn't fundamentally need to be an owner.

>how are you preventing me from saying "I'm part of the .crypto registry, totes.")

Name resolving doesn't have to be done by ICANN's domain name system. You can have alternates that do not depend on centralized servers.

[inigyou]

Blockchains have complicated permission systems which isn't the same as having no permission systems. Remember when Vitalik reversed a DAO smart contract transaction he disagreed with? It leaves a cloud of mistrust over Ethereum to this day. There's no reason to think it couldn't happen again.