I remember reading something about that before. I just had a quick look around and, while I don't believe I have fully groked the concept it would seem to me that Telehash is solving a different, but related problem.
The web, as a technology is probably not going anywhere for a few more decades at least - people have gotten very used to opening up a web browser - very few actually understand the technology beneath.
The CA/DNS issue is one based solely around them - can I type the domain name I saw on the tv/ my friend gave me/I heard about into a web browser (and these days) and it can direct me (securely) to the page where I can do business.
Telehash seems to fit in on another level. Perhaps one which we are heading towards - a world of machines securely finding and communicating with each other to achieve a goal set for them by some human actor.
This space is becoming more crowded and no good contender has emerged - and I think there is a good reason - they are either too radical as so they can't find a footing, or they are too conservative.
The documentation is slightly lax, but I feel telehash is the latter - it doesn't seem to be solving any problems already solved:
* Space/Storage/Data Transfer - I don't care what anyone says, the blockchain model is simply no scalable, any system where are full client has to hold onto/download gigabytes of information is a non-starter for me.
But still, in any new system - hopefully decentralised, we need to distribute information. Any kind of system we build must be tolerant of partitioning - I think the solution to this is injecting some trust (ala Convergence)
* Speed - Computers work in nanoseconds, the web currently operates in seconds (some sites in milliseconds) - we can't beat the speed of light, but we can certainly start removing the cruft from our communications - HTML, XML, JSON, CSV - are all formats designed for people. We need tools that let us manipulate formats designed for machines.
Our networking protocols are like this as well - as much as people hate ASN.1 it solved some problems decades ago allowing the phone system to scale on just duct tape and wd40
* Power - Blockchain bashing time again - we live in a world of limited, expensive power. We are getting much better at producing low power devices, people like wireless devices. Why should our networks be so power-hungry?
Just to be clear, Telehash is a protocol, not an application. The bulk of the documentation is on Github, and so far it's mostly for people implementing the protocol in different languages.
There's no blockchain involved in Telehash. It accomodates various cipher sets, including one suitable for ultra low power devices (there's a partially working implementation for Arduino). And you're correct, it isn't really aimed at enabling anything like trusting a URL from a television commercial.
Telehash is conservative in the sense that it solves useful problems, even within the current DNS infrastructure. No one's currently doing this, but you could easily map a DNS name to a Telehash address. But it also offers global resilience to partitioning, because the logical mesh can operate on any lower level network transport.
I like the multiple notary model of Convergence, but I think any of these trust models still need to separate the "human memorable names" component.
I was mixing a number of different criticisms of various technologies in my post...I never meant to confer that Telehash has a blockchain.
I guess, I still don't understand the point of Telehash. Even having read through the documentation. "Establishing private communication channels" is definitely a big problem, one with a huge threat model, and the solution is probably multi-faceted - I don't see where a system like Telehash fits in v.s. something like tor or i2p for example - does anonymity fit into the threat model?
Before dragging this thread off the page I will follow up with an email. :)
Telehash's design may simplify the future design of Tor-like protocols, but anonymity is not an intended core feature.
Partition resistance is probably the highest priority. If any possible insecure network path exists, encrypted communication between endpoints should also be possible (and automatic).
sayI appears to be the directory service designed for MinimaLT / Ethos. CurveCP looks like it fits in the same use case as MinimaLT. That's where I'd say Telehash lives, too (but I've only skimmed any of these papers so far).
Telehash started out life as a more generalized global DHT-for-your-apps design circa 2010, and the spec has since evolved significantly to include the same kind of wire-level crypto.
The web, as a technology is probably not going anywhere for a few more decades at least - people have gotten very used to opening up a web browser - very few actually understand the technology beneath.
The CA/DNS issue is one based solely around them - can I type the domain name I saw on the tv/ my friend gave me/I heard about into a web browser (and these days) and it can direct me (securely) to the page where I can do business.
Telehash seems to fit in on another level. Perhaps one which we are heading towards - a world of machines securely finding and communicating with each other to achieve a goal set for them by some human actor.
This space is becoming more crowded and no good contender has emerged - and I think there is a good reason - they are either too radical as so they can't find a footing, or they are too conservative.
The documentation is slightly lax, but I feel telehash is the latter - it doesn't seem to be solving any problems already solved:
* Space/Storage/Data Transfer - I don't care what anyone says, the blockchain model is simply no scalable, any system where are full client has to hold onto/download gigabytes of information is a non-starter for me.
But still, in any new system - hopefully decentralised, we need to distribute information. Any kind of system we build must be tolerant of partitioning - I think the solution to this is injecting some trust (ala Convergence)
* Speed - Computers work in nanoseconds, the web currently operates in seconds (some sites in milliseconds) - we can't beat the speed of light, but we can certainly start removing the cruft from our communications - HTML, XML, JSON, CSV - are all formats designed for people. We need tools that let us manipulate formats designed for machines.
Our networking protocols are like this as well - as much as people hate ASN.1 it solved some problems decades ago allowing the phone system to scale on just duct tape and wd40
* Power - Blockchain bashing time again - we live in a world of limited, expensive power. We are getting much better at producing low power devices, people like wireless devices. Why should our networks be so power-hungry?
Just a few, rambling thoughts.