Namecoin

Namecoin ( currency symbol: ℕ or NMC ) is a crypto- currency based on the Bitcoin software, which also serves as an alternative, distributed Domain Name System (DNS). Namecoin difficult censorship of domain names by providing new top-level domains available. These top level domains are beyond the control of ICANN, which Internet censorship avoided and a high reliability is possible.

Just as Bitcoin Namecoin is a peer- to-peer system that can be controlled by assuming an honest majority of participants not by a single country or a company. Changes to the name space to be signed by the legal owner of a domain with a public-key method and distributed to all peer-to -peer participants. The inclusion in the block chain, which serves as an eternal logfile, these transactions are binding. The block chain always grows new transactions when one of the participants has been found by a computationally intensive proof-of -work method, a matching result of a cryptographic hash function, which can be verified by all other participants. Falsifying a longer block chain is considered impractical due to the computational cost.

At present, the pseudo-top -level domain. Uses bit, which is not awarded in the official DNS to ICANN. To resolve domain names you need either the current block chain or uses a public name server that participates in the Namecoin system. Namecoin uses a separate Bitcoin block chain. The software is open source and hosted on GitHub.

Before the release of Namecoin of hackers and Internet activist Aaron Swartz outlined a system based on Bitcoin name system, which is similar to the concept of Namecoin. Swartz described his system as an approach to solve Zookos triangle.