[Phase 1] HIP-26: Decentralize domain name using ENS

Proof of Humanity
1

HIP-26: Decentralize domain name using ENS

HIP: 26
title: Decentralize domain names using ENS
author: @RoboTeddy @santisiri @JustinKalland
status: Phase 1
created: 2021-08-18
conflicts with: None
languages: EN

Simple Summary

This HIP would decentralize Proof of Humanity’s user interface by migrating from the centralized https://proofofhumanity.id domain to a decentralized https://proofofhumanity.eth.link.

Abstract

Traditional domain names like those ending with .id are inherently centralized because they are controlled by whoever has the login to the domain registrar. We can increase decentralization by moving to an Ethereum Name Service .eth domain name owned by a multisig.

Motivation

Decentralizing Proof of Humanity’s user interface would increase credible neutrality and legitimacy in a way that would cause talented community members to commit full-time to greatly improving the protocol and user interface so that registration becomes fast, cheap, secure, and widespread. This is incredibly important for the future of Proof of Humanity.

Specification

  • Create a 4-of-7 Gnosis multisig of trusted community members: Justin, Clement, Santi, Humberto, Rocío, Ted, and Mads.
  • Transfer ownership of proofofhumanity.eth (current owner: Santi) and poh.eth (current owner: Clement) to the multisig
  • Reimburse the people who registered the ENS names using DAO funds
  • The multisig delegates ENS management rights, and the delagatee sets up proofofhumanity.eth.link to point to the current UI servers.
  • We redirect https://proofofhumanity.id to https://proofofhumanity.eth.link
    • The entity that owns proofofhumanity.id signs a contract stating that they will redirect to proofofhumanity.eth.link unless instructed otherwise by a later HIP

Alternatives considered

  • Multiple user interfaces: We could just have multiple user interfaces, some of which are decentralized and others of which are not. The trouble is that this would slow down development tremendously because all protocol updates would require coordinating engineering and migration efforts across multiple user interfaces. We may want multiple UIs ultimately, but probably not yet!
  • Ownership of ENS names by the PoH DAO: We could give control of the ENS names to the DAO instead of a multisig, but the DAO’s decisions are implemented by the Governer, which is currently a point of centralization due to the concentration of PNK. The Kleros courts are great for ajudicating registration disputes, but the point of this HIP is to help decentralize the project itself.
  • Control of ENS names by direct on-chain voting: the ecosystem isn’t quite mature enough for this — we’d have to be concerned with “takeover” attacks where a temporarily-successful sybil attack takes over the ENS name and then can fraudulently increase its registrations even further.

Additional notes

  • Once .eth becomes a full gTLD, we can drop the .link suffix and people can just go directly to https://proofofhumanity.eth.
  • Voluntary participation from the owners of proofofhumanity.eth, poh.eth, proofofhumanity.id would be necessary to implement this HIP.
  • If anyone listed as member of the ENS multisig in this draft would prefer not to participate, we can find a replacement for them prior to HIP Phase II. But being nominated as part of this draft is a vote of confidence and trust from the community, and the authors hope you accept!

This HIP is part of a program to improve Proof of Humanity. The whole community is invited to participate in its drafting. The draft of this HIP will remain open to suggestions and will be checked daily.

If you want to participate live, there’s a join the next weekly community call on Discord (Monday 2am Buenos Aires; Sunday 10pm PST; and Monday 7am Central Europe) to collectively draft/discuss this HIP. Recordings will be available on the YouTube and Twitch channels.

We’re building PoH together and working on making it an organization truly owned by humanity!

8 Likes
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I fully support this proposal… It’s a very unique approach, at least I didn’t know we could aim for domain decentralization this way and domains are always a centralizing choke point in these kind of systems. Community ownership over domains could send a great message to the entire ecosystem.

Needless to say I gladly donate proofofhumanity.eth for this.

7 Likes
3

As soon as I learnt about this proposal, I felt sure this is the way. One step further! I am glad and honoured to be part, we are making history. :raised_hands:

2 Likes
4

The idea to use a .eth domain is good, however the proposal has a few issues:

There is no reason to use a multisig instead of the DAO.

Kleros is definitely way more decentralized than the proposed multisig. Moreover the DAO has control of UBI, the funding and the POH contracts so in case the DAO were to be broken (which is quite unlikely) we’d have way more pressing issues than a domain name.

This domain name and interface doesn’t belong to the DAO, no proposal can have effects on it and everyone is free to create their own frontends. Asking to redirect this can be asked to the frontend operators (in occurrence the Kleros Coop) but cannot be a HIP.

I would support giving the domain name to the DAO but wouldn’t support giving it to a multisig recentralizing the DAO (we’ve previously seen with the board that multisig holder, even inactive ones, ends up given governing power).

5

If the HIP passes with my name I do not mind taking on the responsibility.

That said, I think the board was exactly the structure set up to manage resources (human and otherwise). They are under democratic control and the interrim seats (with inactive members) will expire soon enough. If the multisig is needed I suggest giving this power to the board.

I tend to agree with @clesaege that if we trust the Governer process with our funds, we can also trust it with a few domain names.

2 Likes
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@clesaege would Kleros be willing to redirect proofofhumanity.id to → proofofhumanity.eth.link so we can have a community owned UI? Is there a formal process we should consider within the Kleros Coop to take this action?

7

Just heard on Telegram that proofofhumanity.id is not accessible in Cuba :cuba: and gives a 403.

1 Like
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You can formally ask @federicoast who can give you an answer alone if he believes it to be a small decision (< 10k€ of value) or escalate it to the surveillance council (Ferit, Stuart and myself) if not.
In theory you could also ask for a general assembly by having more than the square root of the coop members call for it, but that’s a very heavy process.

Note that the disagreement is not about redirecting it to an ENS but to an ENS owned by a unnecessary multisig instead of the DAO.

3 Likes
9

I’m fine supporting this proposal with the modification of using the DAO as the owner of the ENS instead of a multisig as long as we can get the proofofhumanity.id domain pointing towards a DAO owned domain (can be proofofhumanity.eth which I’ll donate or any other domain).

2 Likes