A New Project Called Handshake Wants to Decentralize DNS

An entity called the Handshake Network claims its newly developed open source project offers advantages over the traditional naming and signature systems. Using blockchain technology, Handsahke says it can avoid the security vulnerabilities of conventional DNS, including DDoS attacks on name servers and cache. While this is now exactly a novel idea, Steven McKie, a developer, and investor for Handshake, says unlike previous attempts that tried to replace DNS, this effort is meant to work with the existing DNS. "Handshake can work with the existing TLDs (e.g., com, net, org) to ensure existing names continue to work as expected," says the website. "Handshake manages this by deprecating the need for the root DNS servers. Right now, anyone can point existing TLDs towards their respective nameservers. Eventually, we hope to provide the names currently associated with TLDs using Handshake's core protocols and are actively working to facilitate that. In addition to this, major privacy and security-focused TLDs such as onion are given first-class support within the Handshake system."