Zooko's triangle
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Zooko's triangle is a diagram named after Bryce "Zooko" Wilcox-O'Hearn which sets out the possible alternatives for a system for giving names to participants in a network protocol. At the vertices of the triangle are three properties that are generally considered desirable for such names:
Secure: for any name, there should be just one party who can prove that they are the true owner of that name.
Decentralized: there should be no need for everyone to agree on a single central authority (or a fixed list of authorities) who are the ultimate arbiters of the true owner of a name.
Human-meaningful: names should be meaningful to the people using them, rather than random strings of bits.
Of these three properties, proponents of Zooko's triangle argue that no naming scheme can achieve more than two. So the edges of the triangles represent the three possible choices for a naming scheme:
Decentralized and human-meaningful: this is true of nicknames people choose for themselves
Secure and human-meaningful: this is the property that domain names and URLs aim for
Secure and decentralized: this is a property of OpenPGP key fingerprints
External links
- Bryce "Zooko" Wilcox-O'Hearn, [Names: Decentralized, Secure, Human-Meaningful: Choose Two] - the essay highlighting this difficulty
- Mark Steigler, [An Introduction to Petname Systems] - a clear introduction
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