Overview
Installation
User Schema
User Schema RFC
Identity Verification
Usernames
Profile Explorers
Registering Users
Domains
Key-Value Stores

The Open Name System (ONS) is a protocol that extends DNS by supporting the registration and resolution of:

1. user handles on the blockchain
2. domains on the blockchain (design phase)

ONS is 100% backwards compatible with ICANN DNS and simply extends the functionality.

This repository includes the specifications, standards, and schema for the Open Name System.

Here are a few ways to get started:

• Check out opennamesystem.org
• Download and fork opendig (the ONS equivalent of dig)
• Explore and comment on the RFC specifications in this repo
• Install openspecs and try testing sample profiles against the JSON schema.
• Try out the profile builder (for profiles linked to blockchain user handles)

>>> pip install openspecs

This schema specifies a way to publicly describe a user. All data involved in this description is public, and all fields are optional. If there are any fields that you would prefer to keep private (your email address, for example), then it is advised that you do not include that information in your profile. Further, at some point the specifications may support other measures to enable the inclusion of private data, for example by using URI's leading to encrypted data containers.

View the full JSON schema.

• name
• location
• bio
• website
• bitcoin
• avatar
• cover
• github
• twitter
• pgp
• orgs
• v

{
    "name": {
        "formatted": "Naval Ravikant"
    },
    "location": {
        "formatted": "San Francisco, CA"
    },
    "bio": "Co-founder AngelList \\u2022 Founder Epinions, Vast \\u2022 Author Startupboy, Venture Hacks \\u2022 Investor Twitter, Uber, Yammer, Postmates",
    "website": "https://angel.co/naval",
    "bitcoin": {
        "address": "1919UrhYyhs471ps8CFcJ3DRpWSda8qtSk"
    },
    "cover": {
        "url": "https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_banners/745273/1355705777/web_retina"
    },
    "avatar": {
        "url": "https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/3696617328/667874c5936764d93d56ccc76a2bcc13.jpeg"
    },
    "twitter": {
        "username": "naval"
    },
    "v": "0.2"
}

View the user-schema v0.3 RFC.

For a profile to be verified by a given account, the profile must reference that account in it's data and the account must also have a post that references the profile. This shows that the owners of each account are in fact the same person.

For example, to prove that you own both your ONS profile and your twitter account, you would tweet out a reference to your ONS profile and then include the URL to that tweet in your ONS profile data.

1. Create a post (tweet, gist, facebook post, etc.) with a message that explicitly states that you are the owner of your ONS username.
2. Reference the post in your profile data, providing either the post's URL or an identifier that is globally unique on that network.

All of the following are valid formats of identity verification messages:

Verifying myself: My open username is +someuser
Verifying myself: My Bitcoin username is +someuser
Verifying myself: My blockchain handle is +someuser

Messages are not case sensitive.

As of yet, no work has been done on adding support for blockchain domains to ONS and the ONS command line tools. There have been a few interesting efforts within this vein, most notably the standards drafted up for namecoin's d/ namespace. At some point it will be interesting to include support for blockchain domains, but we feel it is best for now to focus on providing specifications and tools for extending ICANN DNS to support users and user handles registered in an open way on the blockchain.

To learn how users are registered on the namecoin blockchain, you can read more here.