--On Friday, December 24, 2021 15:14 -1000 Christian Huitema <huitema@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > PHB is also proposing to record assignments in a ledger, so it > is possible to use the ledger to help mitigate collisions. > Pick a name, check against the ledger, pick a different one if > the first name is already taken. In that case, the desired > scope of uniqueness is "all users trying to get a new identity > at the same time", which ought to be a much smaller number > than trillions. But that also assumes that FCFS (with the ledger acting as arbiter of "first") works. That is probably true as long as no one cares strongly what they are called as long as it is unique, and preferably if the system operates in a world without lawyers. As we have seen in the real world, even if PHB's "charge a lot for short names" solves that problem (at least until someone comes along and points out that the system should not be giving extra privileges to rich people with easy access to hard currencies), it will be only a matter of time before there is a dispute over who gets to be the real @AliceMcNastyExample, especially if the identifiers don't expire with people. There are clearly ways to mitigate that problem, including the traditional ones of using relatively deep hierarchy and/or tagging the main part of names with differentiating attributes, but I think that either the issue must be taken seriously or someone will need to convince the large population of people named Alice (or Bob, or, for that matter, Christian, John, or Michael) in the world that, e.g., AliceqrfQ9h595S5Rg*uv!BsVSP2!QY8sSx^pQ@ar8AjytEdGbK^FG3#nMkVYrA4D4S9B is an appropriate and easily remembered name. best, john
