OneID: Namecoin-based identity

What is Namecoin?

Namecoin is a distributed key-value store based on the Bitcoin technology.

Namecoin's most common use is the .bit top-level domain, that uses the d/ namespace.

But you can also use it to securely store your public profile data (name, email address, bitcoin address, GPG public key...) in the id/ namespace.

What is OneID?

OneID acts as a presentation layer on top of the Namecoin identity data.

It is a simple way to display a public profile, and it makes it easy to share it using a short URL.

How do I create a profile on OneID?

You cannot create your profile through OneID at the moment. You have to register your profile in Namecoin directly.

Your OneID profile will be available as soon as your Namecoin identity profile has been registered.

How do I register my profile in Namecoin?

You need to choose a username and register it in Namecoin under the id/ namespace.

The value associated with that key should be a JSON object that contains your profile data. The required format is described in the Namecoin wiki.

Example value:

{
    "name": "Ronan Amicel",
    "email": "ronan@pocketsensei.net",
    "bitcoin": "1NnZFxcyFoM8MBiNckhXh3jDRrjz3n43ZU",
    "namecoin": "MyRZ5YHpqGiS288smQfpXtN62W9a3ZoDEg",
    "photo_url": "http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/b06b5d4777e2734feb91298062539ec8?s=256"
}

If you are running your own Namecoin node, you can use the following command to register your username:

$ namecoind name_new id/<username>

Make a note of the short hexadecimal number in the response (<rand>), as you will need to use it in the next command.

It is then recommended that you wait for at least 12 blocks before you first update the name:

$ namecoind name_firstupdate id/<username> <rand> '<json-value>'

Further updates will simply be:

$ namecoind name_update id/<username> '<json-value>'

Please note that a name expire after 36,000 blocks (~250 days), so you'll need to update it periodically to reset the expiration time.

You can also follow these detailed instructions that describe to how to register a Namecoin domain name. Just make sure to replace the d/ prefix (domains) with id/ (identity) in the examples.

About

OneID was built by Ronan Amicel during the first Paris Bitcoin Hackathon.

It was built with Python, the Pyramid web framework and the python-bitcoinlib library.

Thanks to

• Thomas Miedema for helping me shape the idea and for the great time we had at the hackathon
• Stéphane Bortzmeyer for early feedback and testing

Related projects

• OneName: Namecoin-based profiles using the u/ namespace.