One of the first non-monetary applications of blockchain technology was to combat censorship on the Internet using Namecoin, an altcoin used to register and verify addresses in the Domain Name System (DNS).
Namecoin is an alternative transnational DNS that governments and corporations cannot control. The advantage of a decentralized DNS is that it allows anyone to freely publish information on the Internet to anyone who is at risk of local government pressure and censorship. Like Bitcoin is a decentralized DNS (ie URLs) owned by no one. These addresses are permanently embedded in the blockchain and cannot be accessed by governments grabbing the domains.
The problem with traditional DNS is that central authorities control the top-level domain (eg google.com, the .com domain is controlled by the US authorities) and can intercept and redirect URLs. Another example is China's control of .cn domains.
Decentralized DNS makes possible the existence of independent top-level domains, for which DNS tables are stored in a peer-to-peer network. Alternative domains registered in the system will be available as long as there are volunteers running the decentralized DNS server software. Peer-to-peer networks are not under the control of governments.
Based on a structure similar to Bitcoin, a separate cryptocurrency (Namecoin, NMC) and a blockchain for a decentralized DNS have been created.
Currently, Namecoin does not work as a registration system for all domains in a row, but as a free speech mechanism for domains fighting censorship (for example, in countries with limited political freedom). Namecoin top level domain - .bit. Domains can be registered directly or through various services such as dotbit.me.
Because the .bit domain is outside the traditional structure of the Internet, it uses proxy servers that handle DNS requests and Firefox extensions to browse the websites located on it. According to BitcoinContact, there were 178,397 .bit domains registered in 2014.
