Amidst all the discussion of alternative uses of blockchains, it is often forgotten that the very first fork of Bitcoin, Namecoin, pursued a daring vision for a decentralized, censorship-resistant internet. Greg Slepak, co-founder of the okTurtles Foundation joined us for an interesting discussion of DNS, Namecoin and how blockchains can be used to decentralize the internet. Topics covered in this episode: What DNS is and the role it plays in the architecture of the internet What man-in-the-middle attacks are and why certificate authorities offer poor protection How certificate authorities, SSL, IP routing and VPNs work Why the current model is broken from a privacy and security perspective How Namecoin and the blockchain could enable a decentralized and more secure internet The security risks when online identity is tied to a private key and how they could be mitigated What DNSChain is and what projects okTurtles is working on Episode links: okTurtles Foundation Namecoin Primer Namecoin Website Airplane Wifi is not safe DNSChain demo This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/089

Solving the pain points of online payments was the applications that garnered the most attention in Bitcoin’s early days. In recent times, as consumer adoption of Bitcoin payments has been underwhelming much of that attention has shifted elsewhere. Nevertheless, companies keep working hard on making the vision of a universal, global payment system a reality. Among those companies, one stands out as the top contender to compete with existing payment systems: Bitnet. Funded with a heavy warchest and the company is ran by veterans of Visa and Cybersource, a company started in 1994 to help merchants accept credit cards online that was sold to Visa in 2007 for $2bn. They have been working behind the scenes to get Bitcoin to break through with merchants. CEO John McDonnell joined us for an important discussion of how online payments work today, why they are broken and how Bitcoin will revolutionize the industry. Topics covered in this episode: The story of Cybersource and payments in the early day of the internet The pain points with online payments for merchants and consumers today The role of the different actors such as payment processors, card networks, merchants and issuing banks The niches where Bitcoin payments could break through first Why coming from inside the payment industry provides Bitnet with a huge advantage Why they are focusing on Payment Service Providers instead of acquiring merchants directly His view on BitLicense and how it will affect Bitcoin payment processors Episode links: Bitnet Richard Gendal Brown: Why the payment card system works the way it does Richard Gendal Brown: Simple explanation of fees in the payment card industry Wikipedia e-commerce credit card payment systems This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/087