Netsquat

Domain names offer false security

The original vision of the world wide web was of a vast network of interlinked documents that allowed humans to better organize our knowledge and the relationships between bits of information.

Adherence to the domain name system, where each web site has its own name, is built into any web browser.  If you type, “http://netsquat.com” into your web browser, the browser is built to display the documents created by the paying owners of that domain.

But domain names are not equivalent to physical property.  They are purely digital, ephemeral, and have no fundamental stability except in people’s voluntary willingness to respect them.  The domain name system can easily be hijacked… and that is where Netsquat comes in.

Netsquatters can take over existing websites

Netsquat is an add-on to the Firefox web browser that allows anyone to “squat” on any website.  Like squatters in physical properties, Netsquat users can take over any existing website and replace its content with their own content.  For example, a user can take over The New York Times’ home page and replace it with their own personal home page.  These changes are then permanent, and anyone running the Netsquat software will see the squatter’s personal site whenever they point their browser to http://nytimes.com

Each squat is like a layer of graffiti

One squatter can easily be displaced by another squatter.  Netsquat maintains an archived history of who has squatted on each web page, and viewers of the site can browse through the archives of the people who have squatted on any site by turning on or off the visibility of the layer of content that any squatter has overlayed onto the site.  These layers can be thought of like layers of graffiti on a brick wall.  And like street artists, squatters can choose to either keep or remove the previous squatter’s work when they take over a site.

Reputation is more important than ownership

The system can easily become chaotic, with constant battles between squatters to overtake each other’s sites.  To this end, a social network system allows viewers to decide which squatters they like, and which they don’t.  Viewers can then decide, for example, never to view the work of certain squatters whose work they dislike, and they can also browse the latests squat works of those who they do like.

The end result is a more flexible yet higher-maintenance social system that allows for richer experiences and content than the current rigid domain name standards that impose an artificial and antiquated sense of ownership over digital domains.