APIS Expanded: Address Masking
The use of Public and Private Key in cryptocurrency is innovative in the security perspective, but the actual written addresses such as hexadecimal address is near impossible to use without copy-pasting, not to mention memorizing. It’s not an overstatement to say that user convenience was not among the highest priorities when cryptocurrency addresses were developed.
For blockchain technology to go mainstream, however, complex address such as the ones used now must also be simplified like phone numbers or email addresses in order to be used by the masses. For this reason, APIS is bringing “address masking” concept to reality.
Through the APIS core program, anyone can register a simplified address that gets rerouted to their original hexadecimal address. The simplified address consists of a name identifier, @, and a domain name. Such easily identifiable, simplified addresses increase the user’s recognition of each address and resolves issues arising from sending and receiving complex addresses.
To prevent uncontrolled creation of address and its abuse by random individuals, public use addresses and authorization-requiring addresses are distinguished. Open domain addresses that may be owned by any individual are limited to the following, but can be added through user requests:
Me(personal wallet), edu(educational facility), com(company), org(organization and group)
The owner of a domain has the authority to mask the given address and can transfer that authority to another person through ownership validation. Owner of a masked address can also change the original wallet address linked to that masked address through ownership validation in the form of wallet private key.
Should a dispute arise regarding a masked address or a domain, their ownership may be changed or even terminated in accordance with the decisions made by the country-level settling authority.
In order to deter uncontrolled address creation, there will be a certain fee associated with masking an address.
The address masking is expected to deliver on Q2 2018, in line with the mainnet launch of APIS Platform.
