[tor-onions] Renaming Rendezvous Single Onion Services

[micah]

Aaron Johnson <aaron.m.johnson at nrl.navy.mil> writes:

>>> For what it’s worth, I like “open onion services” for the reasons Alec
>>> stated. “Known” and “overt” seem fine to me, but I like the sound and
>>> connotation of “open” better.
>> 
>> Personally, I feel like 'open' has to broad of a set of overloaded
>> meanings and could be confused for one of the other meanings that is not
>> intended. If these are 'open onion services', does that make the others
>> 'closed onion services'?
>
> How about “exposed" onion services? It’s less ambiguous than “open”,
> is an antonym to “hidden”, is short and nice to say, and suitably
> indicates a lack of protection for the onion service.

I liked "exposed", it indicates something that is discoverable, and not
concealed. 

it has a couple unfortunate secondary meanings:

   2. To lay bare; to lay open to attack, danger, or anything
        objectionable; to render accessible to anything which may
        affect, especially detrimentally; to make liable; as, to
        expose one's self to the heat of the sun, or to cold,
        insult, danger, or ridicule; to expose an army to
        destruction or defeat.

and:

     4. To disclose the faults or reprehensible practices of; to
        lay open to general condemnation or contempt by making
        public the character or arts of; as, to expose a cheat,
        liar, or hypocrite.

In language you get to chose which of many meanings you intend when you
use a word, we would just need to push people away from these meanings
and instead towards the 'discoverable' and non-concealed one.

>> My vote is for the most obvious, because its name positions it in
>> relation to existing onion services: 'non-hidden onion services'. The
>> traditional onion services would then be known as 'hidden onion
>> services’.
>
> First, I hope that long-term we could move away from the term “hidden”
> because it has a negative connotation (I like “protected” as a
> positive replacement).

I'm not 100% convinced that "hidden" is negative, but there are
secondary meanings that *are* negative, in the same way that 'exposed'
has negative secondary meanings. "Protected" is nice, but its opposite
is "unprotected" which connotes unsafe.

>Second, “non-hidden” is annoying to say and hear.

I agree, its awkward.

> Third, I’d prefer a positive term to a negative, that is, one that
> describes what these services are rather than what they are
> not. Exposed onion services should be considered to be equally
> valuable to hidden onion services and not their lesser, deficient
> cousin.

Another few to throw out there, without any specific preferences
attached: 'bare', 'detectable', 'bald', evident', 'light' (in
contrast to 'dark' ha ha), 'naked', 'noticeable', 'observable',
'open-air', 'overt', 'perceivable', 'perceptible', 'recognizable',
'revealed', 'uncovered', 'unhidden', 'unveiled', 'visible', 'viewable'

of those, i like 'bare', 'revealed', 'uncovered', 'unveiled', and
'visible' [onion] services. With the exception of 'bare', I don't think
of any secondary negative/unfortunate meanings for these.

micah