Re: Introduction and update on Universal DID-Native Addressing (UDNA)

  Here’s a snapshot of UDNA’s performance benchmark — 100k addresses and
routing entries created, verified, and resolved dynamically

On Sat, 20 Sept 2025 at 07:27, Amir Hameed <amsaalegal@gmail.com> wrote:

> Kindly find attached is another screenshot of how UDNA header works.
>
> On Sat, 20 Sept 2025 at 07:18, Amir Hameed <amsaalegal@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks again for the references—they’re really helpful. I wanted to
>> clarify how *UDNA* relates to *did:nostr*, since they actually operate
>> at different layers.
>>
>> At a high level:
>>
>>    -
>>
>>    *did:nostr* is a DID Method. It defines how a DID is created,
>>    resolved, and managed on the Nostr network. It’s all about identity—proving
>>    who you are and which keys belong to you—not about routing data.
>>    -
>>
>>    *UDNA* is a networking framework. It treats DIDs as first-class
>>    primitives for *addressing and routing*, effectively replacing IPs.
>>    It doesn’t care how the DID is created—you could use did:nostr or any other
>>    DID—but focuses on how to send messages to that DID across the network.
>>
>> You can think of it like this: a did:nostr is a “phone number” you
>> control, and UDNA is the “phone network” that actually routes the calls.
>>
>> A UDNA packet uses DIDs in its header and can include fields like
>> RouteHint, KeyHint, Nonce, and Signature. Routing and discovery are handled
>> dynamically via a *DHT overlay*, so the underlying IPs can change
>> without affecting reachability.
>>
>> UDNA and did:nostr aren’t competing—they’re complementary. UDNA could
>> even use did:nostr as its identity layer while providing a *secure,
>> transport-agnostic, identity-native network layer*.
>>
>> Best,
>> Amir Hameed
>>
>> On Sat, 20 Sept 2025 at 07:04, Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, Sep 20, 2025 at 9:41 AM Amir Hameed <amsaalegal@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> > At a high level, the minimal viable implementation of UDNA would focus
>>> on addressing and routing based on cryptographic identities (DIDs) rather
>>> than network locations. This doesn’t require building a full alternative to
>>> TCP/IP or UDP, but rather an overlay layer on top of existing transport
>>> protocols in a transport-agnostic way.
>>>
>>> Got it, the screen shots helped. That makes sense.
>>>
>>> The work you're doing reminds me a lot of Telehash, which we built the
>>> first DID implementation on top of many years ago:
>>>
>>>
>>> https://github.com/telehash/telehash.github.io/blob/master/v3/spec/v3.0.0-stable.pdf
>>>
>>> It also reminds me of what the did:nostr folks are trying to do, some
>>> of whom are on this mailing list. How would you characterize what you
>>> are working as it relates to nostr?
>>>
>>> -- manu
>>>
>>> --
>>> Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
>>> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
>>> https://www.digitalbazaar.com/
>>>
>>