So, I’ve been working with Derrick on MeowBit, and I know in theory that a dot-bit mirror would keep you accessible if some alphabet-soup 3-letter government agency stole your .com, .net, etc. domain name. But I wanted to try it for real.

I have a domain name, AnarchyHolsters.com that I registered a year ago for Neema. He was going to start a holster company. Then he got too busy being a daddy and told me to let it expire.

So I put a .bit mirror up a few weeks before it expired. Here are both the dot-com and dot-bit working two weeks ago:

AnarchyHolsters.com before .com expires:

AnarchyHolsters.bit before .com expires:

And here they are both after the .com registration expired. This is what would happen if they were seized by ICANN (except the dot-com would probably have a logo with a bald eagle on it saying why it was important for your safety that it was seized):

AnarchyHolsters.com after .com expires:

AnarchyHolsters.bit after .com expires:

The .bit IS STILL VIEWABLE. So get MeowBit, get a .bit domain name and set it up to mirror your .com, and rock your freedom no matter what comes along.

And if they took your SERVER, you could upload to a new server, send an update to the blockchain (cost: seven cents) and within 40 minutes anyone worldwide with MeowBit could access the new site.

By Frank Bieser, Big Head Press.com / BigHeadPress.bit

THE PROBLEM
Now that you have your .bit domain registered and updated with your web sites IP address, you need to reconfigure and re-start your web service, so it will recognize the new .bit name.

If you’re on WordPress, that can be done from the WordPress install. We have code and directions for doing that here.

THE SOLUTION
For non-WordPress sites, below is the info from the Web server end to make things link and work perfectly:

These steps should work for any flavor of GNU/Linux running one of the Apache web server variants.  If it supports name-based virtual-hosting, the VirtualHost, serverName, and ServerAlias items will be there (and they are the only ones we care about). If you are running a website on AWS, good chances you are running it on an Ubuntu GNU/Linux instance with apache2, which is what I will use in my examples….

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Q. What is MeowBit?
A. MeowBit is Free Software for Windows that allows you to effortlessly view Dot-Bit websites. It works on your entire system: ALL browsers, plus e-mail, instant messenger, FTP, everything on your computer. MeowBit is TRUSTLESS, i.e., you don’t have to trust a third party to ensure you are going to the desired site. That’s a good thing.

Q. What is Dot-Bit?
A. Dot-Bit (.bit) is a new top-level domain that, unlike Dot-Com, Dot-Net, Dot-UK, etc., is NOT controlled by any government or corporation. Dot-Bit works on the blockchain of Namecoin.
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