Theseus Navigator — Silent Mode's Electron browser with the Ariadne resolver built in.
Uncovered by the 2026-08-13 subdomain-inheritance fix: once
`checkers.game.x` correctly picked the parent's `ip` record instead of
`s3`, the ip branch itself failed. Two reasons:
1. `fetch("http://<ip>/", { headers: { host: name } })` follows the
site's :80→:443 redirect into `https://<name>.<tld>/`, which isn't
in ICANN DNS → "fetch failed".
2. The site's cert is signed by a per-machine BNS root, not a public
CA; standard TLS validation rejects it.
Both are fixed by connecting to the IP with SNI = name, pinning the
presented cert's SHA-256 against the on-chain `tls` record, and only
then issuing the HTTPS request over the same socket. The on-chain
fingerprint is the trust anchor BNS uses everywhere else (see
Argus/src/lib/ca.js).
Gateway (public-gateway.mjs): new pinnedHttpsGet + httpGet + ipRequest
helpers; case "ip" delegates. No silent HTTP fallback on pin failure
(a mismatch means "not the site the chain says it is").
Theseus (main.js): parallel port of the same helpers, Tor-aware
(routes through SocksProxyAgent when Tor is on). serveBns's inner
serveIp() delegates to ipRequest.
Verified live: `curl -sI https://navigate.st/bns/checkers.game.x/`
returns 200 OK with the checkers game (1,179,215 bytes, apex
`game.x` unchanged, served from Sia).
|
||
|---|---|---|
| dev | ||
| BROWSER-PROMPT.md | ||
| chrome.html | ||
| collision-preload.js | ||
| collision.html | ||
| DESIGN-password-manager.md | ||
| downloads-preload.js | ||
| downloads.html | ||
| engine-picker-preload.js | ||
| engine-picker.html | ||
| GOTCHAS.md | ||
| home.html | ||
| main.js | ||
| package-lock.json | ||
| package.json | ||
| PACKAGING-PROMPT.md | ||
| PENDING.md | ||
| popover-preload.js | ||
| popover.html | ||
| preload.js | ||
| README.md | ||
| RELEASE-HANDOFF.md | ||
| settings-preload.js | ||
| settings.html | ||
Theseus Navigator
The browser — the consumer face of the stack. Native .bch support with the
resolver built in, so a user installs one app instead of modifying their
operating system. Named for the thread through the labyrinth: the chain is the
thread.
Scope
- Electron shell (Chromium engine, no forking): tabs, address bar, history.
- In-process
.bchresolution — no system daemon, no NRPT, no OS trust-store changes; reusesbns.jsfrom the BNS repo as a library. - Record handling:
hrender,ipconnect,p/s3via in-app gateway,uredirect. - TLS via cert-verify hook (Electron
setCertificateVerifyProc) against the BNS root / on-chaintlsfingerprints — no OS store touched. - Provenance indicator: shows whether a page came from the chain / Sia / a direct server, with NFT category and record type — the decentralized padlock.
Status: not started
Build it in its own session/repo. The ready-to-paste brief is
BROWSER-PROMPT.md (a reference copy in this folder; canonical source is
D:\Dev\NameCoin\BROWSER-PROMPT.md — if they diverge, NameCoin wins). It points
here and reuses the resolver core. theseus.bch is registered and should
eventually serve the browser's own homepage over the protocol it implements.
Roadmap
BUILD-ROADMAP.md Stage 5.