Aaron Johnson aaron.m.johnson@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