PawSD is a distributed directory system for modern networks. It permits everyone to publish information about themselves and advertise their networked services in a secure and open way, promoting autonomy and independence from centralised naming organisations.
Compared to DNS (its closest equivalent in current widespread use) it allows you to use completely arbitrary names, doesn't require you to pay money to anyone, is cryptographically verified by default, and supports usage of networks other than the Internet, among other benefits. Its main shortcoming is that names are necessarily not globally unique, so you can't just tell someone to go to a particular URL and expect it to work. In practice though, this can be solved through hyperlinks and large “community directories”, and it is more detrimental for unsolicited advertisements and spam than it is for genuine friendly networking.
PawSD also tries to avoid creating any distinction between “administrator” and “end user”. As a user, you can create and manage your own zone(s), which lets you publish edge names (see below) and add entries for your website, etc., through the same graphical interface you use to manage your contacts.1)
It is based around a few core data structures:
Additionally, there are a number of different ways zones and services can be given readable names (all of which are arbitrary Unicode strings):
The concept of “edges” allows people to publish their own names for each other, which can be followed by others. For example, an organisation might publish edge names for their staff in a professional context, such as “Jane Smith (Camera Operator)”, while your friend might publish edges for the same zones with more informal names like “jane from college”. (of course these are quite contrived examples, but hopefully they illustrate the point!)2)