Glossary
The terms as they are used on this site and around the market. If a word comes up in a Dread thread or a forum post, it is probably defined here.
- .onion address
- The 56-character string plus the .onion suffix that identifies a hidden service. Only a Tor client can reach it; a regular browser gets nothing.
- hidden service
- A site that runs inside the Tor network and is only reachable through Tor. The market's storefront is one.
- v3 onion
- The current version of .onion addresses: 56 base32 characters encoding a public key, a routing key, and a checksum. The older v2 format is shorter and considered weaker.
- base32
- The alphabet used to write onion addresses: lowercase a through z and the digits 2 through 7, and nothing else. No 0, 1, 8 or 9, which is why a valid string never contains them.
- circuit
- The path your traffic takes through three Tor relays. Tor Browser rebuilds it from time to time, and "New Identity" forces a new one.
- relay
- A machine in the Tor network that passes traffic along. The relays are run by volunteers and organizations, not by the market.
- entry guard
- The first relay in your circuit, kept stable so the network cannot tell which sites you visit by watching your entry point change.
- bridge
- An unlisted relay used to get into Tor from censored networks. You enable one in Tor Browser's expert settings when normal relays are filtered.
- clearnet
- The regular internet, as opposed to Tor. A directory on the clearnet, like this one, is reachable without Tor and can only point at onions, not reach them.
- darknet market
- A storefront that sells goods between users, running inside Tor so neither side needs a public IP. AWAZON Market is one.
- mirror
- A second address serving the same site. On the market, the three addresses are interchangeable, but a "mirror" on some other domain or forum post is usually a copy, so check it against the verification steps before trusting it.
- directory
- A site that lists the current addresses and nothing else. This is one. It does not ping the onions or track you.
- tor2web
- A gateway that lets you open an onion address without Tor, by routing your traffic through a clearnet server. That server can read what you do, so treat it as a reader, not a mirror.
- escrow
- Holding the payment until the deal is done. On the market, buyer, vendor, and operator hold the funds together in a 2-of-3 multisig, so no single side can take the money alone.
- multisig
- A payment that needs several signatures to release. The market's 2-of-3 scheme means any two of the three parties can move the funds, which is how disputes get settled.
- finalize-early
- Releasing escrow before the usual timeout. New vendors work through escrow for every deal until their track record earns them this, and then they can close a deal the moment the buyer confirms.
- vendor bond
- Money a vendor posts before selling. It is what a buyer can claim from if the vendor sells fakes or disappears, which is why a bond shows up in a profile.
- deal count and dispute ratio
- The two numbers in a vendor profile: how many deals have been completed, and what share of them ended in a dispute. A high count with a low ratio is what you want to see before you buy.
- PGP signature
- A cryptographic stamp proving a post was written by the key holder and not edited since. The operator publishes the address set as signed posts on Dread, so you can check the signature without trusting any directory.
- Dread
- The forum the operator uses as the only official channel for announcements, including key rotation. The public key is registered under f@[email protected] and its fingerprint ends in 12C82C2865D77D55.
- fingerprint
- The short checksum of a PGP public key, used to confirm you imported the right key. The market's captcha image also carries a fingerprint baked in, which a clone cannot match without the operator's key.
- key rotation
- When the operator retires a set of addresses and issues a new one. Old sets stop working, and directories that have not been updated still list the old ones, so a mismatch usually means the set rotated, not that you did something wrong.
- access queue
- The short page you see on first load, which tells you not to refresh while you are being forwarded to the storefront. Refreshing restarts the wait.
- honeypot field
- A hidden input in the login form that a human never fills and a bot does. The field is renamed on every page load, so a saved form or an old bot script gets it wrong.
- deposit address
- The Bitcoin or Monero address the market gives you for a specific order. You send the exact amount to that address, and funds sent anywhere else are not credit.
- withdrawal PIN
- The code you set when withdrawing, which confirms the request is yours and not someone with your session. Treat it like a second password, not something to reuse from other sites.
For the longer explanation of how the addresses work under the hood, see what a .onion address actually is. For the questions that come up most often, see the FAQ.