glossary

The vocabulary, in plain English

The terms below appear across the pages and in the threads. The definitions are short. They are there so a word you meet at two in the morning has a meaning you can stand on, not a lecture.

.onion address

A special kind of web address that only resolves inside the Tor network. It ends in .onion and points to a hidden service, a server that is reached by routing through Tor rather than by a normal domain name.

v3 address

The current generation of .onion address, built on an ed25519 key. It is longer than the old v2 form and is what the market uses. If an address is short, it is probably an old v2.

hidden service

A server that lives inside Tor and is reached by its .onion address. The client and the server both hide their location from the open internet by routing through the network.

circuit

The path a piece of traffic takes through Tor. It is a chain of relays, and the traffic is wrapped in layers of encryption as it moves along the chain.

guard node

The first relay in your circuit, the one closest to you. Tor reuses a small set of guards so that an observer at your end does not see a different first hop every time you connect.

relay

A machine in the Tor network that forwards traffic from one hop to the next. Relays only see their own short segment of the circuit, not the whole path.

exit node

The last relay before traffic leaves Tor for the open internet. For a .onion, there is no true exit in the usual sense, because the destination is also inside the network.

bridge

A relay that is not in the public list of relays. Bridges are used when the public relays are blocked, so a censored network cannot tell which machines are part of Tor at all.

Tor Browser

The browser built to use Tor, available only from torproject.org. It is the program that actually resolves .onion addresses. No other browser does this by default.

clearnet

The ordinary open internet, as opposed to the hidden services inside Tor. A page you can reach with a normal browser and a normal domain is a clearnet page.

escrow

A holding arrangement for a payment. The buyer's coins sit with a third party until the buyer confirms receipt, so neither side can simply take the money and vanish.

multisig (2-of-3)

A wallet that needs two of three keys to release its funds. In the market's case the three keys are held by the buyer, the vendor, and the platform. Two agreeing releases the money; one alone cannot.

deposit

Coins sent into your market account. The amount becomes your balance once it passes the required confirmations for that coin.

confirmation

A block added to the chain after your transaction, which makes it harder to reverse. Each coin needs a certain number before the market counts the deposit as final.

withdrawal

Coins moved out of your market account to an address you control. It carries its own fee and its own confirmations, and it is the step that actually returns the funds to you.

walletless pay

A deposit where the market provides the address and holds the keys for it. Faster than running your own wallet, but the funds pass through the platform's custody on the way in.

seed phrase (mnemonic)

A row of words, usually twelve or twenty four, that encodes the keys of a wallet. Whoever holds the phrase controls the wallet. Never type it into a page you have not verified.

private key

The secret half of a key pair. It signs transactions and proves the coins are yours. It is what the seed phrase ultimately expands into.

view key and spend key

The two keys a Monero wallet is built on. The view key lets you see your transactions, and the spend key lets you move the funds. You need both to use the wallet, and you should not hand either to a page that has not earned it.

stealth address

A one time address derived for a single payment, so the same address is not reused and the link between sender and receiver is not obvious from the chain.

ring signature

A signature that hides which of a group of keys actually signed, so a transaction is verified without revealing its true author. Monero uses it to obscure the source of a payment.

coinjoin and tumbling

Ways to mix coins so their path is harder to follow. Several people's coins are combined and redistributed, breaking the simple one in, one out trail on the chain.

PGP

An encryption and signing system built on key pairs. It can encrypt a message so only the holder of a private key can read it, and it can sign one so anyone with the public key can check who made it.

fingerprint

A short string of groups derived from a public key, used to identify that exact key. The market's is printed in groups, and matching all the groups is how you confirm the key is the right one.

signature

A value produced with a private key that proves a message came from its holder. A good signature against a known key is the difference between a claim and a fact you can check.

PGP 2-FA

A second login factor that uses PGP. The market sends a code you must sign or decrypt with your key, so a password alone is not enough to get in.

feedback score

The rating a vendor accumulates from completed orders. A high score with many reviews means many buyers got what they ordered; a low count means less history to judge by.

dispute

The process of escalating an order that went wrong. The funds stay in escrow while the platform looks at it, and the outcome releases them to one side or the other.

vendor

A seller on the market. Each vendor has a storefront, a feedback history, and shipping terms. The vendor's posts in the thread carry a vendor flair.

DDoS protection

The layer that stands between a connection and the storefront and drops the traffic that looks like an attack. It is the challenge screen you pass through before the shop loads.

opsec

Operational security. The habits that keep your activity from linking back to you: using Tor, not reusing details, not typing secrets into a page you have not checked.

When a word here meets you in the wild, the first thing to do is confirm the address you are on. The screens of a first load are on the first visit page, and the key that makes an address trustworthy is on the verification page.