The impatient approach that skips the second check
A slow approach cross checks the address against a second source. An impatient approach trusts one source. This is what that trust looks like from the inside.
The three addresses
Nexus Market publishes these three onion addresses. Present as supplied, in no order, with no ranking. This site does not probe them and shows no uptime figure.
nexusb2l7fmqnefwphyy7m5zjhlkytlbo7qbb5lu5dlczr3azgii2gyd.onion
nexusma2iqgauqqvjcgds4ckv5xbf272tkfagq4epojjhsgleqpwxiqd.onion
nexusabcd6tyfhdwilyitaqiri6tisj2v2hueyjuj6qkvd6azvi5tuqd.onion
What the second check does when I do it
The slow version of the address check is to have two independent sources open at the same time and to compare the addresses across them, character by character. On the days I do that, I catch the class of mistake where a source has published the wrong address, whether by mistake or by design.
It also catches the class of mistake where I picked the wrong source from a search result, because comparing against a second source lets me notice that the first source disagrees with everybody else.
When I do the second check I feel a small confidence boost that is worth the two minutes it costs.
What I am trusting when I skip it
When I skip the second check I am trusting this site. I have decided that the address block at the top of the article is right, and I have decided that today I do not need to test that decision against another source.
That is a choice, not a shortcut. If I hold this site in high enough regard that I do not want to cross check it every time, that is a defensible position. It is also a position I want to notice I am holding, so that I can decide when to reopen it.
The impatient approach without a second check is honest as long as I am aware of it.
How I decide whether the skip is fair today
I ask myself when I last cross checked the address against another source. If it was in the last few days, the skip is fair. If it was long enough ago that I do not remember, the skip is not fair and I do the check.
I also ask whether anything about the visit is unusually consequential. If the visit is going to involve money, the skip is not fair. If the visit is a five minute look at a page I have read many times, the skip is fine.
The check is proportional to the risk, and the risk is proportional to what I am about to do.
The one small thing I still do even without the second check
I look at the last six characters of the address in the browser bar after the paste, and I compare them with the last six characters on this site. This is not the second source check. It is the paste check, and it catches the smaller class of clipboard slips.
It takes one second. It stays in every version of the impatient approach. Skipping the second source check is not a licence to skip the paste check.
What the skip does not save me from
It does not save me from a compromised source. If this site were wrong on a given day, the impatient approach would follow the wrong address. That is the honest cost of trusting one source without a second one.
It does not save me from having chosen the wrong source in the first place. If I had gone to a site I do not trust as much and skipped the cross check there, I would be trusting the wrong site instead of no site at all.
The skip does not save me from anything at all, in the strong sense. It only trades a small amount of confidence for a small amount of time.
When I would never skip
- A first visit ever. The second check gets done, no exceptions.
- A visit after a long time away, where I do not know what has changed.
- A visit that will move money.
- Any visit where the source I was going to use is not this site.
When the skip is the right call
On the tenth visit in a week where nothing has changed and the visit is short, the skip is proportionate. On any visit where the impatience is about a five minute window closing and the alternative is skipping the visit entirely, the skip is a proportional trade.
On days when I have done the cross check yesterday and the addresses were identical, today's skip is riding on yesterday's work. The work carries over for a while.
The tone of this article, on purpose
This article is calm about a shortcut that many people would say should never be taken. That is deliberate. The impatient approach exists whether it is written about or not, and pretending it does not exist is what leads to people taking it badly. Writing about it plainly is what lets me take it well.
When I skip the second check, I know I skipped the second check. When I do not skip it, I know I did the work. Both states are honest. The bad state is the one where I skipped it and lied to myself about it afterwards.
The verify approach with two lists side by side, the same visit with a full side by side compare
What this article is not. This is not a claim that any address is verified by anybody in particular. It is a claim about what I choose to do with the addresses I already trust.