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The operator approach: what a mirror does and does not share

The three onion addresses at the top of this article are three doors into the same market. On the operator side they share more than they look like they do from mine.

Operator approach 3 min read why no author line

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

Three doors, one house

The three mirrors serve the same market. They share the account database, the inbox, the vendor pages, everything. A reader who signs in on one and looks at the inbox and then signs out and signs in on another sees the same inbox.

That is the whole point of having three mirrors. Redundancy from the reader side; a single service from the operator side.

What the operator plausibly logs across them

A visit that comes in through one mirror or another is the same visit from the operator's perspective, tied to whichever account is active. The mirror is a door, not a personality.

If the operator wanted to notice that a given account tends to use one specific mirror, they could. That is a small piece of behavioural pattern; it does not identify the reader.

What the operator does not do with mirror choice

They do not treat different mirrors as different levels of trust. A reader who uses one mirror is not more or less trusted than one who uses another. The mirrors are equivalent from the operator side as much as they are from mine.

They also do not ration functionality across mirrors. What is available on one is available on all.

Why the mirrors are equivalent to me

Because they are equivalent to the operator. The market designed them to be interchangeable. My rotation across them is possible because the design supports it.

That is why this site publishes the three addresses without ranking. Ranking would be adding a fiction that does not exist on the operator side.

What happens if a mirror goes away

The other two continue to serve. The operator sees traffic redistribute across the remaining mirrors. Nothing about my account changes; the account lives with the market, not with the mirror.

This is the shape a reader wants three mirrors to have. It is also the shape three mirrors do have on any well run market.

What the operator gets from having three

Robustness against any single mirror being unavailable. Distribution of load across three onion services rather than one. A cushion for the reader when any one mirror is having a slow day.

The operator does not benefit from having me use one specific mirror. They benefit from the readers being able to use any of them.

How this shapes my approach

  • I use whichever of the three loads first on the day.
  • I do not attribute meaning to the choice of mirror.
  • I do not read anything about the market's state into whichever mirror I ended up on.
  • I rotate across them softly, as the routine article describes.

The plain summary

Three mirrors are three doors into one market. The operator sees them as doors. I see them as doors. Neither of us should be treating any door as more real than the others.

The operator approach to the mirrors is one where the mirror choice is a shrug, not a decision.

The opposite approach

The routine approach with one eye on a newer mirror, the reader side rotation between the three doors

What this article is not. This is not a claim about how the market's infrastructure works. It is a description of what a reasonable reader would infer from the outside.

Read another in this approach

The operator approach: what a request tells the marketI never speak for the operator. I only describe what I think they can and cannot see, from the outside. The operator approach: what the inbox tells themThe inbox is the market. Anything I send through it lives with them, not with me. The operator approach: what I cannot know and choose not to guessSome things about the operator I cannot know. Guessing about them is worse than admitting I do not.
Every page on this site
All approaches on this siteHow to read this siteThe words people searchThe three nexus market addressesWhat this site is notThe first-time approachThe cautious approachThe impatient approachThe rebuild approachThe verify approachThe routine approachThe secondary approachThe helper approachThe journalistic approachThe operator approachThe first-time approach when a friend sent me a noteThe first-time approach out of a forum threadThe first-time approach starting on a search pageThe first-time approach after reading a news articleThe first-time approach after hearing it on a podcastThe cautious approach before I touch the keyboardThe cautious approach when the network is not mineThe cautious approach with a second machineThe cautious approach to what I copy and what I typeThe cautious approach that never signs inThe impatient approach that goes straight to the address barThe impatient approach from a tab I already had openThe impatient approach inside a five minute windowThe impatient approach when a mirror is slowThe impatient approach that skips the second checkThe rebuild approach after losing the phoneThe rebuild approach after losing every noteThe rebuild approach after losing the passwordThe rebuild approach after a clean installThe rebuild approach when one mirror has gone quietThe verify approach with two lists side by sideThe verify approach for a friends messageThe verify approach against this site aloneThe verify approach that reads the string itselfThe verify approach across two visitsThe routine approach on a normal eveningThe routine approach with one eye on a newer mirrorThe routine approach when nothing has changedThe routine approach that reads the front page firstThe routine approach with one eye on my own consistencyThe secondary approach coming from another marketThe secondary approach that keeps two markets separateThe secondary approach during a move between marketsThe secondary approach that eventually stops being secondaryThe secondary approach that reads one market and uses anotherThe helper approach at one desk with two readersThe helper approach for questions coming through a chatThe helper approach on paper, for laterThe helper approach and the things I refuse to doThe helper approach that only points at this siteThe journalistic approach for a story I am not going to nameThe journalistic approach for a story that names peopleThe journalistic approach when I interview somebodyThe journalistic approach and what not to publishThe journalistic approach in a shared CMSThe operator approach: what a request tells the marketThe operator approach: what a slow visit looks like from thereThe operator approach: what the inbox tells themThe operator approach: what a mirror does and does not shareThe operator approach: what I cannot know and choose not to guess