Nexus market mirrors, as published on this site
nexusb2l7fmqnefwphyy7m5zjhlkytlbo7qbb5lu5dlczr3azgii2gyd.onionnexusma2iqgauqqvjcgds4ckv5xbf272tkfagq4epojjhsgleqpwxiqd.onionnexusabcd6tyfhdwilyitaqiri6tisj2v2hueyjuj6qkvd6azvi5tuqd.onionPublished as supplied. This site does not probe an onion, so nothing here is a claim that a given address opens for you right now.
This is the dossier for the nexus market address lookalike where the head and the tail of the visible run before the .onion label read as the real string, and a block in the middle has been swapped for a different run of base32 characters.
What it is
A nexus market address is fifty six characters long before the .onion label. A reader who skims addresses often reads the first few characters as a name and the last few as a checksum, and passes over the middle without reading. A lookalike that keeps the head, keeps the tail and swaps the middle is a lookalike that passes the skim.
The full string is a valid v3 onion. It resolves. It opens something. It is not nexus market. The trap works because the head and the tail are what the reader remembers, and the middle is where the eye least expects a change. A block of a few characters in the middle is enough to change the address entirely.
Where the block comes in
The block can arrive from a paste that has been touched by hand. A copy from one source, an edit in the middle to save room on a slide or a note, and a paste into a message. The edit was meant to shorten the middle of a display string, but the string is not display. The address as pasted has lost the block it had and gained one it never had.
A generated lookalike is the second origin. A tool that generates v3 onions with the vanity prefix nexus can produce many strings that all share the same head. A page that publishes one of them next to the address of the real market is a page whose author is using the head as bait.
Lifeline
- The head and the tail read familiar
- The block in the middle is not the same
- A column by column check catches it
How to catch it
The catch is a check that does not skip the middle. Every character is read, or the address is copied into a monospace field and compared column by column with a source the reader trusts. A source the reader trusts on this site is any address on the panel above, because the panel above rides on every page. A reader who compares the paste with the panel column by column finds the swapped block.
- On a paste
- Read the whole string, not the head and the tail alone. Even a slow single pass catches most swaps.
- On a comparison
- Copy the source and the paste into two rows and align the columns. Any row with a different character is a block that has moved.
- On this site
- The panel above holds the three nexus market addresses this site publishes. The reader can align a paste with any of the three by eye.
What this card does not claim
- It does not print any lookalike nexus market address in full. The trap is the middle block, and the card describes only the shape.
- It does not say which block position is most often swapped. Every position in the middle is available to a lookalike.
- It does not name any tool that generates vanity onions. The card is about the reader end, not the generator end.
A comparison that runs across the whole run
A comparison that runs across the whole fifty six character run is a defence against every trap in the middle. A comparison that reads only the vanity prefix passes many of them. A comparison that reads only the tail passes some of them. Both together are stronger than either alone. All three at once, on a monospace column, catch this class of trap.
The middle as the identity of the address
The identity of a v3 onion is spread across the whole string. The vanity prefix is a name that is expensive to generate for the first few characters and cheap for the last few. The middle carries the public key and the checksum, and no lookalike can share the middle of the real address without also sharing the identity. That is why the middle is the interesting part of a trap on this shape.
A reader who has understood that the middle carries the identity has understood the whole class. Every trap on this rubric that swaps a run of characters in the middle is a lookalike that keeps the name and drops the identity. The check is always the same. Compare the middle with a source the reader trusts.
A source the reader can reach without leaving the page
The panel above is a source of that kind. It rides at the top of every page on this site, so a reader who is reading any dossier can scroll to it, copy any of the three nexus market addresses, and compare it with a paste on a second window. The comparison is a two window job that a reader can run in under a minute.
What the reader is looking for
A block that has moved shows up as a run of characters that do not match on the same column, sitting between a matching head and a matching tail. The runs may be a few characters long, or ten, or twenty. The size of the block does not change the check. A single mismatched column is a fail, and the reader stops on the first one they find.