WTN Mirror Studies

Study 4 of 8 in Divergence

Two front pages that do not match

The entrance is what you see first, which is why it gets over read.

The question

What does it mean if the first page on one address does not look like the first page on another?

The three WTN mirror addresses

  • hn2paw7zfvndw3dovycegeqmvvnf4pl67b3g2p7pohjlzavloosh73id.onion
  • hn2paw7zrgujyhnt6mgxlt2q6uhgbke4itpqitxhyfbumq3wtnckbuyd.onion
  • hn2paw7zadwkcra3qzv5e4q547i7e5lvxm62cfxqftuqdu7moiu2ceyd.onion

Set out flat, in the arrangement they were handed over, with nothing added. Nothing on this page marks one of them as the main one, because on this site that would be the one claim the studies are all arguing against. This reference opens none of them and measures nothing about them.

Why the front page gets compared

It is the only page a reader sees on every route without doing anything. It is also the page they see before signing in, which means it is the page they see when they are least sure of where they are.

So it becomes the informal test of whether a route is the right one, and it is a poor test.

Three ordinary reasons two entrances differ

  1. One of them is not the entrance. Arriving at a slightly different path on one route puts you somewhere adjacent, and adjacent pages look similar enough to be mistaken for the same one.
  2. One of them is old, kept by your browser, which is the usual suspect.
  3. The entrance genuinely changed between the two moments you looked, and one of your two views predates the change.

Why the front page is a weak test of anything

An entrance is the easiest part of anything to reproduce. It is public, it is seen by everybody, and copying how it looks requires nothing but looking at it. Whatever the entrance shows, it shows to anyone who asks, including anyone who wants to build something similar.

So a matching entrance is close to no evidence, and a mismatching entrance is a reason to check where you are rather than a conclusion about anything.

What is worth comparing instead

  • The address itself, character by character, against the copy you hold. This is the only comparison in this whole section that settles anything.
  • Whether you are where you meant to be, rather than one page away from it.
  • Whether both pages were actually fetched just now.

The comparison people think they are making

They think they are comparing two markets. They are comparing two pictures of an entrance, taken at different moments, one of which may have been kept in a drawer by their browser.

Framed that way it is obvious why the comparison carries so little. Framed as this mirror looks wrong, it feels like strong evidence.

When a mismatched entrance is worth acting on

When the address is not one of the three you hold. That is the case that matters, and it is settled by looking at the string rather than the page.

A difference in appearance between two routes you have confirmed by string is not something to act on. A route you have not confirmed by string is worth acting on regardless of how it looks.

Why this is a plurality problem

A reader with one entrance has nothing to compare it to and therefore never runs this test. They are neither better nor worse informed, but they are not misled by a comparison that looks meaningful and is not.

Having three entrances invites a visual check that feels rigorous, takes the place of the check that would actually work, and is passed easily by anything designed to pass it.

The rule

Check the string, not the picture. Everything else in this study is an elaboration of that sentence, and the sentence is the only part that needs keeping.

The check people substitute this for

Comparing entrances takes seconds and feels thorough. Comparing a fifty six character string against a stored copy takes longer and feels tedious. Readers do the first and count it as having done the second.

That substitution is the actual harm in this study. The visual comparison is not merely uninformative, it occupies the place where the informative check should have gone, and it leaves the reader feeling that a check was performed.

If there were only one address

There would be one entrance and no visual comparison to make. A reader would still have to check that the address they used was the right one, which is the check that works, and they would not have a second entrance available to substitute for it. The comparison plurality offers is easier than the check that matters, so it displaces it.

What this study is not. It is not a description of what any entrance looks like, and nothing on this site reports the appearance of any page behind any address.

Every page on this site

How this site thinksThe addressesPluralityThree addresses can describe one marketWhat a second address actually buys youWhat a second address costs the readerA second mirror is not a backup of the firstThe head all three addresses shareWhy the set is three and not fiftyPlurality is not a promise that one will answerNobody on this side decides what the set containsChoosingThere is no correct address to open firstOpening the first address you seeAfter a while, habit picks for youReading order is not a rankingChoosing badly happens when you are in a hurryRotating between the three on purposeLoad time as a tiebreak, and where it failsThe choice you only make once per visitEquivalenceOne account, reachable from any of the threeThe inbox is one object, seen from three routesAn order does not belong to the address it came fromA balance is not held per addressThe circuit is yours, not the address'sA session does not follow you across addressesChecks at the front door are per routeWhere the sameness stopsDivergenceWhen two addresses seem to disagreeA stale page is not a stale marketYour own browser can manufacture a differenceTwo front pages that do not matchOne route slow, one quick, one marketSomething on one route and not the otherThe kind of difference that mattersTelling a real difference from an apparent oneSwitchingWhat carries when you switch mid visitWhat is dropped the moment you switchSwitching while an order is half writtenSwitching while a message is half typedProblems switching will not fixTwo routes open in two tabsThe moments where switching is the right moveThe cost of switching, counted honestlyAbsenceOne route quiet, two answeringTwo quiet, one answeringAll three quiet at onceWhat silence cannot tell youThe quiet that is on your sideRoutes that go quiet and come backNothing announces that a route went quietWhy there is no uptime number hereListsA list is a copy, not the thingHow a list goes staleTwo honest lists can differA list longer than the setWhat a list can and cannot proveThe list you keep yourselfReading the age of a listA list that ranks its entriesMistakesMixing characters from two addressesAssuming the set has an orderTreating one address as the real siteKeeping one and not the setJudging the market by one routeRetyping an address from memoryExpecting one route to point at anotherBlaming the market for a route level problemAll studiesThe words people type