WTN Mirror Studies

Section one of eight

Plurality

The first section takes the plainest version of the subject. There is more than one address. Something follows from that, and a good deal of what people assume follows from it does not.

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.

What this section covers

Most writing about WTN market links starts by handing you the strings and stops there. This section starts one step earlier and asks why there is a set to hand over instead of a single line of text. That turns out to be a question with a real answer, and the answer has consequences that run through every other section on this site.

The studies below separate four things that get muddled together: what redundancy actually buys, what it costs the person reading, what it is not, and who gets to decide what the set contains. None of those four have the same answer, and treating them as one idea is where most confusion about WeTheNorth mirrors begins.

  1. Three addresses can describe one marketWhat the plural in the word mirrors actually refers to, and what stays singular.
  2. What a second address actually buys youThe narrow, real benefit of redundancy, separated from three imagined ones.
  3. What a second address costs the readerRedundancy is not free, and the bill is paid entirely by the person reading.
  4. A second mirror is not a backup of the firstWhy the backup metaphor misdescribes the arrangement, and what it makes people expect.
  5. The head all three addresses shareA shared opening exists only because there is a set, and it is worth exactly one thing.
  6. Why the set is three and not fiftySet size is information, and a longer set is not a better one.
  7. Plurality is not a promise that one will answerA set of three commits nobody to anything, and reading it as an assurance leads somewhere bad.
  8. Nobody on this side decides what the set containsThe set has an author, and it is never the page you are reading it on.

The test every study here has to pass

A claim belongs in this section only if it would stop being true for a market with exactly one published address. That rules out almost everything usually written under this heading. It rules out advice about the Tor Browser, about passwords, about payment, about vendors. All of that is real and none of it is about plurality.

What survives the test is a short list, and this section is most of it. The rest of the site takes the survivors and follows them out into choosing, equivalence, divergence, switching, absence, lists and mistakes.

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