Glossary: terms around Tor markets
The terms below come up on this site and on the market itself. Definitions are short, because a glossary is not an essay.
The network
Tor
Tor is a network of relays that routes your traffic through random nodes before it reaches its destination. Each relay only knows its immediate neighbors. You use it through Tor Browser, which does the routing for you.
.onion address
An .onion address is the name of a hidden service on the Tor network. It is 56 characters of base32 plus the .onion suffix. It is not a domain: no registrar, no DNS, it exists because the service holds a private key.
Hidden service
A hidden service is a server reachable only through Tor. The client finds it without learning the server's real IP, and the server never learns the client's. Anonymity runs in both directions.
Circuit
A circuit is the path a connection takes through three or more relays. Tor builds a fresh one per destination, and the first request over a new circuit is the slow part. That is why a first load can take 20-60 seconds.
Clearnet
The clearnet is the regular internet: DNS names, public IPs, unencrypted by default. This site lives on the clearnet. The market does not, and it will not open in a clearnet browser.
The market
DNM (darknet market)
A DNM is an online market that runs only on Tor. Vendors list goods, buyers pay in crypto, and the market holds the money until the buyer confirms delivery. Drugs are the most visible category, not the only one.
Escrow
Escrow is the payment hold inside the market. Your coins go to the market, not the vendor, and the market releases them when you confirm the order arrived. If it did not, you open a dispute.
Deposit
A deposit is money you move from your wallet into your market balance. It is your spending money inside the store, separate from the wallet.
Withdrawal
A withdrawal is money you move from your market balance back to your own wallet. It is the reverse of a deposit, and it needs a destination address, so check it twice before you confirm.
Vendor
A vendor is someone selling on the market. They post listings, ship orders, and collect public feedback from buyers. Feedback is the only reputation there is.
Dispute
A dispute is what you open when an order did not arrive or did not match the listing. The market keeps the escrow while moderators read both sides' messages and tracking info. The outcome lands in the public feedback.
Moderator
A moderator is staff who handle disputes, review new vendors, and police the subforums. They are not the operator. They are people the operator hired, and inside the market their call is final.
Dread
Dread is a forum on Tor where market users talk. The operator runs the /d/MarsMarket sub there, and the PGP key and the signed mirror list are posted in it. If an address appears somewhere else first, Dread is where you confirm it.
Verification and clones
PGP
PGP is a system of key pairs for signing and encrypting. The public key verifies and encrypts, the private key signs and decrypts. When the operator signs the mirror list, anyone holding the public key can check the signature.
Fingerprint
A fingerprint is the short human-readable hash of a PGP public key. You compare it against a published one before you trust the key, because one wrong character means you are trusting someone else. Mars Market's is 5C7E5124 821D5AD6 9C4E668C 2324E086 159BACCC.
Digital signature
A digital signature proves a message came from the holder of a private key and was not edited afterward. You check it with the signer's public key. The signed mirror list carries one.
Mirror
A mirror is another address pointing at the same store. Mars Market runs three, all of them the same accounts, the same balances, the same stock. There is no primary and no backup, so use whichever one loads.
Vanity address
A vanity address is one where the operator chose the prefix. All three Mars Market addresses start with "mars" on purpose. It makes the real ones easier to spot in a pile of clones.
base32
The 56 characters of an .onion address use only a-z and the digits 2-7. That is base32, a 5-bit encoding, which is why you never see 0, 1, 8, or 9 in one. A single wrong character is a completely different store.
Anti-phishing gate
The gate is the page the market shows on your first visit to an address. A black card, red monospace text, your address with six characters masked as asterisks. You type the six missing characters from the address bar, and if they match, you are through.
Clone
A clone is a fake market built to look like the real one: same layout, same logos, a close-but-wrong address. Clones do not copy the stock, they copy the login page. The checks on the verify page exist because clones are how people lose their balance.
DDoS
A DDoS is a flood of traffic aimed at making a server stop answering. Clearnet sites go down under it. For a market on Tor, the symptom is an address that stops loading, and the operator's routine answer is to rotate to new ones.