Every entry in this inventory has a line about where to keep the thing, a line about how it goes wrong, and usually a suggestion to write a date next to it. Those lines are short on purpose. The reasoning underneath them is the same across the whole list, so it sits on four pages instead of being repeated in thirty.
None of this is technical background. There is no explanation of how Tor routes a connection and no walk through of cryptography, because neither would change what you decide to carry. These four pages are about the handling of physical and written material, which is the part people actually get wrong.
Why these four and not others
They were chosen by counting which sentences kept wanting to be written twice. Storage came up in almost every entry, because a thing you hold has to be somewhere and the choice of somewhere decides how it fails. Dating came up wherever an item could rot, which is roughly half the list. Independence came up wherever the advice was to check something against a second place, which turns out to be worthless if the second place copied the first. Retirement came up because items leave the list too, and doing that badly leaves you believing you still hold something you do not.
Anything more specific stayed inside its entry. There is no general page about wallets or about keys, because the useful things to say about those belong to the wallet entry and the key entry and would only get vaguer if lifted out.
How to use them
Read them once, in any order, and then forget them. They are meant to be the background to a decision rather than something you consult each time. If an entry tells you to keep a thing on paper and you want to know why paper, the answer is a click away and it will take two minutes.
The exception is the page on independence. That one is worth rereading before you go and collect anything, because the mistake it describes feels exactly like doing the work properly. A person who finds an awazon market address on six pages that all copied the same source has done nothing except spend an afternoon, and there is no feeling of error at any point.
What is deliberately missing
- No page on choosing software. Recommendations age badly and this site would have no way to keep one honest.
- No page on threat models. That is a large subject and a bad one to cover in passing, and the inventory works the same regardless of what you are worried about.
- No page on whether any address is reachable. This site runs no checks and holds no opinion on the state of any onion address at any moment.
- No glossary. Terms are explained where they are used, which is more work to write and less work to read.
If you came here from an entry, the link back is in your history. If you came here first, the inventory table is the better starting point and these notes will make more sense once you have seen what they are supporting.
Questions that come up
Do I need to read these before the entries?
No, and it is probably the wrong order. The entries are concrete and these are the reasoning behind them. Read an entry, notice a claim that seems arbitrary, and follow the link. Reading in that direction makes the arbitrary looking parts obvious rather than tedious.
Will more reference pages be added?
Only if the same paragraph starts getting written into several entries at once. That is the test that produced these four, and it is a reasonable one to keep. A reference section that grows on its own becomes a place where writing goes to be ignored.