Account and identity
WeTheNorth addresses
hn2paw7zadwkcra3qzv5e4q547i7e5lvxm62cfxqftuqdu7moiu2ceyd.onionhn2paw7zfvndw3dovycegeqmvvnf4pl67b3g2p7pohjlzavloosh73id.onionhn2paw7zrgujyhnt6mgxlt2q6uhgbke4itpqitxhyfbumq3wtnckbuyd.onionPrinted as supplied, in no order. Nothing here is checked or timed, so an address that opens is not proof of anything. more about the set
An account here is not a customer record. It is a credential with nothing attached to it, no contact details behind it and no company obliged to help you get back into it.
Every service most people use keeps a thread back to them. An email address, a phone number, a card on file. That thread is what makes support possible, what makes password resets possible, and what makes the whole relationship feel like a relationship. Remove the thread and a lot of ordinary expectations stop working at once, in ways that are easier to understand together than one at a time.
These four entries deal with what an account is, what it cannot do for you, and the one piece of key material that keeps working even when everything on the screen has been replaced by a copy.
- Support
- Exists inside the platform and nowhere outside it. Anybody offering help through another channel is offering something else.
- Recovery
- There is nothing to recover from. No email on file means no reset path, by design rather than by neglect.
- Passwords
- Reused credentials leak sideways from places you have already forgotten about.
- PGP
- The only check that still works when the page in front of you is a perfect copy.
- Support will answer Where support actually lives and what its absence outside means.
- My account can be recovered What replaces a reset link when there is no address to send one to.
- Reusing this password is fine How a password from an old forum ends up being tried here.
- PGP is optional paperwork The check that covers every character and does not care what the page looks like.
Why an account here is deliberately thin
Every field a platform collects is a field that can be leaked, subpoenaed, sold or used to connect you to something else. A market that holds nothing about you holds nothing to lose. That is the trade, and it is made in your favour on the day the data would have been taken and against you on the day you forget a password.
The awkward part is that the cost lands on individuals and the benefit lands on everybody. Your forgotten mnemonic is a total personal loss. The absence of an email database is a general protection you never notice, because nothing happening is invisible. People feel the first and not the second, which is why the design reads as neglect rather than as a choice.
What the thinness removes
| On an ordinary service | Here |
|---|---|
| Reset link to your email | Nothing to send it to |
| Support who can confirm your identity | No facts about you to confirm |
| An alert when a new device logs in | No channel to alert you on |
| A record connecting you to the account | None, which is the point |
Read the right column as a whole and the four entries stop looking like four separate problems. They are one property of the design seen from four angles, and the response to all of them is the same. Hold your own material carefully, because nothing else is holding it for you.
One thing to do today
If you already have an account and the signup material is stored in a note app, a photo or a browser profile, move it to paper. That single act removes the most common cause of permanent loss described in this section, and it takes about two minutes.
The front door section covers what happens before you log in. This one starts at the login form.