Getting to the storefront

Four honest steps. The only one people skip is the one that keeps them off a phishing clone, so do not skip it.

BlackOps has no address on the normal web. Anything on clearnet wearing its name is a copy built to catch a password. The market lives entirely on Tor, reached through one of the verified onion links in the side panel.

1. Install Tor Browser from the source

Download Tor Browser only from the Tor Project's own site. Verify the signature the first time, then raise the security level to Safest. A regular browser cannot open a .onion address at all, and a browser you got from a random link is not one to trust with this.

2. Copy a link, never type it

A v3 onion is fifty-six characters of noise on purpose. Copy one from the panel. Typing it by hand is how people land one character off on a lookalike that someone registered for exactly that mistake.

3. Open it and read the address back

When the login screen loads, compare the onion in your address bar against the one printed on the page. BlackOps embeds its address in the anti-phishing image and reprints it in the header. A clone can copy the look of the login but cannot serve the correct address in both of those places while sending you somewhere else.

4. Sign in slowly the first time

Pick a username you have used nowhere else, generate a long password in a local manager, and write the recovery phrase on paper. Turn on the PGP two-factor step so a leaked password on its own opens nothing. If any screen ever asks you to type the recovery phrase to log in, you are on a fake. Close the tab.