TRUST LAYER // SIGNATURE CHECK // 2026
Mars PGP Verification 2026: Check the Signature First
A Mars link that loads proves only that something answered. It says nothing about who is on the other end. The one check a clone cannot fake is a PGP signature over the address list, tied to a fingerprint you already hold. This page is the standalone walk-through for that check — command by command. For the format-checker tool that validates an onion string's shape before you even get to signatures, see the Mars canon's verify tool on our sibling reference.
http://marskp4ozu3nv2ez3in5ofyukovali7o5ioxyuvubeus74cu2bjl5nid.onionCopy this, then diff it against the signed list once the signature checks. The full set of failovers lives on the home console.
pending (Phase 0)The signing key is not out yet. It lands in Phase 0. Until then there is no signature to check, and the honest fallback is a full character match against the console list.
The four gates an address clears
Trust is not one yes-or-no. An address earns it by passing four gates in order. Skip a gate and the ones after it mean nothing. Here is the path from a key you have never seen to an address you are willing to open.
What a detached signature actually proves
A detached signature is a small separate file that ties the exact bytes of the address list to one private key. Change the list by a single character and the signature stops matching. Write your own list without that private key and you cannot produce a signature that checks out against the published fingerprint. So a good Mars check answers one narrow question: did the holder of the Mars canon key write this list, unchanged since it was signed.
Keep the limit in view. The signature vouches for the Mars address list, not for the market running it. It tells you the Mars address was published by the key you trust. It says nothing about vendors, escrow, or whether the service behind the door is having a good day.
Run the check yourself
The whole thing is five moves in a terminal. Do them on the machine you browse from, offline where you can.
Step 1 — Import and check the key
- Import the canon public key into a clean keyring.
- Read the imported fingerprint and match it by eye to the one shown here.
Step 2 — Verify the signed list
- Download the signed list and its signature file.
- Run the verify command and require a good signature.
Step 3 — Diff the address you actually want
- Only then diff the address you want against the verified list.
gpg --import canon-pub.asc
gpg --fingerprint # compare to the value above
gpg --verify mirrors.json.sig mirrors.json
# require GOODSIG and the trusted fingerprint before you trust a byteNo terminal handy? The on-page URL validator does the character match for you against the embedded list. It is a convenience, not a substitute for the signature.
One wrong character is a different server
An onion address is not a name someone picked. It is a public key written out in text. Swap a single character and you are pointing at an entirely different service, or at nothing. This is exactly how phishing works here: a clone mints an address that shares the first few letters, banks on you skimming the prefix, and serves a login box that harvests what you type. The defence is boring and it works. Copy the whole string and compare every one of its characters against the verified list. No shortcut reads the middle for you.
Trust on first use, and the Phase 0 gap
There is one honest weak spot in any key-based scheme, and it is the first import. The moment you bring the canon key in, you are deciding to trust the fingerprint in front of you. Get that first read right and every later check builds on solid ground. Get it from a poisoned source and you have signed up to trust a fake.
Right now the Mars canon key is not published. That is the Phase 0 gap, and this Mars page will not pretend otherwise. Until the key lands, there is no Mars signature to verify and the weaker fallback stands: match the full Mars address against the console list by eye, and treat anything from search, chat, or mail as unproven. When the fingerprint goes live here and on the console, pin it, and diff against that pin every session after.
Want the live status of each node while you are here? The Mars status page shows the last probe sweep.
Why Mars needs a PGP check at all
Mars is one of the most cloned darknet market names in circulation, which is exactly why a Mars PGP check exists as its own page instead of a footnote. Search ads for Mars route through networks that resell the top slot to whoever bids on the Mars keyword that week, and a cloned Mars login page costs a phisher almost nothing to stand up. Nobody running Mars can stop a clone from copying the Mars wordmark, the Mars color scheme, or the Mars layout pixel for pixel. What a clone cannot copy is a Mars signature that checks out against a Mars fingerprint you already trust. That is the one Mars trust signal that survives a perfect visual clone: treat any Mars link you did not verify yourself — from a search ad, a forum post, or a paste site — as an unverified claim until the signature says otherwise. The Mars mirror list on the console and the Mars status page both point at this same verified address, so a check done here holds for either Mars entry point.
What PGP is, in plain terms, before you verify a Mars market address
If detached signatures and fingerprints are new territory, this section covers the concept itself before returning to how it applies to a Mars market address specifically.
A key pair, not a password
PGP works with a pair of mathematically linked keys: a private key kept secret by whoever signs something, and a public key anyone can hold and use to check that signature. The Mars market canon signs its mirror list with the private half; you verify with the public half. Nothing about this exchanges a password or grants access to anything — it only proves authorship.
A signature versus a fingerprint
These two terms get mixed up often. The fingerprint is a short, fixed string that identifies a specific public key — you compare it once, by eye, against a source you trust, to confirm you hold the genuine Mars market key. The signature is different: it is generated fresh for a specific file (the mirror list), and verifying it confirms that exact file has not been altered since the key holder signed it.
Why this is stronger than "the site looks right"
A convincing clone can copy every visible design element of the Mars market reference. What it cannot do is produce a valid signature without the private key, which never leaves the party that controls the genuine Mars market mirror list. This is the entire reason PGP verification outranks visual familiarity as a trust signal — looks are cheap to copy, a valid signature is not.
For a general, vendor-neutral introduction to how PGP and public-key cryptography work, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Surveillance Self-Defense guide on public-key encryption covers the underlying mechanism in more depth than this page needs to repeat.
PGP key management and failed checks, in depth
Importing a key and running one verify command covers the mechanics. The two panels below cover the parts that actually determine whether that verification means anything: how you manage the key over time, and what a failed check is really telling you.
PGP key management deep-dive: keeping the canon key trustworthy over time
A PGP key you imported once and never looked at again is a weaker anchor than it feels like. The first import matters — pull the key from more than one independent path if you can (the console, a long-standing forum post, a keyserver listing) and compare fingerprints before trusting any of them, since the danger moment for a phishing operation is the very first key import, before you have a known-good fingerprint to check future updates against.
After the first import, watch for a key rotation announcement. Legitimate operators rotate signing keys periodically, or after a suspected compromise, and a real rotation is always announced through the same verified channel as the original key — never through an unsolicited forum DM or a new site claiming to be an "updated official mirror." Treat a claimed key rotation you cannot trace back to a channel you already trust as a compromise attempt until proven otherwise, since a stolen or forged "new key" is one of the more effective phishing plays precisely because it exploits the habit of trusting whatever key currently sits in your keyring.
Keep the key itself isolated. Import it into a keyring used only for this kind of verification, not your everyday personal PGP keyring, and never generate or upload a key of your own to a market's verification flow unless the market specifically asks for one as part of vendor onboarding. The canon key is something you check against, not something you need to reciprocate with.
What a failed signature check actually tells you
gpg --verify returning "BAD signature" is the clearest possible result: the data you have does not match what the key holder actually signed, full stop. This is not a warning to weigh against other signals — it means either the file was tampered with after signing, or you are verifying against the wrong key entirely. There is no context in which a Mars link is worth opening after a BAD signature result.
A "good signature" result is stronger but still not the entire picture, because gpg is only confirming that the signature matches the key you have loaded — it says nothing about whether that key is the one the real Mars operators actually control, unless you separately confirmed the fingerprint through an independent channel first. This is why the fingerprint comparison step is listed separately from the signature check itself: a good signature from an unverified key is a good signature from a stranger.
"No public key" or "can't check signature" means gpg does not have the signing key loaded at all, which is a setup problem rather than a trust verdict — import the canon key correctly and re-run the check before drawing any conclusion. A "signature made by a key that is not certified with a trusted signature" warning is gpg's own trust model talking, not a verdict on the Mars key specifically; what matters for this use case is the fingerprint match, not gpg's separate web-of-trust certification status.
The practical rule that covers all of this: a signature check is binary in the way that matters — either it passes cleanly against a fingerprint you independently confirmed, or you do not proceed. There is no partial credit for "it looked close" or "three out of four characters matched."
Verification questions
Where is the Mars PGP key?
It is pending until Phase 0. When it publishes, the key and its fingerprint sit on the home console and here. Import it once and pin the fingerprint you saw.
What does a good signature actually prove?
That the address list came from the holder of the canon key and has not changed since it was signed. It does not vouch for the market behind the address.
The fingerprint reads pending. What do I do now?
There is no signature to verify yet. Fall back to a full character-by-character match of the address against the list on the console, and distrust any link from search, chat, or mail.
Can a clone forge the signature?
No, not without the private key. A clone can copy the wordmark and the layout, but it cannot make a signature that checks out against the published fingerprint.