commit: updated.

docs.d/TIPS-FOR-MINING-ONIONS.md

@@ -1,59 +1,73 @@
 # Tips when mining Onion Addresses
 
-## for v2 and v3 onion addresses; updated 26 jun 2019
+## For v3 onion addresses; updated 18 May 2021
 
-* Copied from:
-  https://medium.com/@alecmuffett/tips-when-mining-onion-addresses-8eece14cbd95
+Hello from Alec - and congratulations! You are setting up an Onion
+site! And you want a vanity onion address! There is lots of software
+out there that you can use to generate them!
 
-Congratulations! You are setting up an Onion site! And you want a
-vanity onion address! There is lots of software out there that you can
-use to generate them!
+## What do I use?
 
-I'm not going to make strong software recommendations, because it's a
-matter of what you have at your disposal already, and what fits the
-hardware that you have access to.
+Some people mine onion addresses on local hardware for privacy and
+safety, whilst others are happy to rent a GPU-based compute-heavy
+instance from AWS, or similar.
 
-* for v2: Onions: `Scallion` (C# or Mono, GPU accelerated), `Shallot`,
-  or `Eschalot`; go for the latest versions of each.
+I'm not going to make terribly strong software recommendations,
+because it's a matter of what you have at your disposal already,
+and what fits the hardware that you have access to.
 
-* for v3 Onions: I have no idea of the standout tools, please check
-  back and/or suggest something in the comments
+In my case I have a small cluster of Raspberry Pi, and I use
+[`mkp224o`](https://github.com/cathugger/mkp224o) for mining with them.
+I compiled the code manually, using
+[the instructions](https://github.com/cathugger/mkp224o/blob/master/README.md)
+and
+[the tuning instructions](https://github.com/cathugger/mkp224o/blob/master/OPTIMISATION.txt)
+to build something suitable for me.
 
-Some people mine onion addresses on local hardware for safety, others
-are happy to rent a GPU-based compute-heavy instance from AWS, or
-similar.
+If you are looking for a really meaningful, long-prefix onion address
+up front, you will have to expend a lot of money and CPU-time in order
+to find one.  This is why the next section is really important in
+order to get the most "bang for your buck".
+
+## How do I best approach this challenge?
 
 If you're setting up multiple onions for your site -- eg: if there is
 one/more CDNs associated with your site, it is nice to set up vanity
 onions for them, too; partly for "cute" but also to stop yourself
 going crazy during debugging.
 
-For instance, the NYT onion is https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/ and
-their CDN Onion is https://graylady3jvrrxbe.onion/
+For instance, the (defunct, V2) NYT
+onion was https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/ and their CDN
+onion was https://graylady3jvrrxbe.onion/
 
-Similarly there exist https://www.facebookcorewwwi.onion/ and
-https://fbcdn23dssr3jqnq.onion/
+Similarly there were
+https://www.facebookcorewwwi.onion/ and
+https://fbcdn23dssr3jqnq.onion/ for Facebook.
 
-* Perhaps use your CDN Onion to reflect your own history and
-site/brand culture?
+Ask yourself now: perhaps use your CDN Onion to reflect your own
+history and site/brand culture?  Perhaps you can mine several onion
+addresses at the same time, even speculatively?
 
-Onion mining is a matter of luck and resource, and
-(counterintuitively?)  the rarest resource that you have, is time, as
-measured by your wall clock.
+Onion mining is a matter of luck and expensive resource, and
+(counterintuitively?)  the rarest resource that you have, is time
+as-measured by your wall clock.
 
 Therefore, if you are mining onions for a lot of sites, the best
 strategy is follows:
 
 * Have breakfast and some tea or coffee. Try to get into a creative
-  mood.
+  mood.  You are making an investment of time *now* to save yourself
+  time and effort, later.
 
-* Sit down, open a document, and try to think inclusively of every
-  possible prefix that you might ever find acceptable at the start (or
-  finish) of your onion addresses, for all of your sites, and write
-  them all down. You may create 10, 20, or more. No ideas are bad
-  ideas. Deduplicate them (eg: it's pointless to look especially for
-  `nytimes` if you are already happy to have anything beginning with
-  `nyt`)
+* Sit down, open a document, and try to think inclusively of EVERY
+  POSSIBLE PREFIX THAT YOU MIGHT EVER FIND ACCEPTABLE at the start (or
+  suffix, at the end) of your onion addresses, for all of your sites
+  and CDNs, and write them all down. You may create 10, 20, or
+  more. No ideas are bad ideas. Deduplicate them (e.g.: it's pointless
+  to look for `nytimes` if you're already looking for anything
+  beginning with `nyt`).  Each additional prefix is nearly zero-cost,
+  compared to the days, weeks, or months of time that your computers
+  will spend in grinding their way through cryptography.
 
 * Configure your software to search for all of these, for all of your
   sites, simultaneously. Set it running. Make sure to configure
@@ -73,9 +87,9 @@ strategy is follows:
   dealing with randomness here, and raw entropy is more creative than
   you'd ever imagine.
 
-* There is also a vast amount of noise -- huge, enormous quantities
-  of gibberish -- but that's okay, because `storage+grep` is cheaper
-  than `encryption+wallclocktime`.
+* There is also a vast amount of noise -- huge, enormous quantities of
+  gibberish -- but that's okay, because (again) `storage+grep` is
+  mucg cheaper than `encryption+wallclocktime`.
 
 * When we mined the Facebook onion address, the search-patterns were
   `^(facebook|fbcdn|fbsbx|...)` and a few others all in a single
@@ -103,6 +117,29 @@ strategy is follows:
 
 Best of luck to you. :-)
 
+## Converting your V3 onion addresses for EOTK
+
+Tools like `mkp224o` save the keys they generate as three separate
+files: `hs_ed25519_public_key`, `hs_ed25519_secret_key`, and
+`hostname`; this is elegant but hard to manipulate, so EOTK creates
+its own standard for storing v3 onion addresses in the `secrets.d`
+folder.
+
+If you are in a directory which contains the above-named three files,
+you can run a helper shellscript by using a command, something like:
+
+```
+~/eotk/lib.d/rename-v3-keys-for-eotk-secrets.sh
+```
+
+...which will safely create TWO files:
+
+* `someverylongonionaddressinvolvingalotofbase32characterss.v3pub.key`
+* `someverylongonionaddressinvolvingalotofbase32characterss.v3sec.key`
+
+...that can be moved into your `~/eotk/secrets.d/` folder, for EOTK to
+use when you run `eotk config ...`
+
 ## War Stories and Problems When Mining Onions
 
 A long time ago I mined a bunch of test onion addresses for the New
@@ -131,9 +168,9 @@ rather than actual, `hostname` file during install; so it might not
 reflect reality if your V2 onion keys are thusly afflicted - for
 instance if your Onion site is 100% unreachable.
 
-The way to test a **V2 Onion** address for this syndrome is to `cd`
-into `projects.d/.../foofoofoofoofoo.d/` and then **remove** the
-`hostname` file in that directory.
+The way to test a **V2 Onion** address for this syndrome is to
+`cd` into `projects.d/.../foofoofoofoofoo.d/` and then **remove**
+the `hostname` file in that directory.
 
 Then do: