[tor-talk] 4 hops in tor?

[Robert Ransom]

On Mon, 6 Jun 2011 16:16:57 -0400 (EDT)
whereistim at lavabit.com wrote:

> was looking at Vidalia's Tor Network Map, and rather than the usual
> 3 link chain, I saw a 4 link chain.
> 
> Did they change something, is this an anomaly? What's going on with
> this? I thought Tor was hard-coded with a 3 link chain?

This can happen when Tor ‘cannibalizes’ a normal three-hop circuit
(most often, it has circuits pre-built to exit nodes that allow exiting
to ports you have used recently, and you try to connect to an IP
address and port that none of the pre-built circuits' exit nodes allow
access to), or when Tor connects to an ‘exit enclave’ (a Tor relay
running on a server you are trying to connect to).  Tor also often
builds four-hop circuits while connecting to hidden services.


Robert Ransom
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