[tor-talk] Circuits in Orbot

[Roger Dingledine]

On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 04:27:43PM -0400, force44 at Safe-mail.net wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> I am using Orbot for Android and was surprised to see that circuits are up to 5 nodes. I remember having read that TOR would not be more secure (and even could be UNsecure) if it would use more than 3 nodes to build a circuit.
> 
> Any explanation?

Tor clients build paths with 3+n hops, where n is the number that are
influenced by some third party. So for example, when you're doing a
hidden service rendezvous, you typically end up using 4-hop paths --
3 that you picked, and 1 that the other side picked.

In fact, for client-side introduction point circuits, in some cases you
could end up with 5-hop or 6-hop paths, since if an intro point fails,
the client just extends the existing circuit one more hop to the next
intro point to try it.

https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq#ChoosePathLength

Hope this helps,
--Roger