[tor-talk] a question about ip addresses

[Seth David Schoen]

Heigrade writes:

> Hello,
> 
> I am new to TOR and networking in general and had a question about ip
> addresses that TOR connects to.
> 
> My question is this:
> 
> After analyzing tcpdump data of TOR traffic, I've noticed that TOR
> always connects to the same ip address, even after restarts, whereas I
> had expected it to connect to different addresses across restarts. Is
> this address my ISP?

It's probably the entry guard that Tor chose for you.

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

This is meant to reduce the chance that you'll choose an entry node and
an exit node secretly controlled or monitored by the same entity.

Some more technical details are in

https://blog.torproject.org/blog/improving-tors-anonymity-changing-guard-parameters

and probably other places.

-- 
Seth Schoen  <schoen at eff.org>
Senior Staff Technologist                       https://www.eff.org/
Electronic Frontier Foundation                  https://www.eff.org/join
815 Eddy Street, San Francisco, CA  94109       +1 415 436 9333 x107