I saw a diagram of traffic to an .onion domain, I think in a Tor Project browser, and it showed the traffic going through ~3 Tor relays, then ~3 'regular' Internet relays, then perhaps something else, then the .onion host.
Why the 'regular' Internet relays? It wasn't a hijack of some sort, this diagram was from the Tor Project. It wasn't an exception AFAICT, I saw it for multiple .onion hosts.
I assume the traffic is encrypted over the Internet relays, but it seems to add a bunch of potential vectors of attack, not to mention potential performance issues.
Why the 'regular' Internet relays? It wasn't a hijack of some sort, this diagram was from the Tor Project. It wasn't an exception AFAICT, I saw it for multiple .onion hosts.
I assume the traffic is encrypted over the Internet relays, but it seems to add a bunch of potential vectors of attack, not to mention potential performance issues.
EDIT: 'clear' -> 'regular'