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The number of relays have suddenly increased from 6700 range to 10000 range in a very short period of time. What is going on?

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    I noticed it to. Maybe it could be a new botnet connecting to Tor (most of the time they host relays to keep the network from not getting overly stressed). I am unsure if this is an attack, but it is possible.
    – Aurora
    Dec 26, 2014 at 20:43

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This is an ongoing attack on the Tor network. A group has established ~3000 relays (and growing), ~50% of network nodes (note, network nodes, not network capacity for which I don't have a decent measurement, but which is much smaller).

However, as all of their nodes are fairly new, and some are being blocked by the directory authorities [1], the probability that you'd actually get one of their nodes for a guard node and another for an exit is extremely low (guard nodes are also cached to help incase of attacks like this one).

All the media hype is just that, and there is little reason to be worried at this time. Check your circuits, and you'll be fine.

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  • You can't check your circuit with TBB. You have to install arm or vidalia. (This seams like an easy development task that I'm going to try to work on.)
    – cubecubed
    Dec 28, 2014 at 23:48
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    Correct: for posterity, you can read Tor's statement about the attack at twitlonger.com/show/n_1sjg365: "This looks like a regular attempt at a Sybil attack: the attackers have signed up many new relays in hopes of becoming a large fraction of the network. But even though they are running thousands of new relays, their relays currently make up less than 1% of the Tor network by capacity. We are working now to remove these relays from the network before they become a threat, and we don't expect any anonymity or performance effects based on what we've seen so far."
    – Roger Dingledine
    Feb 9, 2015 at 0:28
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Tor is being hacked by lizard mafia, the same folks who attacked the psn and xbox networks. They currently own about 50% of all relays, over 4000, meaning they can trace you. All the relays are called "lizardnsa"

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1163197-tor-allegedly-hacked-by-lizard-squad-group-behind-psn-and-xbox-live-hack/

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    This is partially untrue; their network consensus is extremely low and the directory authorities are labeling many of them as bad, meaning that they cannot "trace you".
    – user5
    Dec 26, 2014 at 22:54
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    3000 relays about 5 hours ago.
    – favelannard
    Dec 26, 2014 at 22:59
  • Yah, good point; I haven't checked in a few hours. Either way, their consensus weight is still extremely low. Updated to clarify. Thanks!
    – user5
    Dec 26, 2014 at 23:03

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