What is the role of the Rendezvous Point when a user connects to a Tor hidden service?
The user picks a random Tor relay as a Rendezvous Point; both sides build circuits to it, so it relays the connection without knowing who either party is — and neither side learns the other's IP.
* Onion-service rendezvous — a blind relay patches two anonymous circuits together. *
* Onion service flow: introduction and rendezvous points. — Tga.D, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. *
The access flow:
- The user chooses a random Tor node as the Rendezvous Point (RP).
- The user sends a message through the Introduction Points containing the RP's address and a one-time secret.
- The hidden service builds its own circuit to the same RP.
- The RP forwards traffic between the two circuits — it knows neither the client nor the server.
The result is bidirectional anonymity: the user never learns the server's real location, and the server never learns the user's real IP. Both sides meet "in the middle" through relays.
Tip: The RP is a blind switchboard operator: it patches two calls together without knowing either caller's number.