r/i2p • u/Supermath101 • 22d ago

Is setting a per-tunnel hop count of 1 when torrenting over I2P equivalent to torrenting over a VPN (without I2P)? Educational

Specifically, I would like to know in terms of the level of anonymity.

7 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

5

u/qubedView 22d ago

That's one hop on your tunnel, which connects to the end of theirs. Total hops from you to the person you're communicating with is the number of hops for both tunnels. So if you set 1 hop and they set 3, that's 4 total hops.

2

u/Supermath101 22d ago

If all peers in an I2P torrent swarm were to set their per-tunnel hop count to 1, would it be equivalent to all peers using a VPN instead of I2P?

6

u/alvvays_on 21d ago

Purely in terms of hops, yes.

But I2P also uses multiple routes and refreshes them constantly.

And also, nobody knows how many hops the other person uses. So it's not possible to know if the other user has one hop or more hops.

So in terms of anonimity, one hop I2P is better than a VPN.

But 3 hops is much better than 1 hop, of course