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Using Tor bridges for censorship circumvention routes your traffic to a bridge before an entry node. If the IP of the bridge is constant, isn't it abnormal that you are always connecting to the same IP and thus allow an ISP to know that you are using Tor through a bridge?

Some pluggable transports such as meek-azure route your traffic to a Microsoft website before an entry node, isn't it abnormal that an internet user is always browsing a Microsoft website without browsing other websites and thus allow an ISP to know that you are using Tor through a pluggable transport?

How does Tor bridges prevent an ISP from knowing that someone is using Tor? I would be glad if someone can explain it using a simple diagram.

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Isn't it abnormal that you are always connecting to the same IP and thus allow an ISP to know that you are using Tor through a bridge?

Not necessarily. This same behavior takes place if you are using a VPN.

Moreover, there might be are other devices on the user's LAN that are not using TOR. In that case, the ISP would see connections to many IP addresses (not just one).

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  • But the IP address of VPNs are public while the IP address of Tor bridges are not public, how does tor bridges prevent an ISP from knowing that I am using Tor?
    – Gaai Chia
    Mar 12, 2022 at 16:54
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    Not all IP addresses of VPN's are public. For example, IP addresses of VPN's used by companies and universities to allow their personnel to access internal networks within these organizations are not public.
    – mti2935
    Mar 12, 2022 at 16:59
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Tor bridges are kind of public too. It is not just the person who set up the bridge. At minimum the ISP/data center operator where the bridge is running can know it is a Tor server.

Also during bootstrapping the client connects to various Tor servers to fetch data about the Tor network. So these endpoints,routers (run by an ISP), TLA tapping the wire, ... can know that a (new) Tor service is running, which IPs connect to it and where connections are going.

If you are using an obfuscated protocol to connect to the bridge then your ISP might not know you are using Tor. Still there are others ...

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