They&#x27;re giving over the information to a third party, which usually destroys any 4th amendment rights.<p>The fact that the third party was actually three different parties who only got a piece (or six, when using hidden services) doesn&#x27;t seem like it would change the law.<p>If I split data into 6 pieces and handed it to 6 different people, the government can take those 6 pieces and put them together without violating my rights. I don&#x27;t see why Tor would be any different.<p>In fact, this particular vulnerability IIRC involved the researchers acting as both the exit node and the guard node, and finding a way to pass a message between the two so they&#x27;d notice when they&#x27;re in the same circuit. That seems even better legally than my analogy above. They didn&#x27;t need to take any data, the victims connected to them and gave them the info.