I read the link and while I learned more about Tor, the article seems to describe how to secure Tor traffic that is forwarded to regular Internet hosts, for example if someone using a Tor client visited ycombinator.com. My question is, if you use a Tor client to visit twitterhpgjerufcvrmzerg2novpipy42rk3anvb5b7np4zggm4rwaqd.onion, why is part of the route through regular Internet hosts (afaict) and what are the implications of that? The article shows what I am describing in this screenshot; the blacked out parts next to "Portugal", "Germany", and "United States" are IP addresses:
https://www.jamieweb.net/blog/forwarding-tor-hidden-services...
(Also, my original post had it backward: the traffic goes through regular Internet hosts and then through Tor relays, not vice versa)
Again, maybe I am just missing the implications of what you are saying.
I like your initial explanation sp332, I thought it was good so I elaborated on it.