Sorry if the question seems weird, but I'm not a native English speaker and my understanding of a adjective "n-way" means their are n directions or n parties involved in the object being described. As far as I know, establishing a TCP connection involves only 2 parties talking back and forth in a 3-stage manner. Was my understanding wrong, that a third party could be the sender or receiver of some messages, or "3-way handshake" was just a short phrase that's not carefully chosen?
Looking forward to your answers.