2025-jfm-silk-road-surveillance

Silk Road of Surveillance

Justice for Myanmar · Justice for Myanmar (research report) · 2025

Abstract

47-page report from Justice for Myanmar drawing on the Geedge/MESA leak to document the export of Chinese GFW-derived surveillance technology to Myanmar's military regime via the Belt and Road framework. Identifies specific deployments and the corporate channels through which Geedge Networks supplied the regime.

Team notes

Adds "mm" (Myanmar) to the censor scope of the corpus. Operationally most relevant for Lantern users in Myanmar; threat model converges on the GFW threat model since the deployed system is GFW-derived. Worth checking whether the corpus taxonomy has a Myanmar entry yet (TODO: add to schema/taxonomy.yaml if not).

Tags

censors: cn mm
techniques: dpi sni-blocking ip-blocking traffic-shape ml-classifier
method: measurement-study

findings extracted from this paper

The report traces the specific corporate pathway through which Geedge Networks exported GFW-derived technology to Myanmar: via front companies, shell entities, and Belt and Road Initiative contract frameworks that obscure the Chinese state's direct involvement. The report names at least three intermediary entities used to transfer equipment and technical personnel to the Myanmar military, and documents that the same export channel was used for ongoing product updates post-deployment.

§4, §6 policy dpiml-classifier mmcn
Justice for Myanmar documents that Geedge Networks supplied Myanmar's military junta with GFW-derived surveillance and censorship infrastructure under Belt and Road frameworks following the February 2021 coup. The deployed system (Tiangou Secure Gateway / TSG) incorporates the same DPI, active-probing, and ML-classifier capabilities as the domestic Chinese GFW, giving Myanmar one of the most technically capable censorship systems in Southeast Asia.

§3, §5 deployment dpisni-blockingip-blockingtraffic-shapeml-classifieractive-probing mmcn
The report documents that Myanmar's military has used its TSG-based infrastructure to execute targeted throttling and selective shutdowns of specific services and platforms, not only blanket internet shutdowns. This includes selective disruption of VPNs and circumvention tools during periods of civil unrest, demonstrating that Myanmar's censors have operationalized the granular per-service traffic control capabilities documented in the Geedge/MESA leak.

§5 deployment throttlingip-blockingtraffic-shape mm