A repo path-labeled "K18_NTCS_WEB" (backend service "argus-service", originally developed as "maat_service") defines per-protocol raw-log and business-rule types spanning HTTP, SSL, DNS, SSH, FTP, Mail, P2P, and VoIP, and the VPN/tunnel protocols PPTP, L2TP, IPsec, and OpenVPN, plus a dedicated keyword-based URL log (NtcKeywordsUrlLog) and a RADIUS collection log (NtcCollectRadiusLog) — showing the K18 (Kazakhstan)-labeled monitoring platform logs keyword-hit URLs and carrier RADIUS data alongside full protocol-specific traffic logs.
File tree: src/main/java/com/nis/domain/restful/NtcKeywordsUrlLog.java, src/main/java/com/nis/domain/restful/NtcCollectRadiusLog.java, src/main/java/com/nis/domain/restful/NtcOpenvpnLog.java, src/main/java/com/nis/domain/restful/NtcPptpLog.java, src/main/java/com/nis/domain/restful/NtcL2tpLog.java, src/main/java/com/nis/domain/restful/NtcIpsecLog.java, src/main/java/com/nis/domain/restful/NtcBgpLog.java
Defense implications
- VPN/tunnel-protocol-specific logging (PPTP, L2TP, IPsec, OpenVPN) at the K18 site means these legacy tunnel protocols are individually fingerprinted and logged rather than lumped into generic 'VPN traffic' — do not assume any of these four protocols offers meaningful cover in this deployment.
Related findings
Commit history for the K18 (Kazakhstan) argus-ntc console reveals its concrete feature set: a scheduled "网页关键字定时器" (webpage-keyword timer/scheduler) for keyword filtering, ASN/IP block-list configuration pages, a "BGP泛收" (BGP wide-collection) page, an SSL-interception config toggle, a file-scanning results page with MALWARE TYPE/MALWARE NAME columns, app-identification entries including a WhatsApp rename, and a VoIP business-config approval workflow, with blocking actions relabeled from "阻断" (block) to "封堵(丢弃)" (interdict/drop).
K18_NTCS_WEB/NTC (git.mesalab.cn) is the Java/Spring web console for Kazakhstan's (K18) National Traffic Control System. Its domain model implements per-protocol keyword filtering (App/ASN/DNS/FTP/Mail/P2P/SSL keyword configs), an HTTPS proxy-MITM object (PxyObjTrustedCaCert.java), and explicit content-manipulation templates for HTTPS Redirect and Replace (complex/IP-based) plus Hijack/Insert actions, all managed through this customer-facing K18 control panel.
The GitLab group itself is named "K18_NTCS_WEB" (K18 = Kazakhstan), and its "nfs" web app implements per-protocol keyword-filter configuration classes (App/FTP/Mail/P2P/SSL keyword configs), an OpenVPN IP-list config, RADIUS-based logging/reporting entities, MAAT rule-sync beans, and an explicit "IP spoofing" business feature with its own "PXY仿冒地址池" (proxy spoofed-address pool) and dedicated policy-log support -- the single strongest piece of evidence in this batch tying named keyword-filtering plus IP-spoofing capabilities directly to the Kazakhstan deployment.
The internal 'MAAT网络流处理配置统一描述框架' engineering manual (v3.1.20, author 郑超, 2021) documents MAAT's Redis-synced rule-compilation framework and its RuleScan/Hyperscan-based pattern-matching engine (libmaatframe.so / librulescan), and records that RuleScan's fast-scan feature caused a production outage on 2019-03-19 and has been disabled ever since.
A MESA Lab monthly report describes a 'web-proxy' engineering task that modified the open-source Ultraviolet web-proxy project to add keyword- and specific-URL-blocking, alongside deployment work (certificate issuance, redirect handling) and a document listing which sites the proxy is permitted to relay; the purpose (internal filtered access vs. a broader capability) is not stated in this excerpt.
An internal MESA Lab research note directly measures and compares China's ('CN') HTTP censorship middlebox against Russia, India and an unlabeled 'HZ' system, plus open-source Snort2/Snort3/Suricata: China is characterized as inspecting Host- and keyword-based triggers (example trigger given: a request containing the parameter 'q=ultrasurf') across ALL ports rather than just 80/443, responding with a triple RST or an extra RST+ACK; an 8-technique HTTP-request-mangling evasion comparison table credits China's middlebox as vulnerable only to request-line whitespace insertion and HTTP-version tampering, fewer categories than the other three systems tested.