Myanmar deployment (M22) systematically reverse-engineered and blocked Orbot (Tor's official Android client) and ProtonMail, alongside numerous consumer VPN apps, via the AppSketch feature-extraction pipeline. Orbot: 287 server IPs extracted across multi-hop nodes, one connection mode fully blocked. ProtonMail: mail server IPs/FQDNs extracted, blocking verified as full service denial (cannot send, receive, download attachments, or create a new account) on Android and iOS.
对Orbot进行逆向分析... VPN序号130 Orbot VPN为多跳服务器，目前共计提取IP 287个，已完成一种连接模式的封堵... 该应用在安卓平台和IOS平台均无法刷新应用、无法发送邮件、无法接收邮件、无法下载邮件中的附件、无法创建新账户，暂视为阻断成功
Defense implications
- Tor's own official mobile client is an active, named target for this censor, not a hypothetical one -- Orbot users in Myanmar should assume its default multi-hop server list is at least partially enumerated and blocked. ProtonMail's own infrastructure IPs/FQDNs are similarly enumerated; privacy-mail access there likely requires a bridge/proxy rather than direct connection.
Related findings
Under the internal "M22" project (deployment site "YGN-MYTEL" confirms this is Myanmar, at the Mytel carrier), Geedge runs a continuous, individually-tracked signature-extraction pipeline against named commercial VPN apps (Super Unlimited VPN, NotVPN, Avira Phantom, Bitdefender VPN, Thunder VPN, Panda VPN, Mouse VPN, HaloVPN, GoFly VPN, Kiwi/Kuto/Greennet/Gulf Super/Hatunnel+ VPN, and a customer-provided list of 141 more): active probing of app refresh/connect behavior (including automated UI-driving scripts) extracts server IP/FQDN lists, separately for free vs. paid tiers and Android vs. iOS, which are then loaded as blocklist objects and validated against a false-positive ("CT"/穿透) test pass in a separate demo environment before deployment.
Multi-week TSG engineering investigation of iTOP VPN (requested by an Ethiopia deployment, cross-tested in a Myanmar environment) found blocking only takes effect for VPN sessions established AFTER a detection policy is pushed; a VPN already connected before the policy loads is never blocked or logged, regardless of signature type (SNI or server-IP).
M22 runs a large-scale automated pipeline against numerous commercial VPN apps: APK decompilation + HTTPS-proxy interception to extract servers/FQDNs, automated dial-testing at volume (one app: 17,554 dial-tests, 4,073 servers discovered, 94% 24-hour block rate), and OpenCV-based automated ad-dismissal to keep test automation running unattended.
TSG/CM ships with pre-built, first-class 'Learning Object' entries specifically for Freegate (Object ID 18) and Psiphon3 (Object ID 19), plus a generic 'Top Server IP' object (ID 20) -- default product features, not customer-commissioned custom signatures. The Psiphon3 object auto-learns and dynamically updates a live blocklist that reached roughly 70,000 IPs at one deployment before a database issue temporarily dropped it to ~50,000.
Ethiopia (E21) customer specifically tested Melon VPN and Ultrasurf against TSG; Ultrasurf's frequently-rotating IPs required an updated signature (successfully blocked after update), while Melon VPN's connection succeeded but was non-functional for other reasons (not attributed to TSG blocking).
A companion recurring report family, "Tiangou Secure Gateway — Server IP and Location of Overseas APP", automatically compiles TOP10/TOP50 server-IP-and-geolocation tables per major Western platform (BBC, Discord, Facebook, Gmail, Google, Hulu, ESPN, Messenger, etc.), i.e. an automated pipeline for building IP-block target lists against specific foreign services from observed traffic, generated on a similar recurring cadence.