ObjectScanner is a Kafka-driven pipeline that consumes 'NTC-COLLECT-HTTP-DOC-LOG' and 'NTC-COLLECT-HTTP-EXE-LOG' events (documents and executables observed transiting monitored HTTP traffic), fetches the full file body for each hit from a 'TANGO_CACHE' object store (via a MinIO-oriented fetch-thread pool), and scans the complete file with the Antiy AVL SDK malware-detection engine, publishing malware_id/malware_name/classification/family/variant hits to Kafka topic 'NTC-HTTP-OBJSCAN-RESULT'. This shows the DPI platform doesn't just log metadata about document/executable downloads (per the NTC_HTTP_COLLECT extension filter list) — it retrieves and fully content-scans the actual file bytes for every such download crossing a tapped link.
#define OBJSCAN_RESULT_TOPIC "NTC-HTTP-OBJSCAN-RESULT" #define OBJSCAN_HTTP_DOC_TOPIC "NTC-COLLECT-HTTP-DOC-LOG" #define OBJSCAN_HTTP_EXE_TOPIC "NTC-COLLECT-HTTP-EXE-LOG"
Defense implications
- Full file bodies for documents/executables downloaded over monitored plaintext HTTP links are retrieved and scanned in their entirety, not just fingerprinted by header/URL — avoid transporting payloads that are recognizable document/executable file formats over plaintext or weakly-obfuscated channels where this pipeline has visibility.
Cited artifacts
mesalab_git—PanGu/ObjectScanner.bundle(git-commit-log)
Provenance pointers only — no leak content is rehosted. Raw material: Enlace Hacktivista.
Related findings
An internal TSG operations/troubleshooting manual lays out TSG's full traffic pipeline (NIC -> mrzcpd/marsio capture driver -> sapp DPI engine -> firewall/proxy(KNI->TFE)/active-defense/WAN-NAT policy branches) and shows engineers using maat_redis_tool to pull the live Redis-synced blocking policy tables (TSG_SECURITY_COMPILE, TSG_OBJ_IP_ADDR, TSG_OBJ_APP_ID) and filter them by numeric policy/object ID to debug why a block rule isn't firing.
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.
An internal design note for a 'Shadowsocks traffic parsing/restoration module' describes decrypting captured Shadowsocks payloads back to the original HTTP request/response, given a known pre-shared key (AES-256-CFB, MD5-derived key, IV embedded in the stream).
A dedicated internal "运营商前端分析团队" (Carrier Front-end Analysis Team) produces weekly, carrier-specific traffic-analysis reports explicitly titled "新疆移动流量分析报告" (Xinjiang Mobile Traffic Analysis Report) and "新疆联通流量分析报告" (Xinjiang Unicom Traffic Analysis Report), with instances dated from at least July 2022 through March 2024. One instance (Xinjiang Mobile, 2023-05-15) reports total carrier bandwidth of 4.4Tbps (1Tbps access bandwidth), 27.34PB of weekly throughput, 123 distinct identified application-layer protocols, and a section (4.1, pages 17+) explicitly tracking server IP/location for 28 named overseas apps (BBC, Discord, ESPN, Facebook, Gmail, Google, Hulu, Instagram, Netflix, Reddit, Skype, Telegram, Twitter, Uber, WhatsApp, Wikipedia, YouTube, Zoom, etc.).
A 2018 MESA Lab monthly report describes work on the "GPS"/"先导" (Pioneer) active-probing projects: adding IPv6 scanning support and simultaneous 3-domain scanning to MAAT, alongside active-probing experiments (nslookup/dig/nmap) and root-DNS-server BGP-anycast measurement -- indicating MAAT's rule engine is paired with an active network-scanning subsystem, not purely passive/inline matching.
An internal 'MAAT Configuration Description Manual (String)' fully documents MAAT's rule-compilation model: per-field string matches (substring/prefix/suffix/exact/regex/AND-of-substrings/offset-anchored substrings) grouped into up to 8 AND/NOT clauses per compiled rule (conjunctive normal form), each carrying an action code (0=block, 1=monitor-only, 2=whitelist), blacklist and logging flags, and a floating-point execution-order field for safe rule reordering, plus the C scanning API (Maat_full_scan_string) and the file/JSON formats used to push rule updates to production.