Chinese research grant 2023YFB3106700, "Research on Generalized Security Theory for Dark Web Suppression"
The National Key R&D Program (国家重点研发计划) is a major national-level research funding program in China since 2016. https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%BD%E5%AE%B6%E9%87%8D%E7%82%B9%E7%A0%94%... https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/1.pdf#page=59 The National Key R&D Program, and specific grant numbers thereof, are frequently acknowledged in research papers. But finding information beyond the grant numbers is difficult. There's no central public source of grant metadata such as the title, the name of the principal investigator, the start and end dates, and the funding amount. MERICS has published at least one report with aggregate statistics about Key R&D projects (https://merics.org/en/report/controlling-innovation-chain#2-research-project...) but apparently the sources of data they used are no longer available. But sometimes information about grants gets out through other sources. An example is grant number 2023YFB3106700, which appears in the CV of a researcher named Cao Jie with start and end dates that the English title "Research on Generalized Security Theory for Dark Web Suppression". https://jiejaycao.github.io/CV_Jie.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20260421165501/https://jiejaycao.github.io/CV_Ji... https://github.com/JieJayCao/JieJayCao.github.io/blob/b9c4ff3f8e2d4cbe5253bd...
Research on Generalized Security Theory for Dark Web Suppression Nov. 2013 – Dec. 2024 Researcher, National Key R&D Program of China (Key Special Program), Grant No. 2023YFB3106700
We can do a web search to find research publications that have been funded by this "dark web suppression" grant. I found 6 published papers and 1 preprint: "TorHunter: A Lightweight Method for Efficient Identification of Obfuscated Tor Traffic Through Unsupervised Pre-training". Yuwei Xu, Xu Zhengxin, Cao Jie, Wang Rongrong, Yuan Yali, Cheng Guang. International Conference on Information and Communications Security, 2024. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-97-8801-9_1 https://dblp.org/rec/conf/icics/XuXCWYC24 "FullView: Using Bidirectional Group Sequences to Achieve Accurate Encrypted Traffic Classification". Xu Yuwei, Liang Zhiyuan, Xu Zhengxin, Song Kehui, Xiang Qiao, Cheng Guang. Security and Privacy in Communication Networks, 2024. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-94448-2_11 https://dblp.org/rec/conf/securecomm/0001LXSX024 "OnionPeeler: A Novel Input-Enriched Website Fingerprinting Attack on Tor Onion Services". Xu Zhengxin, Cao Jie, Hou Yujie, Xu Yuwei, Cheng Guang. Security and Privacy in Communication Networks, 2024. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-94455-0_11 https://dblp.org/rec/conf/securecomm/Xu0H0024.html "GateKeeper: An UltraLite malicious traffic identification method with dual-aspect optimization strategies on IoT gateways". Cao Jie, Xu Yuwei, Yu Enze, Xiang Qiao, Song Kehui, He Liang, Cheng Guang. Computer Networks, 2024. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1389128624003888 https://dblp.org/rec/journals/cn/CaoXYXSHC24 "Attack smarter: Attention-driven fine-grained webpage fingerprinting attacks". Yuan Yali, Zou Weiyi, Cheng Guang. Computers & Security, 2025. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167404825003323 https://dblp.org/rec/journals/compsec/YuanZC25 https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.20082 "M3S-UPD: Efficient Multi-Stage Self-Supervised Learning for Fine-Grained Encrypted Traffic Classification with Unknown Pattern Discovery". Yuan Yali, Huang Yu, Zeng Xingjian, Mei Hantao, Cheng Guang. 2025. https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.21462v1 "METRA: Robust Encrypted Traffic Detection Against Adversarial Attacks via Multi-Task Learning and Label Denoising". Wang Yaohui, Sun Degang, Wan Wei, Zhao Jing, Du Guanyao, Long Chun International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, 2026. https://cmsworkshops.com/ICASSP2026/view_paper.php?PaperNum=5312 https://english.cnic.cas.cn/rsearch/rp/202603/t20260323_1153131.html https://cnic.cas.cn/gzdt/202603/t20260313_8159227.html If I had to guess, I would say that the principal investigator of grant 2023YFB3106700 is probably professor 程光 (Cheng Guang) of Southeast University. https://cyber.seu.edu.cn/_s303/cg1/list.psp This is certainly not the only Chinese grant that funds Tor / dark web / onion service / encrypted traffic classification research. I'm highlighting it just because I found a title for it, which is rare.
On 2026-04-25 15:13:30, David Fifield via tor-project wrote:
The National Key R&D Program (国家重点研发计划) is a major national-level research funding program in China since 2016.
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%BD%E5%AE%B6%E9%87%8D%E7%82%B9%E7%A0%94%... https://www.eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/files/1.pdf#page=59
The National Key R&D Program, and specific grant numbers thereof, are frequently acknowledged in research papers. But finding information beyond the grant numbers is difficult. There's no central public source of grant metadata such as the title, the name of the principal investigator, the start and end dates, and the funding amount. MERICS has published at least one report with aggregate statistics about Key R&D projects (https://merics.org/en/report/controlling-innovation-chain#2-research-project...) but apparently the sources of data they used are no longer available.
But sometimes information about grants gets out through other sources. An example is grant number 2023YFB3106700, which appears in the CV of a researcher named Cao Jie with start and end dates that the English title "Research on Generalized Security Theory for Dark Web Suppression".
https://jiejaycao.github.io/CV_Jie.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20260421165501/https://jiejaycao.github.io/CV_Ji... https://github.com/JieJayCao/JieJayCao.github.io/blob/b9c4ff3f8e2d4cbe5253bd...
Research on Generalized Security Theory for Dark Web Suppression Nov. 2013 – Dec. 2024 Researcher, National Key R&D Program of China (Key Special Program), Grant No. 2023YFB3106700
I thought maybe this research was related to https://jsuese.scu.edu.cn/en/article/doi/10.12454/j.jsuese.202400800/ but I did not find Cao Jie's name or contact cited as either an author or referenced. However, its similar enough to suggest there might be a relationship.
On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 10:54:33AM -0400, Micah Anderson wrote:
On 2026-04-25 15:13:30, David Fifield via tor-project wrote:
Research on Generalized Security Theory for Dark Web Suppression Nov. 2013 – Dec. 2024 Researcher, National Key R&D Program of China (Key Special Program), Grant No. 2023YFB3106700
I thought maybe this research was related to https://jsuese.scu.edu.cn/en/article/doi/10.12454/j.jsuese.202400800/ but I did not find Cao Jie's name or contact cited as either an author or referenced. However, its similar enough to suggest there might be a relationship.
That one, "Towards a Universal Security Framework for Darknet Suppression: Conceptual Foundations and Future Prospects" also acknowledges from the National Key R&D Program (which is not notable in itself, the program issues a lot of grants). The grant number is different (2023YFB3106600), but pretty close to the other one (2023YFB3106700); I would guess they they were awarded at about the same time. It's possible that different institutions have different grants on similar topics. 2023YFB3106600 2023YFB3106700 Searching for 2023YFB3106600 turns up some other publications: "CTS-OD: a cascaded two-stage framework for high-throughput Obfs4 detection" Huang Yutong, Zhang Qiang, Huang Cheng Cybersecurity, 2026. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s42400-025-00492-0 "Seeing Through .onion: Multimodal Information Extraction and Category Discovery in Tor Markets" Chen Zhouguo, Wang Chunmian, Ren Leran, Yang Ming International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design, 2026. https://fyust.edu.cn/gjhyqk/cscwd2026/papers/paper_1036.pdf
Cheng Guang is also a meta-PI over many Key R&D projects as top cybersecurity dean of SEU and infosec subject matter expert for the "十四五" (China's five-year national development plan): https://cyber.seu.edu.cn/cg1/list.htm https://cyber.seu.edu.cn/_upload/article/files/dc/2b/3724c2fd43b48bfb08c352d... His research networks / supervision appear fairly broad (he is a professor, after all), but much of the research does seem to be highly focused in this area. Aside from Key R&D, there is a lot of funding from NSFC (National Natural Science Foundation of China) and provincial funding from Jiangsu. Not hugely surprising, considering how crucial these programs are for computer science funding in China in general (esp NSFC). For specific grant numbers, you want to look for 基金项目 on CNKI or in conference listings (NSFC is like 62xxetc for "information science" and 61xxetc for older ICT grants). In China, juicier grants are available via Cyberspace Administration of China or the Ministry of Public Security, which sometimes get listed in a final report/article/talk as 横向项目 or 横向项目. Other fun grant programs for senior infosec researchers: 江苏省重点研发计划 (key r&d but regional for Jiangsu) , 江苏省自然科学基金 , 教育部重点实验室 (Key R&D but primarily institutional), 万人计划 , 333工程 (these last two might not be as relevant for your search but are worth noting in this context). Anyway, tangent, both of the grants you listed seem to be in the same program cluster. I would bet that you could map out much of their research network starting with Cheng Guang, Cao Jie, and Wu Hua, and then just look at the funding acknowledgements of the relevant papers to confirm research focus of the grants. Sending my best from sunny Reykjavík. ~Griffin -- Sent via Mobile
On Apr 28, 2026 at 6:08 PM, David Fifield via tor-project <tor-project@lists.torproject.org> wrote:
On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 10:54:33AM -0400, Micah Anderson wrote:
On 2026-04-25 15:13:30, David Fifield via tor-project wrote:
Research on Generalized Security Theory for Dark Web Suppression Nov. 2013 – Dec. 2024 Researcher, National Key R&D Program of China (Key Special Program), Grant No. 2023YFB3106700
I thought maybe this research was related to https://jsuese.scu.edu.cn/en/article/doi/10.12454/j.jsuese.202400800/ but I did not find Cao Jie's name or contact cited as either an author or referenced. However, its similar enough to suggest there might be a relationship.
That one, "Towards a Universal Security Framework for Darknet Suppression: Conceptual Foundations and Future Prospects" also acknowledges from the National Key R&D Program (which is not notable in itself, the program issues a lot of grants). The grant number is different (2023YFB3106600), but pretty close to the other one (2023YFB3106700); I would guess they they were awarded at about the same time. It's possible that different institutions have different grants on similar topics.
2023YFB3106600 2023YFB3106700
Searching for 2023YFB3106600 turns up some other publications:
"CTS-OD: a cascaded two-stage framework for high-throughput Obfs4 detection" Huang Yutong, Zhang Qiang, Huang Cheng Cybersecurity, 2026. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s42400-025-00492-0
"Seeing Through .onion: Multimodal Information Extraction and Category Discovery in Tor Markets" Chen Zhouguo, Wang Chunmian, Ren Leran, Yang Ming International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design, 2026. https://fyust.edu.cn/gjhyqk/cscwd2026/papers/paper_1036.pdf _______________________________________________ tor-project mailing list -- tor-project@lists.torproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to tor-project-leave@lists.torproject.org
I was not aware that there were so many research papers being published publicly, in English, at from what I can guess are legit, well-known but perhaps not top-tier journals and conferences? Do you wind up changing anything in the protocols or the implementations based on what they find? -tom On Tue, 28 Apr 2026 at 15:10, griffin via tor-project < tor-project@lists.torproject.org> wrote:
Correction:
委托项目 or 横向项目
I'd listed the same phrase twice ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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There's heaps and heaps of such papers, in English and Chinese. Take the professor 程光 (Cheng Guang) we have been talking about and look at just his English publications: https://dblp.org/pid/99/4812-1.html He has supposedly 14 publications already in 2026, an average of almost 1 per week. Many on topics related to anonymity and censorship: "encrypted traffic classification", "multi-functional traffic analysis system", "webpage fingerprinting", "HTTPS encrypted traffic classification", "private protocol reverse engineering", "flow watermarking", "real-time detection of malicious DoH traffic". Even just *reading* all these publications would be a nontrivial task, and this is just one professor's lab. If I had to guess based on prior experience, I'd estimate at least 80% of them are probably inconsequential dreck, hardly worth the time to triage. But there can be good stuff sometimes. Take for example the Chinese patent application CN109391590A from 2019, which revealed the name (Maat) and the abstract functioning of a system of expressing firewall rules, which was later (in 2025) confirmed to be part of Geedge Networks' classification stack. https://patents.google.com/patent/CN109391590A/en https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/444 (commentary on the patent application) https://interseclab.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/The-Internet-Coup_Septemb... (footnote 10) https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/519#issuecomment-3282101626 A Chinese researcher whose papers tend to be of higher quality and have a higher probability of being worth reading is 郑超 (Zheng Chao), CTO of Geedge Networks. He is one of the inventors on the above patent application CN109391590A. Here is a roundup of some of his research up to 2024: https://github.com/net4people/bbs/issues/369#issuecomment-2195455424 https://dblp.org/pid/54/1147-1.html I mentioned how it's difficult to find information about National Key R&D Program grant numbers, unless someone involved in the grant happens to post something online about it. Professor 程光 (Cheng Guang) actually has two National Key R&D Program grants on his home page, including titles and funding amounts. Not the 2023YFB3106700 that started the thread, but 2018YFB1800602 and 2020YFB1804604. https://web.archive.org/web/20260320164444/https://cyber.seu.edu.cn/_s303/cg... 2018YFB1800602 Title: 下一代网络处理器体系结构及关键技术研究 (Next-generation Network Processor Architecture and Key Technology Research) PI: 程光 (Cheng Guang) Start date: 2019-06 End date: 2023-06 Amount: 954 万元 ≈ 1.4M USD 2020YFB1804604 Title: 内生安全交换机关键技术研究 (Endogenous Security Switch Key Technology Research) PI: 程光 (Cheng Guang) Start date: 2020-07 End date: 2024-06 Amount: 118.5 万元 ≈ 180k USD On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 11:03:12PM -0400, Tom Ritter wrote:
I was not aware that there were so many research papers being published publicly, in English, at from what I can guess are legit, well-known but perhaps not top-tier journals and conferences? Do you wind up changing anything in the protocols or the implementations based on what they find?
-tom
On Tue, 28 Apr 2026 at 15:10, griffin via tor-project <tor-project@lists.torproject.org> wrote:
Correction: > 委托项目 or 横向项目
I'd listed the same phrase twice ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
On Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 06:55:44PM +0000, griffin wrote:
His research networks / supervision appear fairly broad (he is a professor, after all), but much of the research does seem to be highly focused in this area. Aside from Key R&D, there is a lot of funding from NSFC (National Natural Science Foundation of China) and provincial funding from Jiangsu. Not hugely surprising, considering how crucial these programs are for computer science funding in China in general (esp NSFC). For specific grant numbers, you want to look for 基金项目 on CNKI or in conference listings (NSFC is like 62xxetc for "information science" and 61xxetc for older ICT grants).
And NSFC is exceptional among Chinese funding in that you actually *can* look up grant PIs, titles, start and end dates, funding amounts, and abstracts – at least for projects that have already finished, for which a final report exists. Go to https://kd.nsfc.cn/finalProjectInit?advanced=true Enter the grant number in the 项目批准号 box (project approval number) Click the green 检索 button (search) For example, NSFC grant 61070026 is https://kd.nsfc.cn/finalDetails?id=704b3086e0afd578b9d3d7b56f66f778 Title: 面向高速网络内容安全处理的专用系统结构 (Dedicated system architecture for secure processing of high-speed web content) PI: 郭莉 (Guo Li) Institution: Institute of Information Engineering Dates: 2011-01-01 – 2013-12-31 Amount: 35.0 万元 (≈ 50,000 USD)
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Tom Ritter