Leaked 100,000 files expose China’s export of surveillance tech to Pakistan, Africa, and beyond

Massive document leak reveals China’s global censorship exports

A leak of more than 100,000 internal documents has blown the lid off Geedge Networks, a Chinese firm accused of selling censorship and surveillance tools to governments across Asia and Africa, according to ANI citing a report by The Epoch Times.

The fallout has been swift: cybersecurity experts, cited by ANI, are calling it one of the largest exposures of China’s digital control industry, with implications stretching from Xinjiang to Ethiopia and Pakistan.

The company behind the Great Firewall

Geedge was founded by Fang Binxing, known as the “Father of China’s Great Firewall.” The company has long been at the centre of Beijing’s internet control ecosystem, but the leak shows how its influence extends far beyond China’s borders.

According to The Epoch Times, citing researchers at InterSecLab, Geedge has contracts with governments in Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Myanmar, and an unnamed country, along with close ties to Xinjiang’s local authorities,  a region already under international scrutiny for intensive surveillance of minorities.

What the leaked files reveal

The cache includes correspondence, technical blueprints, personnel data, reimbursement systems, and meeting notes.

Key findings:

• Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) tools used to monitor and filter online traffic.
• Reverse-engineering of circumvention tools, especially those built on open-source projects.
• Efforts to block or limit VPNs, even as many users believe VPNs can bypass China’s Great Firewall.

Digital repression as an export model

Xia told The Epoch Times that the documents confirm a clear trend: authoritarian governments in developing nations are the primary customers of Chinese censorship systems.

“Only the Chinese Communist Party can enforce such controls while simultaneously advancing its economy,” Xia said, adding that the leak will also help developers of internet freedom technologies understand how to outsmart these systems.