GEEDGE OPERATIONS AND CLIENTS Geedge Operations and Clients How Geedge Products Are Deployed Geedge Networks sells their products as a full package to client governments. There are some similarities between different clients when Geedge sets up in a new location, but each deployment is tailored to the client’s individual needs. Each client usually has established surveillance and censorship laws and practices, so Geedge’s deployment and implementation process is adaptive to a country’s specific control priorities and infrastructure. Efficiency in Operations Compared to some of these countries’ legacy internet control systems, Geedge operates remarkably efficiently. In some cases, Geedge accomplished in a matter of months tasks that a client government struggled with for years. Additionally, when one of Geedge’s clients request a feature, for example the ability to block a specific VPN, that new capability can be deployed to other clients in Geedge’s network through a simple software update. In this way, censorship and surveillance advances in one location can quickly travel across borders and supercharge digital authoritarianism in other countries within Geedge’s network of client states. Setting Up Clients and Day-to-day Operations After receiving a new contract with a client government and beginning deployment within a country, Geedge’s next step is working with the local ISPs to bring the system online. When setting up in a new country or province, Geedge staff will travel to the client location to install hardware on premises owned by the governments and the local ISPs. Local ISPs are integral to the set-up of a Geedge system. ISPs need to give Geedge staff access to their premises during the installation and to contribute a network plan for how the Geedge hardware can integrate into the ISP’s existing systems. The Geedge hardware that collects and stores the bulk data is housed inside each individual ISP’s data centers. While it is clear that ISPs are certainly involved and implicated in Geedge’s deployment process, it is likely that most ISP employees are not fully informed about all of the details about the system and capabilities. In-Country System Architecture While the architecture of Geedge’s system in client countries is largely similar, there is some variation in the architecture among clients. Typically, Geedge’s in-country set up involves a command-and-control center which is often called the national center. A couple of countries have two national centers instead of just one. In most cases, the national centers form the center of the system which is connected to a dozen or more other.... 30