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METHODOLOGY Methodology The more than 100,000 leaked documents reviewed for this research were obtained from a source who also shared the data with the following partners: Amnesty International, Justice For Myanmar, Paper Trail Media, The Globe and Mail, the Tor Project, the Austrian newspaper DER STANDARD and Follow The Money. These partners, as well as the authors of this report, collaborated to analyze, verify, and report on various aspects of this data. The InterSecLab team developed and hosted a collaborative infrastructure to facilitate a multi-partner, cross-border investigation of the collection of documents included in the data leak. We deployed an OpenSearch cluster, indexing the documents into the opensource document discovery platform Datashare. Our consortium of partners used this platform to query the documents. Partners used this infrastructure to share additional data and findings from interviews with human sources and other subscription-based databases including corporate records, patents, etc. We then used the open-source text extraction library Apache Tika as well as a combination of Tesseract and Apple Vision framework for optical character recognition and ran every document through the Llama family of large language family of models from Meta to translate and generate an English language summary of each document. Our research team then indexed those summaries into a modified version of the open source wiki.js software which allowed us to select documents. Selected documents were further translated and analyzed. Some of the data was already available in English (as it is often the case that Geedge Networks communicates with its international clients in English). When documents were only available in Chinese, we crossreferenced multiple machine translations and large language models. InterSecLab consulted with Chinese speakers and experts on the interpretation of key documents used in this research. Additional analysis was made by reviewing Geedge’s illustrations and network diagrams. Details from our findings were cross-referenced using import export databases, LinkedIn, and public news sources, to corroborate the events described in the leaked documents. The leak contains source code, and we have indexed the source code. It is important to note that for this research InterSecLab did not conduct a comprehensive review of the source code. 11

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The Internet Coup A Technical Analysis on How a Chinese Company is Exporting The Great Firewall to Autocratic Regimes

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Topic

Digital Rights
Digital Surveillance
Internet Connectivity / Accessibility
Internet Restrictions

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INTER SECLAB

Date Published: Sep 9, 2025

Abstract: Over the past two decades, the Chinese government has been steadily refining their model of internet control using surveillance and censorship technologies domestically while promoting this approach to other nations under the banner of “digital sovereignty”. Through the export of these technologies, China is not only extending its global influence but also laying the foundation for a federated system of internet governance. In this system, Chinese companies provide the infrastructure and expertise for client governments to more easily monitor and control their own networks, while learning from these deployments and improving collective capacity for digital authoritarianism worldwide.

This research by InterSecLab uncovers evidence of the export of a suite of technologies resembling China’s Great Firewall by Geedge Networks, a private company linked to the academic entity ‘Massive and Effective Stream Analysis’ (Mesalab), a research laboratory at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Our team’s investigation identifies a pattern of commercialization of surveillance capabilities, with Geedge Networks offering a suite of products that enable comprehensive monitoring and control of internet users.

InterSecLab’s analysis reveals that Geedge Networks is contracted with governments in Kazakhstan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Myanmar, and one other unknown country to establish sophisticated systems of internet censorship and surveillance. Furthermore, our findings indicate that Geedge Networks is also involved in developing similar systems deployed within China, including in Xinjiang and other regions.

Based on analysis of a leak of more than 100,000 Geedge Networks documents that was shared with InterSecLab, this research sheds light on the features and capabilities of Geedge Networks’ systems, which include deep packet inspection, real-time monitoring of mobile subscribers, granular control over internet traffic, as well as censorship rules that can be tailored to each region. The leak also reveals information about Geedge Networks’ relationship with the academic entity, Mesalab, as well as their interactions with client governments. The implications for data sovereignty are significant, and our findings raise concerns about the commoditization of surveillance and information control technologies.

This research examines the recent development of Geedge Networks’ systems in various countries, including what is known about their deployment timelines. By analyzing the company’s internal documentation, InterSecLab was able to chronicle the expansion of commercially available national firewalls and speculate about the implications for the future of the global internet considering the spread of such systems.

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The Internet Coup A Technical Analysis on How a Chinese Company is Exporting The Great Firewall to Autocratic Regimes

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