Leaked files show a Chinese company is exporting the Great Firewall’s censorship technology - The Globe and Mail 9/18/25, 10:43 AM free tools such as Psiphon or Tor are highly dependent on support from grants and donors, a situation that has been complicated in recent months by a freeze on much U.S. funding for internet freedom. The increasing sophistication of censorship tools shows why such funding is desperately needed, Mr. McManamen said. In the past, ISPs might have bought off-the-shelf censorship software in response to government orders, implemented a simple list of banned websites, and left it like that, he noted. Under the new paradigm enabled by companies like Geedge, however, “now the government is paying someone directly, they’ll bring in a team, install it on the ISP infrastructure, and make their own rules.” “The client demands certain things and the vendors are trying to keep them happy,” Mr. McManamen said. “These secrets can be shared, software can be updated with new capabilities, features rolled out. The scary part is that if you’re a country that’s new to the game of information control, you no longer have to earn the expertise yourself.” This can be seen in the Geedge documents, as features developed for one area of operation eventually trickle down to all the company’s clients. (Though not always: The documents mention efforts to block Psiphon in Ethiopia, but this does not seem to have happened, despite Geedge’s tests in Myanmar.) Opinion: China held a parade to send a message about its power. Message received Mr. Fang is described proudly in the Geedge documents as “father of the firewall.” Other top company personnel, such as chief executive Wang Yuandi and chief technology officer Zheng Chao, are listed as co-authors of papers on internet censorship and creator of patents applied for by Geedge. The company also has a close relationship with the Massive and Effective Stream Analysis Laboratory (MESA Lab) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with the documents showing regular collaboration between personnel at both entities. It was a MESA Lab researcher who took notes at the July, 2024, meeting in Xinjiang, where attendees spoke of using technology to “strike at the use of tools” to bypass the Great Firewall and establish the “Xinjiang Branch Centre” as an “anti-terrorism vanguard” and “demonstration of provincial capabilities.” Such capabilities, Geedge’s history suggests, may soon roll out to the company’s clients all over the world. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-leaked-files-show-a…de&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer Page 7 of 9