K18 and K24: Kazakhstan September/October: Context In Kazakhstan, legislation supports government censorship and control of communication systems. The National Security Law, adopted in December 2011, gives the Kazakh government the authority to suspend telecommunications to combat terrorism or riots.21 The government decree No. 457, issued July 27, 2017 and amended March 26, 2019, gives the government a monopoly on the country’s internet infrastructure.22 The government also forces all international internet traffic through a centralized internet exchange, operated by the State Technical Service which is controlled by the National Security Committee.23 Independent internet exchange points offer only peering of domestic traffic. Freedom House reported several short and geographically targeted internet disruptions in Kazakhstan in 2024.24 Kazakhstan began laying the groundwork for undermining the integrity of internet communications in the country in 2015 with the creation of a root security certificate. Owning this root certificate would enable the government to intercept and decrypt all encrypted internet traffic within the country, giving them access to both the metadata and the actual content of private communications. In 2019, the Kazakh government announced that internet users in Kazakhstan would have to download this root certificate. Tech companies such as Google, Mozilla, and Apple resisted this attempt to insert a false certificate into their operating systems and web browsers, recognizing that allowing this type of certificate would compromise the foundation that modern cybersecurity is built on, especially if other countries issued their own root certificates.25 It is around this time that Geedge’s relationship with Kazakhstan begins.