A seismic data leak has identified Geedge Networks—founded by China’s “Great Firewall architect” Fang Binxing—and its role in exporting China’s authoritarian controls via ISP partnerships.

In Brief by Probe International

In July 2024, Chinese technologists gathered in Urumqi, Xinjiang—a region notorious for draconian internet controls targeting Uyghur minorities—to strategize against tools evading the Great Firewall, China’s sprawling censorship apparatus. Authorities have prioritized dismantling tools that enable access to banned platforms and encrypted messaging apps, framing the crackdown in meeting minutes as a “long-term struggle and technical confrontation” critical to nationwide counterterrorism operations—an unyielding effort to stifle digital dissent under the guise of security.

The minutes from that gathering are part of a leaked trove of more than 100,000 internal documents linked to Geedge Networks, a shadowy firm founded by Fang Binxing, dubbed “Father of China’s Great Firewall.” Instrumental in refining China’s censorship infrastructure, Geedge has quietly exported its surveillance toolkit to authoritarian regimes such as Myanmar, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and Kazakhstan, according to various reports covering the massive data breach.

Reporters from The Globe and Mail and Paper Trail Media, along with researchers at InterSecLab, Amnesty International, Justice For Myanmar and the Tor Project spent months combing through the leaked files, which offer a key insight not only into how Geedge exports cutting-edge censorship technology to its authoritarian clients (giving them capabilities they might not otherwise have), but also into the evolution of the Great Firewall itself. Spilling more than 500GB of internal files—including source code, operational manuals, and developer logs—onto the dark web, the files reveal how the “Great Firewall” is engineered to filter, block, and monitor online traffic at a national scale.

Researchers describe the breach as one of the most granular exposures of state-backed censorship technology ever documented, offering unprecedented insight into China’s methods for designing and exporting tools that enable authoritarian control. From development blueprints to real-world deployment strategies, the files uncover how Beijing builds and refines its digital barriers while marketing similar systems to foreign regimes seeking to replicate its model of internet suppression.

Geedge’s “Tiangou” system, deployed in Myanmar via telecom partners, enabled junta-led VPN bans and real-time monitoring of 81 million connections, while in Pakistan, it filled the void left by sanctioned Western firm, the Waterloo, Ontario-based Sandvine. The leaks expose Geedge’s collaboration with ISPs to enact region-specific blackouts, systems for throttling data flows, the fingerprinting of anonymous users, and supercharging client regimes with unprecedented censorship capabilities—equipping client states with tools to erase digital dissent and tighten their ideological grip.

Geedge’s ambitions extend globally under China’s Belt and Road Initiative, framed by co-founder Fang Binxing as spreading “Chinese solutions” for digital authoritarianism. The leaks tie Geedge to Russia’s censorship infrastructure and projects in “East Africa” and “South Asia,” while job postings target techs fluent in English for deployments in Pakistan, India, and Bahrain.

Michael Caster, a researcher at the British-based international human rights organization ARTICLE 19, told The Globe and Mail that Geedge epitomizes the “Digital Silk Road,” embedding centralized gateways that fragment the open internet under the guise of “cyber sovereignty.”

“It’s about normative and narrative change,” Mr. Caster said, noting that the concept of “cyber sovereignty,” developed in part by Mr. Fang, has “gained traction in autocratic states, and we’re unfortunately seeing similar language in democratic countries too.”

“States are setting up centralized national gateways that control the flow of data in and out of the country,” he said. “This fuels internet fragmentation and strikes at the core principles of a free, open and interoperable internet.”

Despite U.S. funding cuts for anti-censorship tools, firms like Psiphon (a free VPN useful for circumventing censorship) battle Geedge’s evolving tech, which allows autocrats to bypass years of expertise by installing plug-and-play surveillance systems.

Meanwhile, Geedge’s ties to Chinese state labs—including the MESA Lab, which co-developed Xinjiang’s “anti-terrorism vanguard” tools—underscore a chilling synergy: Beijing’s domestic repression now fuels a global blueprint for control, eroding digital freedoms under the banner of “stability.”