A massive leak has revealed that Chinese company Geedge Networks, who played a role in developing “The Great Firewall” system of censorship for China, is also offering its suite of products to other countries and providing similar censorship abilities. According to Wired, the governments to whom these capabilities were granted include Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Ethiopia.
“The Great Firewall” refers to the nation-wide censorship in China that blocks access to a selection of websites. This includes social networking sites, news sites, and virtually anything else that the government chooses to censor.
In a technical analysis of the leaked documents, InterSec lab’s key findings revealed a variety of alarming features. Their research provides evidence of a provincial firewall model, meaning that censorship can become region specific. This potential for social fragmentation in the digital sphere is alarming. While we see the impact of digital echo-chambers as a result of the algorithms here in the United States, it is difficult to imagine all of the implications of this being utilized in a Big Brother apparatus.
Another key finding is the Geedge Networks product’s ability to identify individuals using virtual private networks (VPNs), which allow for added anonymity by showing your digital connection coming from a different location, and other circumvention tools to shut any
potentially work-around down as quickly as possible and make sure blocked websites stay inaccessible to those inside the country or region.
Perhaps the most alarming part of this finding is the ability to censor individuals. According to statements made by Marla Rivera, a technical researcher at InterSec lab, in addition to mass censorship capabilities, this type of censorship tech would allow censorship of individuals based on browsing history including visiting a specific domain.
Exporting this type of technology to other nations provides an unprecedented level of government censorship. For individuals who were careful about what speech they used but freely searched the internet to access unacceptable content, this type of tech could identify those individuals for even the potential of developing wrongthink. Identifying VPNs will also restrict access to blocked sites for those who used them as a way to go around restrictions in the past. The Orwellian implications of this technology should make it immediately rejected in the U.S. and every Western nation as China’s dystopian vision for the world must be rejected.