Recently, internal documents from Geedge Networks Ltd., founded by the “Father of China’s Great Firewall” Fang Binxing, have been massively leaked, revealing the insider information of the Chinese Communist Party’s export of firewall technology overseas. In light of this event, our publication interviewed Bill Xia, the developer of the circumvention software “Freegate” and CEO of Dynamic Internet Technology, to delve into the technical background and profound impact of this unprecedented leakage.
Bill Xia remarked, “In the past, the international community’s understanding of the Chinese government’s internet censorship mainly came from scattered reports and indirect speculations, with Chinese officials often dismissing these reports as malicious smearing from outsiders. Now, the important technological components of this digital Great Firewall have been fully and clearly exposed, allowing people to see clearly how each technical brick is intricately and systematically assembled, much like an anatomical study.”
He also pointed out that the company packages offensive technology into products for sale, lacking ethical considerations. “Knowing that this type of network surveillance technology is unethical, yet commercializing it, is a rogue behavior.”
On September 11, 2025, internal documents of the Great Firewall of China (GFW) were leaked on a large scale, including complete source code, detailed work logs, internal communication records, and specific project documents related to cooperation with multiple governments.
Bill Xia told Epoch Times that these valuable pieces of information have comprehensively and systematically revealed the specific operational mechanisms and technical details of the Chinese government’s internet censorship, helping to dispel many misunderstandings in the international community regarding various circumvention tools’ actual effectiveness.
He stated, “This not only aids the domestic public in gaining a more in-depth and accurate understanding of the complex technical mechanisms of internet censorship but also assists the international community in scientifically and objectively evaluating the practical effectiveness and technical limitations of various circumvention tools.”
According to an analysis by GFW Report, a platform focusing on researching and tracking China’s internet censorship mechanism, the leaked documents related to the Chinese firewall totaled approximately 600GB, where a single file ‘mirror/repo.tar’ serving as an RPM packaging server accounted for 500GB.
The source of this leak points to the critical technical supporter of the GFW, Geedge Networks Ltd., founded by Chinese Academy of Engineering academician Fang Binxing, in collaboration with the MESA Laboratory under the Institute of Information Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The leaked documents not only contained a vast amount of source code, work logs, and internal communication records but also detailed the specific details of these organizations constructing provincial firewalls for several provinces in China, such as Xinjiang, Jiangsu, and Fujian.
Most significantly, the documents revealed that under the framework of the Chinese government’s Belt and Road Initiative, related technologies have been exported to multiple countries, further confirming the global expansion of Chinese censorship technology.
Regarding the widespread belief that this leak involved core technologies of the Chinese national Great Firewall, Bill Xia holds a different view. In an interview, he stated, “Geedge Networks Ltd.’s technical capabilities are more advanced within the industry, but compared to the overall technology and scale of the Chinese national Great Firewall, there is still a significant gap.”
“Concerning national-level internet censorship, there should be higher-level teams handling this matter, and what has been exposed is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Bill Xia analyzed that while Geedge Networks Ltd. demonstrates advanced technical capabilities, “it still falls far short compared to the actual technology and scale employed by the real national Great Firewall of China.”
Regarding the reason for the leak, Bill Xia believed it was “intentionally leaked from within”; stating that “people with technical capabilities can access this information, they know how to protect themselves, and securely transmit this information.”
When discussing the technology export, Bill Xia pointed out that the company packages offensive technology into products for sale, which he described as rogue behavior. “Although China has previously proposed the concept of ‘unrestricted warfare,’ possibly at a national level, openly packaging such technology as products for sale, completely disregarding ethics, would never occur in normal security companies.”
Based on the analysis of the leaked documents, Bill Xia clarified some serious misunderstandings in the public perception of circumvention tools. He indicated, “Many tools based on VPN protocols are easily identifiable due to their implementation method or traffic characteristics, have limited capabilities in bypassing internet censorship, and are even highly susceptible to being blocked.”
He emphasized, “Currently, the truly large-scale and effective circumvention tools are mostly not open-source projects, but rather those tools with closed source code perform better.”
Regarding the prospects of Geedge Networks’ overseas technology exports, Bill Xia believed the market to be quite limited, stating, “There are actually not many countries with large-scale internet censorship nowadays. Due to the fact that internet censorship typically restricts the flow of information and innovation, most countries would find it difficult to maintain economic development while implementing strict censorship. However, China has achieved this balance through large-scale resource investment and technological integration.”
He proposed that apart from a few countries like Russia, the main clientele would be “economically lagging countries” or “countries with political turmoil and autocratic governments that might require this technology.”
This unprecedented leakage event not only exposed the commercial export model of Chinese internet censorship technology but also provided a rare window for the outside world to delve deeply into the operational mechanism of the Great Firewall. Bill Xia expressed that this is akin to “putting a part of this wall in broad daylight, where everyone can see how each brick is laid.”
“This massive leakage deals a severe blow to the trust relationships within the Chinese Communist Party, serving as a significant deterrent for individuals involved in similar departments.”