Marc Hofer

Big Data = Big Surveillance China’s ability to conduct digital surveillance on their population is not particularly new, but connecting those tools to big-data raises their potency.

A patent shows how China’s security services keep tabs on citizens mobile devices combining WiFi-probes and big-data collusion : open.substack.com/pub/netaskar...

Episode 2: The Locknet How China controls the internet and why it matters: Join Jessica Batke and Laura Edelson talking to us about their recent report.

Episode 2 of NetAskari’s podcast just dropped : The Locknet - substack.com/home/post/p-...

The FBI is weighing an arrest and perp walk for Comey — and suspended an agent for refusing to help, sources say The FBI is considering carrying out a "showy" arrest and perp walk of the agency's now-indicted ex-Director James Comey, sources tell CBS News.

“The source told CBS News that [Kash Patel and Dan Bongino] asked for "large, beefy" agents to conduct an arrest of Comey "in full kit," including Kevlar vests and exterior wear emblazoned with the FBI logo.” The leadership of the FBI is now in the hands of infantile psychopaths.

Xinjiang 912: The evolution of the Great Firewall forged in one of the world’s most surveilled and controlled regions. open.substack.com/pub/netaskar...

We took a stroll among the less sexy “study” documents of MESA Lab but still found some interesting little nuggets on the future of China’s cyber strategy and developments : open.substack.com/pub/netaskar...

U.S. government scrambles to stop new hacking campaign blamed on China U.S. cybersecurity officials ordered civilian federal agencies to check for vulnerable Cisco equipment being exploited by attackers targeting the government.

Federal agencies are racing to contain a new wave of sophisticated hacking by suspected Chinese attackers that took advantage of previously undiscovered flaws in widely used security software from networking company Cisco.

Selling China's Great Firewall to the world: a series of unprecedented data and document leaks lift the curtain on China's global surveillance and censorship business ( built with the help of some western big tech players too ). open.substack.com/pub/netaskar...

Let's build a network range (网络靶场) ! Leaked development notes from a Chinese software company collaborating with the Ministry of Public Security in China reveals internal designs of a "network range".

and here is the link: netaskari.substack.com/p/lets-build...

We did a little bit of an analysis of a leaked project mindmap that according to us, reveals some internals of a Chinese network range, operated by the Ministry of Public Security.

Not sure how reliable the numbers are as we have very scarce data on China, where the private-public cyber security sector is booming too.

'Dark DNA' may explain dancing spiders' extraordinary diversity There are many more species of peacock spider than other animals, scientists think they may know why.

'Dark DNA' may explain dancing spiders' extraordinary diversity

US tech companies enabled the surveillance and detention of hundreds of thousands in China U.S. technology firms such as IBM, Dell and Cisco largely designed and built China’s surveillance state, an AP investigation finds. The tech companies deny wrongdoing.

Many in Silicon Valley call China a threat to freedom, but an AP investigation finds U.S. companies designed technology for China used to spy on and detain hundreds of thousands of people. The tech companies deny wrongdoing.

Massive Leak Shows How a Chinese Company Is Exporting the Great Firewall to the World Geedge Networks, a company with ties to the founder of China’s mass censorship infrastructure, is selling its censorship and surveillance systems to at least four other countries in Asia and Africa.

A massive data set reveals the Chinese company that sales powerful and sweeping online surveillance systems to regimes around the globe: www.wired.com/story/geedge...

Check out the report here: tinyurl.com/mvxstdee

NetAskari (@netaskari) Chinas global data raiders: Read PART 2 of our analysis of “Hawk Eye” and see what offensive capabilities it hides in its guts.

China’s global data raiders : PART 2 of our analysis of “Hawk Eye”. substack.com/@netaskari/n...

Trump says 11 killed in US strike on drug-carrying vessel from Venezuela The Trump administration has signalled a willingness to use military force against drug cartels.

Trump says 11 killed in US strike on drug-carrying vessel from Venezuela

Even Bali is seeing serious rioting, with 2 injured and 138 detained up to now. The whole of Indonesia is aflame, and Prabowo has had to cancel his attendance in China's parade. This is big stuff, but as usual Indonesia flies under the Western media's radar.
www.cnnindonesia.com/nasional/202...

We should also add using AI for better online surveillance via big-data analysis and predictive policing.

"Hawk Eye": A global online surveillance super weapon made in China ? ( PART 1 ) NetAskari reports exclusively on a mass-data analysis and storage system paired with offensive cyber operation capabilities aimed at users globally.

NetAskari uncovered a draft document on a server belonging to the Ministry of State Security in China, outlining a giant mass-data surveillance framework with offensive attack capabilities. Meet "Hawk Eye": open.substack.com/pub/netaskar...

“The Taliban forcibly took over our joint venture oil fields and unreasonably drove our Chinese personnel out of the oil field at gunpoint.”

www.npr.org/2025/08/27/n...

the specific type of murder-focused "true crime" is mostly corrosive but I think crime books as a genre are important because a really good crime book is about money, power, class, poverty and so forth. they're the social realist novels of non-fiction, ideally.

Trump Threatens NBC, ABC Licenses Over News Coverage US President Donald Trump berated NBC and ABC as “two of the worst and most biased networks in history,” adding he’d support the FCC in revoking licenses to their television stations.

Donald Trump berated NBC and ABC as “two of the worst and most biased networks in history,” adding he’d support the FCC in revoking licenses to their television stations.

"I've now been allowed and asked to share more details about what's going down at the University of Oregon, which involves imminent announcement of firings, among others, of tenure-track and tenured faculty. Given the units impacted (see below), please share this with your professional networks in related disciplines and start getting ready to put pressure (or begin putting pressure already) on the University of Oregon upper admin to abandon this alleged plan before they finalize it. It appears that, with no prior consultations, the departments of Religion and Classics (two separate units), and the programs in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, German & Scandinavian, Judaic Studies, Arabic Studies, and Holocaust Studies (the latter five all parts of a previously- consolidated mega unit called the Schnitzer School of Global Studies and Languages) are facing imminent announcement of elimination (expected the week of Sept 7), with layoffs of pre-tenure, tenured, and career faculty in these units. The reason given is "financial exigency" -- upper administrations of several universities across the country (and in blue states like Oregon also) appear to be giddy to use the context of Trump attacks on higher ed to dismantle the humanities. Faculty at OU won a faculty union not long ago; this may be, in part, a retaliation for that, l've been told. The union is working with AAUP, etc.; my understanding is that the maximum spotlight is needed at this point."

Arabic Studies, Holocaust Studies, Russian, Eastern European & Eurasian Studies, Religion, & more—decimating the humanities destroys our ability to understand the world, act in it, and envision a future. Blue states are complicit in this destruction of scholarship and teaching
@uoregon.bsky.social

How Tea’s Founder Convinced Millions of Women to Spill Their Secrets, Then Exposed Them to the World A 404 Media investigation reveals how the man who started Tea, the ‘women dating safety’ app, tried to hire a female ‘face’ for the company and then hijack her grassroots community.

New: the inside story of how Tea collected millions of women's secrets, then exposed them to the world. We've found Tea raided women safety groups to get users; paid influencers to undermine others, much more.

The “motive is money, not actually to protect people.” www.404media.co/how-teas-fou...

Ongoing debate about China's #RSDL system for disappearances into secret locations is a good reason to learn about the reality inside. Our graphics-heavy report, #LockedUp, does just that.

Come for the fantastic artwork, leave knowing the reality.

safeguarddefenders.com/en/blog/new-...

"Tom Cat" or "how to build an AI censorship machine in China" Leaked data from a server with test conversations from the popular "Talking Tom" AI companion presents a opportunity for an investigation into how LLM censorship works in China.

A leaked set of data gives fresh insights into how LLM censorship is conducted in China. Come with us on an investigation to get new insights into structures, methods and approaches of getting even Children's toys to adhere to a strict and coherent censorship regime open.substack.com/pub/netaskar...

Zambia Assures Public Water Is Safe After Mine-Pollution Spill The Zambian government sought to calm public concerns about pollution levels after a study found that the damage done by a disaster at a Chinese state-owned copper mine in February was much larger than officially reported.

The Zambian government sought to calm public concerns about pollution levels after a study found that the damage done by a disaster at a Chinese state-owned copper mine was much larger than officially reported

Louisiana going the full Xinjiang

This is the deal Trump and Putin started to publicly negotiate during the last round of "Ukraine peace talks."

EU Schedules 14 Oct Vote on Message-Scanning “Chat Control” Law | DeepNewz Europe European Union governments have revived the so-called “Chat Control” regulation, a draft law that would compel messaging services to scan all user communications—including content protected by end-to-...

The EU wants to ram through “Chat control” once again: deepnewz.com/europe/eu-sc...