MERCHANTS OF SURVEILLANCE - The Global Surveillance Industry

Typing SVG


Visitors

> what_is_this

you@github:~$ cat surveillance-industry.txt

  PURPOSE:     A country-by-country field guide to the global surveillance industry
  SCOPE:       Vendors, exploit shops, data brokers, and state apparatus
  COVERAGE:    20 jurisdictions + 1 company deep-dive (Palantir) = 21 dossiers
  METHOD:      Hand-built Markdown, one dossier per file, renders on GitHub
  BRANDING:    MERCHANTS OF SURVEILLANCE // house "//" style
  STATUS:      [ ACTIVE ]

Every democracy and dictatorship buys from the same catalog. This maps who is selling: the companies that build mass-monitoring tools, the intelligence pipelines that spun them out, and the scandals that exposed them. Jump straight to a dossier below.

> ls --dossiers

Dossier Region The Pitch
United States North America Police & government surveillance tools, vendors & infrastructure
Canada North America DPI exporters // Sandvine Entity List // Five Eyes
Israel Middle East Unit 8200 pipeline // Mobile exploitation // Global export
China East Asia Social Credit System // Mass surveillance // Global export
Russia Eurasia SORM pipeline // FSB access // Global export
United Kingdom Europe GCHQ pipeline // Five Eyes // Global SIGINT
France Europe DGSE pipeline // Amesys scandal // Dictator's Helper
Germany Europe FinFisher scandal // BND-NSA alliance // Stasi legacy
Italy Europe Hacking Team legacy // RCS Lab // Spyware Alley
Spain Europe Variston // Mollitiam // Zero-day shops
Greece Europe Predatorgate // Intellexa // EU spyware hub
Netherlands Europe Fox-IT // Group 2000 // Lawful intercept
Sweden Europe MSAB XRY // Axis cameras // FRA cable tapping
Switzerland Europe Crypto AG scandal // IMSI catchers // SS7
India South Asia Aadhaar biometrics // Pegasus buyer // Digital authoritarianism
Japan East Asia NEC NeoFace // Biometrics // Global LE exports
South Korea East Asia Hanwha Vision // Wisenet // Global cameras
Singapore Southeast Asia COSEINC // Exploit broker hub // Smart Nation
Australia Oceania ASD // Five Eyes // Nuix investigations
Gulf States Middle East UAE + Saudi Arabia // Petrodollar spyware // Dissident targeting
Palantir US // Private Sector The All-Seeing Eye // Data integration & surveillance platform

> method

you@github:~$ tree Surveillance-Industry/

  README.md                         # this hub: links every dossier
  american-surveillance-tools.md    # United States
  canada-surveillance.md            # Canada
  israeli-surveillance.md           # Israel
  china-surveillance.md             # China
  russia-surveillance.md            # Russia
  uk-surveillance.md                # United Kingdom
  france-surveillance.md            # France
  germany-surveillance.md           # Germany
  italy-surveillance.md             # Italy
  spain-surveillance.md             # Spain
  greece-surveillance.md            # Greece
  netherlands-surveillance.md       # Netherlands
  sweden-surveillance.md            # Sweden
  switzerland-surveillance.md       # Switzerland
  india-surveillance.md             # India
  japan-surveillance.md             # Japan
  south-korea-surveillance.md       # South Korea
  singapore-surveillance.md         # Singapore
  australia-surveillance.md         # Australia
  gulf-states-surveillance.md       # Gulf States
  palantir-deep-dive.md             # Palantir company deep-dive
  assets/                           # committed SVG banners (national palettes)
  • Plain Markdown. Each dossier is a single .md file that renders directly on GitHub - no build step, no framework, no backend.
  • Portable. Reads anywhere Markdown does: GitHub, an editor, a static-site generator, or piped into anything.
  • Committed banners. National-palette SVG headers live in assets/ so GitHub always renders them (no external capsule-render dependency).
  • Open-source sourcing. Compiled from public reporting, court filings, and disclosures. Inclusion documents market activity, not wrongdoing by every named party.
  • Scope note. Pure ad-tech / RTB tracking is intentionally light here — that layer gets its own dedicated repo.
Repo What
Ringmast4r/FED The Global Intelligence Rolodex: 925+ agencies + cultural centers used as cover
Ringmast4r/surveillance-capabilities-map Interactive map of US police surveillance capabilities

Maintained by @ringmast4r