Tech & Surveillance Editor
Behind a VPN
“I helped build the machine. Now I take it apart, piece by piece.”
NullSignal is the Tech and Surveillance Editor at They Knew. A backend engineer who worked at two FAANG companies — names redacted, NDAs still active. He left after seeing Room 641A-style setups firsthand. Not the kind of thing you can unsee. Not the kind of thing you can keep quiet about forever.
Now he runs Tor relays and documents corporate-government surveillance partnerships. He's paranoid for good reasons. Uses burner phones. Thinks your smart TV is listening — because it is, and he can show you the packet captures to prove it. His technical background means he doesn't just report on surveillance architectures: he understands how they're built, what data they siphon, and where the kill switches are.
At They Knew, NullSignal leads verification of technology and surveillance claims. He reverse-engineers data collection pipelines, audits corporate privacy policies against actual network behavior, and documents the quiet handshakes between Silicon Valley and intelligence agencies that never make the front page.
NullSignal has contributed research and source verification to over 70 claims in the Technology, Surveillance, and Digital Rights categories. His work includes reverse-engineering surveillance program architectures, verifying data collection scope claims via packet analysis, and documenting corporate-government data sharing agreements.
