AI Summary
5 min readThey're Building the Prison Around Us: Josh Walkos on DarkHorse
A technology called Toka Group claims it can find any internet-connected CCTV camera, disable it, alter its feed in real time, and leave no forensic trace that the camera's owner would ever detect. Founded in 2018 in Israel by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and an IDF veteran, Toka relocated to Maryland — the heart of U.S. intelligence and military infrastructure. It sells exclusively to governments and police. Its investors include Andreessen Horowitz, which dumped $12.5 million into the company at its founding. This is not a rumor dug up from the dark web. Toka states these capabilities plainly on its website.
The Technology That Makes Video Evidence Meaningless
Josh Walkos, an independent researcher, came to Toka through the public conversation about Flock cameras — the license plate reader network that alarmed people when they realized it could be searched retroactively across the nation. Walkos wondered what else was out there. What he found was Toka, and the implications are far more disturbing than a camera that reads plates.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:04) **Introducing Josh Walkos and the Surveillance Landscape** - Brett welcomes Josh Walkos to discuss emerging surveillance and technocracy technologies that surpass concerns about simpler systems like Flock cameras.
- 2 (03:30) **Ad Break: Sundays for Dogs** - A sponsorship segment for dog food.
- 3 (04:58) **Toka Group's Stated Capabilities and Implications** - Brett and Josh discuss the shocking claims on Toka's website, including real-time feed alteration, and the grave implications for the validity of video evidence.
- 4 (11:15) **Historical Cases Recontextualized by This Technology** - The conversation turns to recent high-profile cases where video evidence is central, and how they read differently if Toka's technology was available.
- 5 (14:14) **The Obscurity of the Toka Discussion** - Brett and Josh explore why Toka remains obscure while simpler technologies like Flock are widely discussed.
- 6 (20:57) **Ad Break: Ethos Life Insurance** - A sponsorship segment for life insurance.
- 7 (22:15) **The Broader Privatized Panopticon** - Josh and Brett expand the discussion to include other surveillance technologies like Cognite and the concept of a privatized surveillance network.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Bret Weinstein speaks with Josh Walkos on the subject of Toka, a company that says it can alter surveillance video without a trace, and the wider network of surveillance and targeting tools being built with no public consent.
Find Josh Walkos on X at https://x.com/JoshWalkos and on Substack at https://wethefree.substack.com
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Music: "Marble Machine" by Wintergatan
This track can be downloaded for free at www.wintergatan.net
Free License to use this track in your video can be downloaded at www.wintergatan.net
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Mentioned on this episode:
- Josh Walkos thread, “Inside Toka and the New Age of ‘Frictionless Surveillance:’” https://x.com/JoshWalkos/status/2085785810754785715
- The Great Cyber Pandemic (Josh Walkos, We The Free) https://wethefree.substack.com/p/the-great-cyber-pandemic
- Toka https://tokagroup.com
- Flock's biggest investor also backs a company that can rewrite camera footage (TechSpot) https://www.techspot.com/news/113395-flock-biggest-investor-also-backs-company-can-rewrite.html
- This 'Dystopian' Cyber Firm Could Have Saved Mossad Assassins From Exposure (Haaretz) https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2022-12-26/ty-article-magazine/.premium/this-dystopian-cyber-firm-could-have-saved-mossad-assassins-from-exposure/00000185-0bc6-d26d-a1b7-dbd739100000
- Epstein Could Have Made $100 Million On A Secret Police Tech Investment (Forbes) https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2026/02/10/epstein-police-surveillance-investments-with-ehud-barak/
- Flock Safety https://www.flocksafety.com
- Axon https://www.axon.com
- How Texas Police Spent $4.5 Million on Four Chevy Tahoes (Cognyte's FalcoNet, The Drive) https://www.thedrive.com/news/how-texas-police-spent-4-5-million-on-four-chevy-tahoes
- Pentagon to Designate Palantir Maven AI as Program of Record (GovCon Wire) https://www.govconwire.com/articles/pentagon-palantir-maven-ai-program-of-record
- Vault 7: CIA Hacking Tools Revealed (WikiLeaks) https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/
- Grassley Questions FDA's Sanction of Blood Substitute Study Without Patient Con
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