Have You Heard of Toka? The Company Behind Digital Deception

 

Image: OpenAI

by Julie Telgenhoff

“If you’re not doing anything wrong, what does it matter?”

It is the familiar response whenever concerns about surveillance arise. Cameras are everywhere, people say, but innocent people have nothing to worry about.

That argument collapses when the camera footage itself can be changed.

Imagine being accused of entering a building you never visited. Imagine surveillance footage showing your vehicle somewhere it never went. Or imagine a crime being captured on camera, only for the people responsible to disappear from the recording.

When video can be manipulated, innocence no longer protects you.

Many Americans have heard something about Flock Safety, the company installing license-plate readers and surveillance cameras throughout communities nationwide. Its systems track vehicles, record movements, and provide police with growing amounts of information.

But far fewer people know about Toka.

Toka is an Israeli-founded cyber-intelligence company now headquartered in Maryland. Its clients include governments, military organizations, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement. Its website openly advertises “frictionless surveillance,” covert access, targeting and tracking, and data extraction.

Unlike companies that install cameras, Toka reportedly specializes in penetrating cameras that already exist.

An investigation by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, based on internal company documents reviewed by a technical expert, reported that Toka’s technology can locate nearby security cameras and webcams, access their feeds, and alter both live footage and previously recorded video. The investigation also described the ability to erase evidence of covert operations.

Think about what that means.

A camera outside a business could capture someone entering a building. Another could record a vehicle leaving. A doorbell camera might establish the timing. Ordinarily, those separate recordings help investigators determine what happened.

But if those systems can be remotely accessed and manipulated, the footage people trust to establish the truth could become the mechanism used to conceal it.

The issue is no longer simply who is watching.

It is who can rewrite what the camera saw.

Toka was co-founded by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and former Israeli military cyber chief Yaron Rosen. The company says it serves customers across 13 countries and has positioned itself closer to American government agencies through its Maryland headquarters.

And there is a very important connection not being discussed and that needs to be exposed. What is it? Well, Flock and Toka share the same major investor: Andreessen Horowitz (also known as a16z).

This venture capital and private equity firm led Flock’s $275 million funding round while also backing Toka. That means the same financial interests are funding both the expansion of surveillance cameras across American communities and a company whose technology can reportedly penetrate and manipulate camera systems. Let that sink in...

One company helps build the network.

The other reportedly offers the tools to enter it.

That is the danger. Surveillance does not merely document reality when someone has the power to rewrite it.

And this technology is not being discussed solely in the context of foreign intelligence operations. TechCrunch reported that Andreessen Horowitz cofounder Ben Horowitz attempted to fund the purchase of Toka software for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Toka said the department ultimately declined.

The fact that such an arrangement was considered shows how close these capabilities already are to ordinary American policing.

People are arguing about the cameras they can see.

The greater question concerns the invisible access layered on top of them.

Who controls it? Who authorizes it? Who audits it? And if footage can be altered without leaving an obvious trail, how would anyone know when the official record no longer reflects reality?

Flock expands the surveillance network. Toka reportedly offers the ability to turn existing networks into covert intelligence assets and potentially change the record afterward.

Imagine a whistleblower leaving a government building with documents exposing corruption. Security cameras record who followed them, when they entered the parking garage, and which vehicle drove away. If someone can remotely access those cameras and alter the footage, the whistleblower could appear to have left alone while the people following them vanish from the record.

Or consider the reverse: footage could potentially be manipulated to place someone at a location they never visited. Suddenly, a camera recording becomes evidence against an innocent person, and the people controlling that evidence also control the story it tells.

Suddenly, “If you’re not doing anything wrong, what does it matter?” doesn't sound very reassuring anymore.