Update | Major internet outage hits millions in China, cyberattacks suspected
For about an hour yesterday, attempts to access sites without the .cn country code led to page run by US company with Falun Gong ties
Mainlanders could not access much of the internet yesterday, with users who tried to call up websites being redirected to a blank page run by a US technology company tied to Falun Gong.
Normal service resumed about an hour later but the problem lingered in some regions for hours longer.
Internet users were redirected to a website owned by Dynamic Internet Technology, a company working "to provide web access to forbidden sites for internet users in China", according to its website.
The company counts among its clients The Epoch Times, a newspaper run by Falun Gong, which Beijing has outlawed as an "evil cult". It also did work for Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and Human Rights in China, it said.
Company president Bill Xia confirmed to the South China Morning Post the web address belonged to them. But he believed the incident was a backfiring of the government's own web censoring system. "We noticed a sudden increase of traffic and suspected we were under attack," he said. "Our security system has activated a protection mechanism so visitors to the address are not able to see any thing."