Network Solutions wasn't to blame as it does not offer backbone provider services to NIC Chile, said Rick Wilhelm, the company's vice president of engineering. Equinix and Global Crossing could not immediately be reached for comment.

Netnod, which maintains a copy of its root DNS server in China, has now "withdrawn route announcements" made by the server, according to company CEO Kurt Lindqvist. This effectively disconnects the server from the Internet. In an e-mail interview, Lindqvist said he could not recall when his company took this action.

Netnod insists that its server did not contain the bad data that redirected Internet traffic, and security experts agree, saying that its data was probably being altered by the Chinese government somewhere on China's network, in order to enforce the country's Great Firewall.