The Cheyenne Urban Chinese Legend

The house the Chinese internet built (at least for a day).

When this story broke, various media sources originally said the Chinese internet was directed to the site of Sophidea, a company registered in Cheyenne, WY.  This company managed to hit the infamous 2710 Thomes Avenue location, which was the subject of much internet conversation in 2011 when it was registered to previous tenant Wyoming Corporate Services (WCS). According to the New York Times, WCS company "was the subject of a lengthy Reuters article in 2011 that found that about 2,000 business entities had been registered to the home." Now WCS is listed as a business at 1712 Pioneer Ave.

It's not clear how it happened, but for several hours on Tuesday thousands, if not millions, of Chinese Internet users were being dumped at the e-door of a two-story building Cheyenne.

The users' Internet traffic, bound initially for Chinese social networking sites and search engines, was redirected due to a mysterious error in the country's domain name system, the New York Times reports.

So what's the big deal? Sophidea. Really. Supposedly this elusive company reroutes internet traffic in order to hide where a person has been, making it easier to send spam. Or escape a firewall. And considering the Chinese internet rerouted everyone to this site, it makes for a very ironic twist.

Welcome, people of China, to the Republic of Wyoming. You're welcome to stay!