The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) logo is displayed in the lobby of CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, USA, on Aug 14, 2008. (Photo / AFP)

The US web company which runs the servers hosting the online voting organized by the “Occupy Central” campaign has links with US intelligence agencies, according to a report from Hong Kong-based Sing Tao Daily on Wednesday.

The newspaper reached this conclusion following a review of numerous media reports in relation to CloudFlare, a Silicon Valley company that has streamed and secured Web traffic for the online voting server of the “Occupy” poll since June 20.

CloudFlare was still considered a “Silicon Valley startup” when, in June 2011, its security service was used by hacker group LulzSec in a series of high-profile attacks which brought down the website of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

In a story published by ZDNet, CloudFlare’s CEO Matthew Prince told an audience at a conference in 2012 that “We have made a lot of friends with some government agencies” after being “caught in the crossfire”.

Sing Tao Daily said CloudFlare has since found a wide spectrum of clients, including the CIA, Wikileaks and hacker group “Anonymous”. Two weeks ago, CloudFlare began to offer free and anonymous protection to “vulnerable public interest Web properties” around the world to fend off DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks. Its “partners”, however, are largely limited to US-based organizations.

The partners highlighted in the news report included Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology, and Radio Free Asia’s Open Technology Fund. Both of which, according to the paper, have close ties with the US establishment.

The Public Opinion Program of the University of Hong Kong reportedly did not respond to the newspaper’s inquiry on details of the CloudFlare service.