I’m not saying the Obama administration arranged for North Korea’s internet activity to go completely dark as payback for the Sony hack, but if they did it’s a very cool gangsta move. A few hours ago N.Y. Times reporters Nicole Perlroth and David Sanger wrote that North Korea’s internet completely died today. CloudFlare, an Internet company based in San Francisco, confirmed Monday that North Korea’s online access was “toast.” I think we all know…er, suspect what happened.

It would be inappropriate for Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal to assume or say anything, but behind closed doors I’m sure they’re exchanging high-fives.

The Times story notes that “while perhaps a coincidence, the failure of the country’s computer connections began only hours after President Obama declared Friday that the United States would launch a ‘proportional response‘ to what he termed an act of ‘cybervandalism’ against Sony Pictures.”

It also quotes a State Department spokeswoman, Marie Harf, as telling reporters on Monday, “We aren’t going to discuss, you know, publicly operational details about the possible response options,” adding that “as we implement our responses, some will be seen, some may not be seen.”

The story observed that American officials “who had described over the weekend how they were intensely focused on the country’s telecommunications connections through China — and how they had asked the Chinese government for help in cutting off the North’s ability to send malicious code around the world — declined to discuss what befell those connections. ‘I guess accidents can happen,’ one said in a very brief telephone conversation.”