How digital information flows through isolated North Korea

North Korea’s Internet access continues to be spotty after going completely dead on Monday. There's been widespread speculation about who or what was responsible for the crash.

It happened just days after President Barack Obama vowed to seek "proportional" retaliation for the hack of Sony Pictures.

But, as much coverage of this incident has pointed out, not many people in North Korea actually have access to the Internet. So how does information flow in and out of this isolated nation - if at all?

Robert Boynton directs NYU's magazine journalism program, and he wrote "North Korea's Digital Underground" for the Atlantic magazine.

About 1,300 people in the country have Internet connection, according to one estimate Boynton has seen.

"The number of people who have access to anything that we would consider the Internet is remarkably small in a country of 25 million people," Boynton said. All of the country's Internet connections go through China.

North Korea's Internet is more of an intranet, Boynton says. It's reminiscent of the kind of site AOL was.

"There are areas where you can find information about the country, there are some puzzles and video games, but there’s nothing that intrudes on the carefully curated narrative that the North Korean regime puts together," Boynton said.

Boynton says it's "virtually unheard of" for North Korean to have computers in their homes. The Internet can mostly be accessed in the country's cafes and universities.

With this limited access, Boynton feels the Internet outage had a small impact in the country.

"If this is what President Obama meant by 'proportionate response,' I'm not sure whether it really hits the mark," he said. "I can't imagine there is much of great value that is hooked up to the Internet."

It remains unknown who or what caused North Korea's Internet outage.