Did Paris terrorists truly use PlayStation four to plan attacks?

11:17AM GMT sixteen Nov 2015

Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris, which have left at least one hundred thirty two dead and many more injured, have been linked to Sony’s PlayStation Four, with suggestions that the attackers used the game console to co-ordinate and plan the atrocity.

After the hunt for suspects turned to Belgium, where evidence indicates that the attacks were planned, raids reportedly found at least one PS4, among other items, albeit this does not show up to have been confirmed.

Some days before, Belgium’s interior minister Jan Jambon, linked the PlayStation network to Isil, telling it was being increasingly used by terrorists and is more difficult to track than other communication services.

"PlayStation four is even more difficult to keep track of than WhatsApp," Jambon said at a debate in Brussels.

"The most difficult communication inbetween these terrorists is via PlayStation Four," he said. "It’s very, very difficult for our services — not only Belgian services but international services — to decrypt the communication that is done via PlayStation Four."

Meantime, reports have quoted official sources suggesting that the attackers communicated with contacts in Syria using encryption devices.

Is it lighter to hide communications with a PS4?

While most communication security questions have centred around smartphones, messaging and social media – phone calls, Facebook, WhatsApp, emails and so on – there is, of course, no shortage of devices and methods with which people can communicate over the internet.

Games consoles are, of course, exceptionally popular – the PlayStation four has sold more than twenty five million units to date, and the PlayStation Network, which includes users of earlier games consoles and other Sony electronics – has more than sixty five million users.

Users can communicate via text over PSN’s party talk, or using internet voice talk. There are also a number of in-game communication methods across various titles.

While these systems may, as Jambon suggested, be more difficult to decrypt than other smartphone or web-based communication methods, it’s possible that their breadth also makes them more difficult to monitor, or that security services have not given them as much attention as the likes of WhatsApp.

Sony doesn’t exactly have a superb reputation for security. A hack of PSN in two thousand eleven witnessed seventy seven million users affected by individual data theft, and a hack emerged in December last year that spotted many individual details of celebrities and other public figures leaked.

The PlayStation Network’s privacy policy is relatively standard, telling it will share information with law authorities "when we believe in good faith that the law requires disclosure or that disclosure is necessary to protect or enforce the rights, property, safety, or security of ourselves or others".

It has also been speculated that messages could be drawn out within games, rather than written, in creative ways such as firing patterns of bullets at a wall. This would make any monitoring by text-filtering unlikely.

Paris attacks

At this stage, however, we have very little evidence tying the PS4 or the PlayStation Network to the Paris attacks.

A PS4 may have been found in the raids, but would also have been found in twenty five million other households around the world. High-end games consoles are especially popular among youthful fellows, and if indeed wielded by the attackers or their accomplices, may have just been a way of spending time.

Practically all internet communication services have been, at one time or another, accused of being a network used by terrorists. GCHQ chief Robert Hannigan said last year that Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp have become "instruction and control networks. for terrorists and criminals".

WhatsApp and Facebook have also been said to be used by terrorists Photo: Getty

Security researcher Graham Cluley wrote: "Anything which permits two people to exchange messages (whether it be by talking, typing, or swinging semaphore flags at each other in a 3D virtual environment) could potentially be used by terrorists to communicate.

"I have umpteen chess apps on my phone which permit me to play folks online. Even if many of them didn’t come with their own instant-messaging facility, I could communicate with my fellow extremists by playing a pre-agreed opening, that they knew how to interpret.

"Don’t love chess? Not a problem. Launch an online game like ‘Draw Something’ and you’ll soon be doodling your orders for a terrorist attack to your playmate in crime."

While it’s possible that the PS4 could have been used as a communication contraption to plan attacks, it is only one of many different services that could have been used.

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