Following the devastating attacks which claimed the lives of at least 132 innocents on Friday night, European authorities are investigating how the attacks were coordinated.
While nothing has yet been confirmed the federal home affairs minister of Belgium has gone public with one theory, suggesting terrorists may use the PS4 in order to communicate.
Jan Jambon was addressing the issue of why so many Belgians have left their home nation to take up arms for the Islamic State, and said that members of the terrorist group use the games console to evade communications being intercepted.
Jambon said:
PlayStation 4 is even more difficult to keep track of than WhatsApp.”
The PS4 has a range of online options which would enable militants to speak with each other, without producing red flags to authorities.
On the PlayStation Network terrorists could send direct messages, or having set up a private party in a game use voice chat, or even place messages directly into games. Forbes has speculated that attacks could be spelled out between users through methods such as writing on walls with bullets on games like Call of Duty.
That may sound unlikely, but the truth is no matter how unlikely, it is possible.
With growing concerns over how the PlayStation Network, or Xbox Live, could be utilised to evil ends, pressure may now fall on Microsoft and Sony to give intelligence agencies greater ability to monitor online networks.
The FBI pushed for such capability in 2010 but were denied access to peer-to-peer communications by the Federal Communications Commission. Fresh calls now seem highly likely.
