The recent Paris attacks by ISIS has left everyone aghast and in shock that such a horrific incident can be carried out against humanity. The attack which killed 127 people and left more than 300 wounded may have been planned using the most famous console today, a Sony PlayStation 4.
Right after the attacks French troops started raiding places and also raided nearby Belgian capital Brussels. Belgian federal home affairs minister Jan Jambon has said outright that the PS4 has been used by ISIS agents to communicate, and was selected due to the fact that it’s notoriously hard to monitor. “PlayStation 4 is even more difficult to keep track of than WhatsApp,” he said.
Since the birth of new generation of gaming consoles in 2013, the authorities were having concerns of security with companies not working on being able to track online activities on consoles.
The console could have provided the terrorists a channel to communicate with each other. The comparatively low-tech system is capable of offering a more secure means of communication than even encrypted phone calls, texts and email.
It still remains unclear whether ISIS terrorists employed PlayStation’s chat network to communicate or some in-game communication to send messages. Some games even provide in-game voice-chatting feature and it has been increasingly difficult to track these as well.
The gaming console also was implicated in Islamic State’s plans back in June, when an Austrian teen was arrested for downloading bomb plans to his PlayStation 4.