Sony's online services for the PlayStation 3 have been unavailable for nearly a week, leaving gamers unable to play online or purchase games and films from the PS3's online store.
Many people assumed that online activists Anonymous were responsible when the PlayStation Network (PSN) went offline last Wednesday, as the group had declared action against Sony earlier this month. Anonymous chose to attack Sony as retribution for a lawsuit against George Hotz, a hacker who last year cracked the PS3's security and enabled the use of unofficial software on the console, but backed down when they realised the attacks were affecting ordinary users. The group now denies any involvement in the current PSN outage, stating "for once we didn't do it".
So if Anonymous isn't attacking PSN, what's causing the outage? Sony has only released a few details on its official blog, stating on Friday that an "external intrusion" had forced them to switch off the service and following up on Saturday with a promise to re-build and strengthen the system.
One suggestion, put forward on Reddit by a moderator of PlayStation hacking site PSX-Scene.com who goes by the name chesh420, suggests that Sony has taken its servers offline to prevent "extreme piracy of PSN content".
He claims that a piece of unofficial firmware, known as Rebug, allows users to gain access to the private PlayStation developer network. This also allows users to purchase games and other content for free using fake credit card numbers, since Sony doesn't check the authenticity of the numbers on the private network. He suggests Sony has shut down the PSN servers to secure them against this exploit.
These claims have not been verified, but New Scientist has seen instructions on PlayStation hacking forums for using the Rebug firmware to download free content, suggesting that the exploit is indeed possible.
Sony's lack of details on the cause of the outage has also lead to speculation that attackers may have gained access to users' credit card details. Sony spokesman Satoshi Fukuoka told PC World that the company hadn't yet determined whether such details have been compromised.
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