As the outages afflicting the PlayStation Network enter their third day, Anonymous is finally addressing speculation that it was responsible for the recent issues facing the service.

In a post titled For Once We Did Not Do It Anonymous denies that it is behind the outages, which started on April 20. In a message on the PlayStation Blog on Thursday, PSN manager James Gallagher said that Sony wasn't ruling out outside intervention as a potential cause for the outage. Our support teams are investigating the cause of the problem, including the possibility of targeted behavior by an outside party, Gallagher said.

One person familiar with part of the PSN's security says it didn't look like an outside attack was responsible. The person says the one firm handling Sony's computer security had been monitoring the Anonymous chat rooms, and the collective seemed as baffled as anyone else.

Anonymous says the outages are due to Sony's own incompetence. Still, Anonymous says that it cannot rule out nefarious activities by rouge members operating independently of the organization.

While it could be the case that other Anons have acted by themselves, AnonOps was not related to this incident and does not take responsibility for whatever has happened, Anonymous said.

Annonymous's denial should not come as a surprise, as the organization had previously announced that it was unlikely to ever attack the PlayStation Network directly.

Anonymous is not attacking the PSN at this time. Sony's official position is that the PSN is undergoing maintenance. We realize that targeting the PSN is not a good idea. We have therefore temporarily suspended our action, until a method is found that will not severely impact Sony customers, the organization said in a statement on April 6.

Anonymous's denial comes as Sony announces that the PlayStation Network's outages are likely to last into the weekend. The service serves 70 million PlayStation 3 and PSP users.

Sony Electronics Sony Cybercrime