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TOKYO (AFP) – Sony will expose details of its interior probe into a massive thieving of individualized accumulation from users of its PlayStation Network on Sunday, nonnegative a timetable for transfer the meshwork back into action, it said.

The electronics colossus said Saturday it would stop a news word on the section severance of the online network, which may hit participating the thieving of assign bill details and which it said this hebdomad was carried discover by hackers.

The PlayStation Network and Qriocity moving penalization service were shut downbound on Apr 20 after what Sony described as an "external intrusion" and remain offline as the consort upgrades section and works with Federal investigators.

The United States, Britain, Australia and Hong Kong are work the hacking and thieving of individualized accumulation from the network, which has 77 meg users worldwide.

A US House of Representatives commission weekday dispatched a letter to Kazuo Hirai, chair of Sony Computer Entertainment America, with questions on the accumulation breach.

"Given the turn and nature of individualized aggregation known to hit been taken, the potential alteration that could be caused if assign bill aggregation was also condemned would be quite significant," said the letter from a commission of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which was posted on the Internet.

Sony has said users' assign bill accumulation was encrypted but could not rule discover the possibility that bill accumulation was obtained by hackers.

The committee also asked Sony to vindicate ground it believes assign bill aggregation was not condemned despite existence unable to determine the exact bit of the theft.

"The fact that coding was existence utilised on the assign bill accumulation is to be welcomed -- as it reduces the chances of condemned aggregation existence utilised for fraud," Graham Cluley, senior profession consultant at cyberspace section concern Sophos, said on his blog.

"However, there still relic the question about meet how brawny the coding is that Sony used."

Britain's Information Commissioner's Office said it had contacted Sony, patch Australia's Privacy Commissioner Timothy colonist said he had launched an investigation.

"We're seeing more and more today aggregation existence held globally, and it's more functionary upon organisations to attain trusty they do hit brawny section systems in place to protect that information," he told broadcaster ABC earlier this week.

Hong Kong Privacy Commissioner Allan Chiang said he was inquiring the severance and met with topical Sony authorised Katsuhiko Murase who told him 400,000 Hong Kong PlayStation Network user accounts were involved.

He said Murase told him the account aggregation compromised includes the name, address, country, email address, birthdate, PSN countersign and login, and PSN online ID of users, but there was no grounds assign bill accumulation was taken.

Sony is existence sued in a US court by gamers who hit accused the consort of existence neglectful and breaching its contracts with PlayStation Network users.

The consort has not indicated whether it has identified a offender in the intrusion.

Internet vigilante group Anonymous had vowed retaliation against Sony for taking legal state against hackers who cracked PS3 defences to modify housing operating software.

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