Some Hotmail Accounts Wiped 298
tomhudson writes "PC Magazine reports that many Hotmail accounts have lost all their emails. Users' entire email histories have apparently been lost. 'Users can still log in sans issue. However, they arrive at empty inboxes: No custom folders, no messages in "Sent" or "Deleted," nothing. As one might expect, the abruptness (and unexpectedness) of the purge has left some of Hotmail's long-time users a bit in the dark.'"
Long term hotmail users? (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Long term hotmail users? (Score:5, Insightful)
I do trust Gmail to have better data integrity because they are more open about their architecture and having read about it, I think it's well designed.
I don't have any expectation of them caring about my email apart from its data-mining value though.
Data loss is just not an issue with The Cloud! (Score:5, Funny)
Wait a minute. I'm a manager, and I've been reading a lot of case studies and watching a lot of webcasts about The Cloud. Based on all of this glorious marketing literature, I, as a manager, have absolutely no reason to doubt the safety of any data put in The Cloud.
The case studies all use words like "secure", "MD5", "RSS feeds" and "encryption" to describe the security of The Cloud. I don't know about you, but that sounds damn secure to me! Some Clouds even use SSL and HTTP. That's rock solid in my book.
And don't forget that you have to use Web Services to access The Cloud. Nothing is more secure than SOA and Web Services, with the exception of perhaps SaaS. But I think that Cloud Services 2.0 will combine the tiers into an MVC-compliant stack that uses SaaS to increase the security and partitioning of the data.
My main concern isn't with the security of The Cloud, but rather with getting my Indian team to learn all about it so we can deploy some first-generation The Cloud applications and Web Services to provide the ultimate platform upon which we can layer our business intelligence and reporting, because there are still a few verticals that we need to leverage before we can move to The Cloud 2.0.
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Hello, I'm working for $bigcorp and I would like to sell you The Cloud. You will see our rates are affordable and we boost your productivity by a magnitude you cannot even imagine yet! Best of all, it will seamlessly integrate with your Indian team (after all, one of the big features of The Cloud is that it's, well, distributed. Distributed like your production, you see, it already fits perfectly!). At the final integration step, you will even no longer have to rely on your team in India should they become
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Of course! Indians have been using beta version (smoke) clouds for communication since prehistoric times!
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The case studies all use words like "secure", "MD5"
For those who STILL don't get that this is a joke (see other comments), MD5 has been cracked.
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And shockingly, the pass-phrase was "12345"
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Out of curiosity, does anybody know where this meme (assuming it is actually a meme and not just a single comment people keep reposting) came from?
Yeah, I do- it came from stupid managers. ;-)
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It's the opener to "I'm (pretending to be) a person with no idea about technology, but dammit, Google and Facebook got rich quick with that internet thingamajig and I wanna too!"
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A lot of it stems from Dilbert and the Pointy Headed Boss.
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Go ThunderStorm! (Score:2)
Why settle for a wimpy ol' cloud when you can have a ThunderStorm? Post-Web direct p2p data redundancy with patent pending SpiralTrack technology so you can get up to the nanosecond data auditing at the bit level.
After all, those Web links aren't safe anymore - they don't come from Trusted Sources these days. Better to use LightningStrike secured data transmission protocols!
Re:Long term hotmail users? (Score:5, Informative)
use gmail, then use thunderbird to dl (without deleting from server) and something like mozbackup
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Exactly. I would never use any web-based email service which didn't support pop/imap.
If your emails are important, it's simply stupid to rely on an external service to whom your account's integrity is of little consequence. Nothing beats having a local copy and doing your own backups.
Speaking of backups, there was a short period of time when the average person was just starting to get the idea of doing regular backups of their info (it's unbelievable that no OS I've seen has an intelligent backup service).
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I learned that lesson that time that Google lost those emails and couldn't back them up. Fortunately, I wasn't affected by that.
Even with good design and careful management there's always the possibility of something being lost. Even in the idealized constant backups scenario it might mean that you're without
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If this same incident happened to Gmail, the story wouldn't just be a tech news article, it would be headline mainstream news.
I think that google takes it all much more seriously that "hotmail". Microsoft just wants to have a player in every game. Google wants
to win the championship ring. Google's revenue comes from serving ads on every gmail viewers page. Microsoft could do without ad revenue
and still be a viable company. Google could not.
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Quoting Wikipedia here, "Used by many email clients including Microsoft Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Mozilla Thunderbird.[36] The files are plain text in MIME format, containing the email header as well as the message contents and attachments in one or more of several formats."
Hopefully I'm not misunderstanding what you're asking for.
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even if you use only the web fontend of GMail, you could setup an email client like Thunderbird with IMAP, if you only care to backup the emails and not the labels hierarchy, just tell GMail the only label you want to publish on IMAP is "All Mail" and setup you email client to sync that folder
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That's interesting, my mail client stores a copy of IMAP mailboxes locally, and my backups contain all of that content. I can scroll back through the archive and restore messages individually or en masse. Some of the benefits of using Apple Mail and having Time Machine set up. Yes, I'm smug. That's another benefit of being a Mac user.
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Why not maintain both? It's trivial to setup access through MS mail and Thunderbird. If you do use a mail client, there's no need to use their "shoddy" interface and they all look the same.
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I've taken the extra step of not only forwarding all email received by my Hotmail account to my Gmail account. I also forward all mail received by my Gmail account to my Hotmail account. Although, shortly after implementing this strategy, I've noticed a lot of duplicate emails in each inbox and my mailboxes keep filling up. It's not even SPAM, it's just the same messages being repeated over and over and over again.
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With Hotmail, I don't have to give my cell phone number so that they can send me a text message with a key. That's creepy. I don't want cell phone numbers tied with email accounts and I don't want Google to have that information.
Gmail have special rules just for you? How nice. They don't force me to have a phone number on record.
Now it's me that's sad.
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I did with someone who was going to get an e-mail address for the first time. They were unable to send e-mails until that was filled out.
They must of fixed it - how lucky for you.
Another disposable account - less than 2 minutes - no sigh of demand for a 'phone number.
Bad google, bad.
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Backups may be unusable. Any bad thing that can happen will, and at the worst possible moment.
Or perhaps there were finger problems...
Or perhaps, like many large mail systems, restore of a major loss of data is not possible within the constraints imposed (time, machine load, other crap), and the best choice for the business is to write off the data.
Perhaps there are backups but they are not current enough. Say 24/48 hrs earlier, meaning all new stuff is lost. New stuff is the highest priority.
Full nightl
Save thy emails by downloading them. (Score:2)
I use Zimbra, but whatever tool you use, do periodically slurp your webmail and back it up.
Re:Save thy emails by downloading them. (Score:4, Funny)
"I use crowd based storage."
I tried that for my beer. It didn't work out.
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I tried to do that too, but he's pretty good-natured and rarely gets angry.
What happened? (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they finally tried to switch Hotmail over to Windows NT...
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I get the joke you're trying to make, but it's worth pointing out that this was not only done long ago, it was done using a relatively unknown capability of NT - the POSIX subsystem that allows apps written for Unix-like operating systems to run unmodified (aside from a recompile) on NT. It was actually one of the first major uses of this subsystem, since at the time there was no way to move Hotmail onto Win32 without re-writing it.
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The POSIX subsystem is well known... to suck, because it only implements POSIX v1 and not POSIX v2 like the whole Unix world has moved on to, nominally including the various free Unixes. That's why the MKS toolkit used to sell like mad, and why Cygwin and Services for Unix exist today.
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OK I admit it was a pretty lame attempt at humor. I figured it might be good for a few karma points here on Slashdot but apparently not... :_(
For the youngsters: The whole point of Microsoft's acquisition of Hotmail was to port it from FreeBSD/Solaris to Windows NT, thus _proving_ to the world that NT was enterprise-ready and capable of running a large website (Hotmail was one of the most heavily loaded websites in the world at the time).
It took them many years to complete and was the butt of many jokes...e
Simple... (Score:3)
Re:Simple... (Score:5, Insightful)
"MS's Hotmail specifically says they're not responsible for loss of data"
Whereas the likely truth is that they _are_ responsible for loss of data, but they don't _accept_ responsibility.
Actually (Score:2)
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I forget my monthly check once in a while, so I can confirm this.
Yahoo Mail has a 4-month wipe countdown, but you need to pay for POP3 access if you want to slurp the mail.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Backup solution (not cross platform) (Score:2)
For Firefox and SeaMonkey, there is MozBackup to backup your local profiles, including the mailbox. While available only for Windows, it is Open Source and should therefore not easily disappear.
Of course, relying on MozBackup requires you to generally store your mails at home, not on the server.
Re:Backup solution (not cross platform) (Score:4, Interesting)
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Furthermore, they're running the service for a reason. If there was no incentive for them to run Hotmail, they'd have axed it a long time ago. Thus, legal obligations aside, if they want their product to help them, they need to offer a good service. If they don't, people will just move to another similar service and they'll have lost their customer base. Worse, it'll probably taint all of their other offerings. What if they have the same policies/stupidity with, say, Office Live?
The jury's still out on the cloud, but . . . (Score:3)
MS's "cloud" image, it's crunch time (Score:2)
We keep hearing about how MS wants to move to cloud-based services, with things like office. If they're not taking this extremely seriously and providing five star response, it shoots their cloud image in the foot.
But then, they seem to like shooting themselves in the foot. (you'd think by now they'd have ran out of toes?) I certainly wouldn't trust them to keep my documents safe if they demonstrate they can't even handle my email.
"sans issue" (Score:2)
Does the author have any idea what that term really means?
Re:"sans issue" (Score:4, Funny)
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Obviously it was a security breach, which is why they called the SANS [sans.org] institute to help figure it out.
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sounds like inSANSity to me.
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I saw an article on that, some sort of sans paper. It was pretty rough.
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did it use sans serif?
Do you have any idea? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you? The author used it in a perfectly acceptable manner. "Sans" means "without". So "Users can still log in sans issue." can be read as "Users can still log in without issue." That describes the situation perfectly. Users can log in just fine, but they can't view their messages.
I appreciate it when people criticize the authors or submitters for their stupidity or ignorance, but that's just not the case here. You are the one who is in the wrong, and we should criticize you.
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I think you're ignoring an idiomatic detail about the word 'sans'.
In all the usages I can think of, 'sans' refers to something that's a proper subset of something else. For example, "My cable television contract has all the channels sans HBO."
In the original post, it's not clear of what set "issue" is a member. That's jarring to the reader.
Therefore I think the way it was used was at least unpleasant and possibly also unidiomatic. I'd say that made it a bad word cho
Re:Do you have any idea? (Score:4, Informative)
I think you're ignoring an idiomatic detail about the word 'sans'.
In all the usages I can think of, 'sans' refers to something that's a proper subset of something else. For example, "My cable television contract has all the channels sans HBO."
In the original post, it's not clear of what set "issue" is a member. That's jarring to the reader.
Therefore I think the way it was used was at least unpleasant and possibly also unidiomatic. I'd say that made it a bad word choice.
I'd say your explanation is sans basis in fact. The term sans means "without," not "except for." This is true in both the original French and in English. While these are similar, they are not identical.
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"sans issue" means "no exit" in French. So it is briefly confusing to anyone who understands a bit of French to use it to mean "without any problems". The trouble is that you don't know how much French the writer is trying to use, and might even think they are trying to say "Users can log in but not log out again". (And the use of issue to mean problem, though widely accepted, is still non-compliant with most dictionaries; it more properly means an outcome or consequence, or a matter for discussion - witho
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No, he's sans humor.
What do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
You gets what you pays for. You're paying nothing except your privacy - which corporations demonstrably don't value highly - in exchange for a webmail service. One which explicitly declares in its terms and conditions that you have no expectation of data integrity.
And if you only ever use the web interface, there isn't even any chance that you've mirrored your mail to your local computer. Webmail relieves you of the responsibility of installing a mail client, backing up your data, etc.
Now everything is going "cloud", I can see a gap in the market for "family cloud" appliances - plonk them on your home network, trust a few similar units on the networks of family members, and get the benefits of redundant backups, mail service, etc, exchanging the cost of your privacy for a few hundred dollars.
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> You gets what you pays for.
No you don't. proof: people buy Microsoft products.
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People's privacy only has low value because people forget to cherish it: it's become available in infinite supply, so its value is approaching zero.
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Now everything is going "cloud", I can see a gap in the market for "family cloud" appliances - plonk them on your home network, trust a few similar units on the networks of family members, and get the benefits of redundant backups, mail service, etc, exchanging the cost of your privacy for a few hundred dollars.
And most likely a violation of your internet providers TOS for running those evil 'servers' on a home account.
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Good idea, but how are you going to implement it in such a way that the consumers don't actually need to do anything?
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Now everything is going "cloud", I can see a gap in the market for "family cloud" appliances - plonk them on your home network, trust a few similar units on the networks of family members, and get the benefits of redundant backups, mail service, etc, exchanging the cost of your privacy for a few hundred dollars.
That is exactly what Eben Moglen discussed during his presentation at DebConf10. Info on the presentation [debconf.org] (including links to video) is available. Also check out Joey Hess' commentary [kitenet.net] on the pre
To The Cloud! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Shit. It's raining.
Re:To The Rain Cloud! (Score:2)
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LoB
No need for local backup (Score:3, Insightful)
And that boys and girls (Score:2)
And that boys and girls is why cloud computing sucks.
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Same idea, you data is on someone else's machine is under their control and subject to their goofs.
Really deleted or just not visible (Score:3)
Yahoo email. (Score:4, Insightful)
About two years ago Yahoo changed some back end stuff to rid of the country based email system (I was .au) they had and to centralise everything. In the change many peoples accounts got wiped or they got locked out of their accounts. I got locked out of my account and couldn't remember what smart ass answer I had put in to the secret questions over a decade ago. Yahoo refuse to do anything if you can't get past the secret question and so now I have nothing to do with them.
P.S. Secret questions are the worst "security" feature ever. Either they are far too obvious and easy for casual acquaintances and Internet detectives to break (ala Sarah Palin) or you never remember the stupid shit you put in them many years in the past.
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Secret questions are the worst "security" feature ever.
They are a great feature if you always make your answer nonsensical with respect to the question.
eg. Question: What was the name of your first pet? Answer: July 23, 1994
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"I got locked out of my account and couldn't remember what smart ass answer I had put in to the secret questions over a decade ago."
User error. End of story. I use questions whose answers have meaning to me but not to others.
How many nines, again? (Score:2)
How many "nines" did Microsoft promise with their supposed reliability?
Re:How many nines, again? (Score:4, Informative)
How many "nines" did Microsoft promise with their supposed reliability?
Zero for non-paid accounts. There is no SLA for free accounts, same as with gmail.
Anyway, this was not a technology failure, but the result of a Hotmail's inactivity policy. Which is clearly described on their site.
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Wasn't it supposed to act as a demo of Microsoft no longer being the crappiest platform around?
New Microsoft Live Hotmail (Score:2)
Get it while it's hot!
Not Microsoft's first fuck-up with Hotmail (Score:5, Informative)
When MS acquired Hotmail, they tried to move from BSD to Windows/IIS, and failed (back then, anyway) miserably. Then they poured shitloads of commercials and bling into the UI of Hotmail. Finally, they intorduced a rather draconian policy, whereby if you didn't access your account in 30 days, you were locked out. Since I hated the commercials and the bling, I had a hiatus in Hotmail use, and got locked out. I also could NOT re-create the same account name, even if nobody was using it. Anyhow, I was locked out until that day when an exploit ("hack") was discovered, with which anyone could access anyone else's account, without supplying a password. Does anyone remember those happy days? So, I "hacked" into my own account. And yes, the account was there, with all the e-mails. Why the lock-out policy? I dunno, one of the many brainfarts generating from MS.
I remember opening my colleague's account and calling him over, just to show him it was possible. That was the last day he ever used Hotmail.
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All free mail services delete your account if you don't access within a couple of monthis (including gmail).
First of all, as I wrote (gee, can't you actually just, you know, read?) I was locked out. I managed to "hack" into my account, and all my e-mails were there. My account was not deleted! So much so, in fact, that I was not able to create the same account name, ever, as I'd always get the message that "the account already exists".
As for Gmail: I don't know for sure, but I guess they do not have a locl-out policy like Mickeysoft. This is based on empirical evidence: I have a throw-away Gmail account, which at
Are they finally switching? (Score:2)
I had this happen to me as well (Score:2)
As you all know, if you don't use your account you will lose it.
I lost mine about 4 years ago and went back recently to Hotmail and they let me in just fine, same password and everything.
At the very least, it's better than Google keeping all your stuff forever.
2004, 2008, 2009, 2011... (Score:2)
Science Answer: Clouds Evaporate! (Score:2)
Once it gets too hot...no more clouds.
Works every time.
Trusting clouds is well...trusting in vaporware.
They used to do this on purpose (Score:5, Informative)
Until one day in '04, when I logged in after having taken a bit of a break from the online world. It was the first time I'd logged in to my Hotmail in a month, so I expected there to be quite a lot of mail. There were plenty of new messages, but all of my old email was gone!!!!
I freaked out for a while, then read through the "terms of service" or whatever they were calling it at the time. Seems they had silently implemented a policy whereby they delete ALL of your email if you fail to log in for 30 days. Ten years worth of email GONE!!
I suppose they were trying to provide incentives for people to log in to their Hotmail more regularly, but it all it motivated me to do was to open a Gmail account immediately.
Sure, it was a free service with no guarantees. Perhaps I should have been making backups of my precious emails. Thing is, this was not something they did by mistake. This was a policy that they willfully implemented. They chose to punish their subscribers. I don't get it.
Microsoft sucks.
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You say that:
And then, goes on with:
You just get it.
What? (Score:3)
Why didn't Hotmail back everything up to the cloud?
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It is really funny. Not so long ago there was a IAmA (interview) in Reddit with some of the Hotmail engineers.
One of the main things people didn't like is that Hotmail deletes all your data if you do not login in some time (3 months IIRC). Well, after being confronted with that, the engineers answered "well, we incresaed the time from X to 3 months" or something like that...
That was exactly the reason I left hotmail (when Gmail became available). I had *everything* from the first days of the net there (I cr
Re:That's what I was going to say (Score:5, Funny)
Besides, isn't it called something terrible these days like "Windows Live Hotmail"?
Well apparently with this new "upgrade" they're changing the name to Windows Dead Hotmail.
Re:That's what I was going to say (Score:5, Funny)
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Says you, QWERTY supremacist!
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Besides, isn't it called something terrible these days like "Windows Live Hotmail"? Once more showing That things connected to "Windows" is a data loss risk.
Windows Active Live Visual Hotmail .Net 7 Personal Edition
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That's the classic Microsoft experience...
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Not according to the article. It says 120 days + a 90 day grace period.
Yes, this was changed year ago, and I believe the timeout for deactivating account is more than another year of inactivity. Unfortunately for Hotmail it's reputation has to live with these old limitations. Lately it seems Hotmail has been on a turbo charged dev cycle, after years of lagging hopelessly it has reached or surpassed feature parity with Gmail in just half a year or something. Maybe it's taken over by the same team that is running IE9.
I just checked mine (can't believe I actually remembered the password) after over three years of non use and it's still active, with 1000+ messages in the inbox going back to 2007. I suppose after the time limits expire you are on borrowed time, but it seems like this enforcement is not universal.