Windows Live email addresses - Part 3

re: Windows Live email addresses - Part 3

alexandre — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 17:22:32 GMT

Whew! Stopped doubting about privacy! It seems that MSN hotmail has a very nice and clean record on user privacy at least in information written in my language. Paranoid Alexandre:)

re: Windows Live email addresses - Part 3

cleitondj — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 11:46:36 GMT

According to Messers Tutsumi and Maxtoid, the hack has now been disabled.

source: mess.be

re: Windows Live email addresses - Part 3

alexandre — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 09:57:20 GMT

Thanks all! I think our concern and enthusiasm for Microsoft and other companies is the impetus of the development of the internet business. I read in some forums of my country suggesting that live.com mail is becoming extremely hot and popular because of the "crazy" registration flood of new accounts. Personally I have been using hotmail since the 90's so I have personal attachment to it although I also possess and enjoy other emails too. I think the charm & appeal of a email to users is not how short and cool the usernames are, but how nice it functions to service. After this idea I think registration of live accounts is not at all a big problem for Microsoft as long as its service is good. Anyway these accounts are free and it does not matter to Microsoft who are using it; they cannot get any cent from users' identities but they can get a wealth from the amount of user number. The most important thing for MS is dealing with PR with its free users to keep a large herd. We can see people using hotmail and msn emails with super long usernames, that's a proof that people will use live mail even if they can only get long usernames if the service is nice. Anyway good luck to Microsoft and its rivals because their competition is making life easier. Thanks to them all!

re: Windows Live email addresses - Part 3

CraigB — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 07:24:32 GMT

You can't upgrade @hotmail.com to a live account anyways. Just like you can "upgrade" a @hotmail.com to @msn.com. Upgrading is only for that particular account, and gives you the extra benefits of paying and whatnot. If you have "johndoe@hotmail.com", you can't upgrade it to "johndoe@live.com"

re: Windows Live email addresses - Part 3

Chris — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 06:34:06 GMT

Live Mail doesn't have .us now, no.

The migration policy for hotmail->live is still an unknown, so anything I say is not fact. That said, I cannot see them automatically moving ID@hotmail.com to ID@live.com. Mainly because there can't be enough @live accounts to replace all the hotmail and msn accounts that exist already. I also can't see them evicting early Windows Live signups. You only have to think of the PR disaster these actions would cause to see why it's unlikely they'd do it.

re: Windows Live email addresses - Part 3

statm1 — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 02:08:45 GMT

Just out of curiosity.. Does live mail have .us addresses? Because I think that would be kinda cool to have as well.

re: Windows Live email addresses - Part 3

alexandre — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 17:44:22 GMT

Dear Chris: Your remark sounds pretty reasonable and I agree. But I still doubt if users can really know what their email companies are doing to their accounts, not only for live, but for every email provider. I am being a paranoid!:) However, most likely is that these users would be completely accepted by live to be legal ones, there remains a problem. For example, if I have an id@hotmail.com account and someone has already registered for an id@live.com, what could I do when live allows open signups and I am ready to upgrade my hotmail to live? Older hotmail users would certainly cliam that they have priority over these early acquired accounts. How would live solve this problem? Are they going to develope a technology which can... kind of allow old users' applications "override" early acquired accounts? As an old hotmail users I definitely hate to be merely able to upgrade to an idXXX@live.com.

re: Windows Live email addresses - Part 3

Chris — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 16:16:51 GMT

cleitondj: the error message doesn't seem to mean much - signup is still working.

alexandre: I've seen on some forums that users with @live.com accounts have received seemingly random requests from Microsoft to activate their accounts (click a link). I doubt they are doing any more than this at this time as there is still the captcha to complete when registereding new accounts.

If they started doing the things you suggest, I think they know they'd loose users in the millions very very quickly!

Again this is still working at the time of this comment.

re: Windows Live email addresses - Part 3

cleitondj — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 15:14:33 GMT

Working...

Error

We are working to fix a temporary problem with our sign-up service.

Please try again.

If you continue to get this error try again later.

Error code:100

re: Windows Live email addresses - Part 3

alexandre — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 14:13:38 GMT

The question is, though regular users are indeed safe, as Kevin said, they are going to keep an eye on the behavior of these "illegimate" accounts. What does this mean? Are they going to read their mails to assure they are not spams or are they going to check IPs of each mail sent and received? The good thing is spam can be prevented, but meanwhile the bad thing is these "users'" privacy might be seen by others, does it mean that "illegal users'" privacy can be legally "violated"?

re: Windows Live email addresses - Part 3

phool4fool — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 12:14:04 GMT

Great work Pal!

Thanks a lot!

I was bit late in 2nd exploit...Now I got with my name...hehehehehe

very happy.....thanks

re: Windows Live email addresses - Part 3

Pal — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 08:34:57 GMT

another easy way to localize your email address is that, you add your locale code just after the url http://domains.live.com as:

http://domains.live.com?mkt=en-gb ----get @live.co.uk

http://domains.live.com?mkt=de-de ----get @live.de

.....

this might be easier than every time you change your browser's language setting :)

check more local codes here:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms145903.aspx

re: Windows Live email addresses - Part 3

statm1 — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 05:54:06 GMT

Thanks for telling me Chris.. I appreciate it!

re: Windows Live email addresses - Part 3

the andyman — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 22:31:18 GMT

What about migrating Windows Live Spaces and Windows Live Ideas information (and other Windows Live services account info for that matter)?

re: Windows Live email addresses - Part 3

Chris — Sun, 17 Dec 2006 21:39:09 GMT

Destinio thanks for that tip.

Statm1 you can migrate your Microsoft Connect account just by contacting the Connect team: http://connect.microsoft.com/ContactUs.aspx

To confirm, this is still working at the time of posting this comment.