Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

ironic: ms to blame?

Author:Patrick Breitenbach
Posted:8/31/1999; 12:18:20 AM
Topic:Tim Bray on the HotMail Hole
Msg #:10289 (In response to 10251)
Prev/Next:10288 / 10290

it's ironic that there was a rush to defend microsoft's products (not so much here, but certainly and surprisingly at /.) because as everyone knows, hotmail runs on unix (supposedly still despite efforts by ms to bring it to nt). however, as some of the posters here have suggested, the security breach had NOTHING to do with hotmail's authentication scheme and everything to do with microsoft's new passport scheme which is all nt.

having said that, it appears to me that the security issue was completely poor/careless design of passport and not any weakness in nt.

the unfortunate thing about email is that it is difficult to exert your consumer right to switch services because there's so much equity built up in an email address. all the forwarding features don't seem to work quite right if you were to try to switch email services.

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