Gawker: valleywag, hotmail

Did Your Email Get Hacked? Maybe.

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:24:48 EDT

The bad news is that 30,000 Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, and other email accounts have had all their login info posted online, by hackers. The good news is, it's their own dumb fault.

Yesterday news came that 10,000 Hotmail accounts had been compromised, but all of you internet snobs were like, "Hotmail? Haha, (some sort of internet snob joke about varieties of email, and which are cool and which are not)."

Well now your precious Gmail has also been compromised, the BBC reports. But, sayeth Google:

The firm stressed that the scam was "not a breach of Gmail security" but rather "a scam to get users to give away their personal information to hackers".

Stop being so dumb and you won't get "compromised," like that! Same advice dads have been giving to their daughters for years.
[Want more expert insight on this issue? Sorry, Ryan Tate's not awake yet.]

Yahoo dominates Sarah Palin's email contact list

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:00:00 EDT

Sometimes I hear people ask: "Who uses Yahoo Mail anymore?" The answer, of course, is just about everybody. ComScore puts the number at around 260 million people — far more than Google's 90 million. But statistics can feel abstract. Now that a 4chan reprobate has hacked into Alaska governor and "average hockey mom" Sarah Palin's private Yahoo email account and discovered, among other things, her contact list, we have a more concrete demonstration of Yahoo's dominance of Palin's decidedly down-home demographic. Here is a list contains six Yahoo addresses, an AOL address, a Hotmail address and exactly zero Gmail addresses.

Sarah Palin's contact list:
Beth Leschper (Beth Leschper SOA) [Edit]
[redacted]@alaska.gov
Blanche Kallstrom (Blanche) [Edit]
[redacted]@starband.net
Bristol Palin (Bristol) [Edit]
[redacted]@hotmail.com
Chuck Heath (Chuck) [Edit]
[redacted]@yahoo.com
[redacted]@yahoo.com (Todd) [Edit]
[redacted]@yahoo.com (Frank) [Edit]
Heather Bruce (Heather) [Edit]
[redacted]@gci.net
[redacted]@alaska.gov (Ivy SOA) [Edit]
[redacted]@yahoo.com (Ivy Personal) [Edit]
Judy Patrick (Judy Patrick) [Edit]
[redacted]@mtaonline.net
[redacted]@alaska.gov (Kris Perry SOA) [Edit]
[redacted]@yahoo.com (Kris Personal) [Edit]
[redacted]@yahoo.com (Molly) [Edit]
Roseanne Hughes (Roseanne Hughes SOA) [Edit]
[redacted]@alaska.gov
Sally Heath (Mom) [Edit]
[redacted]@mtaonline.net
Sean Parnell (Sean Personal) [Edit]
[redacted]@alaska.com
Sharon Leighow (Sharon SOA) [Edit]
[redacted]@alaska.gov
[redacted]@aol.com (Sharon Leighow Personal) [Edit]
Track Palin (Track) [Edit]
[redacted]@hotmail.com

Two out of three Americans already bored with cloud computing

Paul Boutin — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:00:00 EDT

The latest report from the Pew Internet survey machine says, "69 percent of online Americans use webmail services, store data online, or use software programs such as word processing applications whose functionality is located on the Web." What they really mean is: A lot of people use Hotmail. But while the 69 percent number overstates the case, there are some surprising stats in the details:

Roughly one in three Americans, the survey says, use an online app such as Google Docs or Adobe Photoshop Express. I'm honestly skeptical of that number — did respondents confuse one of Google's search features with Google Docs? But one in three store photos online. Considering how hard it was just to post a picture of your cat to your blog a few years ago, that's pretty big. I only wish Pew had asked those folks if they'd also made backups.

Hotmail? Hot bride!

Jackson West — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:00:00 EDT

Sabeer Bhatia, the Hotmail founder who gleaned a cool $400 million in the email startup's sale to Microsoft, got married this year to the gorgeous Tanya Sharma, heiress to the Baidyanath Group fortune. This picture of the bride and groom from the nuptials held on "the exclusive Malaysian Island of Langkawi" was published by our new favorite anonymous blogger covering the Indian tech and outsourcing scene who promises further dish. Have a better caption? The best one will become the new headline. Yesterday's winner: "I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do." by kadedworkin.

Hotmail busted. Again.

Jordan Golson — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:02:12 EST

Yesterday morning, Microsoft's Hotmail and many other Windows Live services were knocked offline, but came back after a few hours. Tonight, I tried to go to hotmail.com and got the above error message after more than a dozen redirects.

Hotmail knocked offline in the Northeast

Jordan Golson — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 11:52:43 EST

Microsoft's Hotmail is down in the Northeast. Other Microsoft websites are sporadically reachable but extremely slow for many users. I'm located in Boston and cannot connect to Hotmail or Live.com. The MSN network status page for Hotmail claims there are no network issues at this time, but that's clearly incorrect. This is the second major service outage this week, following Pakistan's takedown of YouTube over the weekend. Is Hotmail down for you? Let us know in the comments. A Microsoft's flack's PR-speak comment is below.

We are aware that some customers may be experiencing difficulty accessing their Windows Live accounts. We're actively investigating the cause and are working to take the appropriate steps to remedy the situation as rapidly as possible. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and disruption this may be causing our customers.

Translation? "I don't know what's going on" has become "I don't know, and neither does Microsoft."

VC sponsors a social-network pissing contest

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:57:10 EST

VC blogger Fred Wilson gives Google and Yahoo too much credit: He's taking their "Inbox 2.0" initiatives to turn Gmail and Yahoo Mail into social networks seriously. He 's put together a chart comparing the "social graphs" — we think he means "number of users" — of some popular social networks versus Microsoft's Hotmail and AIM.com. Wilson estimates that Yahoo and Google, which aren't actually on the chart, have about 250 million and 60 million users. Here's the chart.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer slams Google...

Jordan Golson — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 19:00:30 EDT

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer slams Google because they "read your email" to provide contextual ads in Gmail and Microsoft's Hotmail doesn't. Oh Steve, you're just bitter because Google got away with something you never could. And its ad-targeting software is smarter than yours. [CRN]