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Hotmail Cracks Down on Spam

Magmar writes "The team at Microsoft has decided to restrict free users from using Outlook and Outlook Express for managing email. This is going to be reserved for those who will pay for their accounts. The reason given for restricting the WebDav access of Outlook and Outlook Express is to prevent spammers from abusing the free service."

13 of 427 comments (clear)

  1. Here is - by thewldisntenuff · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actual link to article - http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1652391,00.as p

    Not to be a grammar/spelling nazi, but wtf is -

    "Microsoft not anticipating the storage that user of the free email accounts..."

    More like (FTA)-

    "We are seeing customers consuming more storage than we anticipated, and we're bringing more storage online," she said.

    I would think this wouldn't have gotten past the eds...But in any case, hope this clears things up.

    -thewldisntenuff

  2. Re:Why ya gotta say it like that by sqlrob · · Score: 3, Informative

    No, because GMail never had that feature.

  3. Re:Uhm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Sorry to bite, but....

    As a storage designer, I would not expect to put in an 18Tbish system on day 1 when I know that the uptake is going to be relatively slow for the vast majority of users. The storage chosen will certainly become less expensive over the period of time it takes to ramp up to steady state values.

    You also might want to take into account that not everyone will use the whole 250Meg some may instantly upload a 250meg mpeg others may grow over five years.

    Then trend your data growth (this is the hard bit) and come up with the amount of storage you need at day one followed by what you will need one month, one year etc down the line.

  4. Re:Spammers....Riiiigggghhhht by gorbachev · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hotmail's WebDAV interface was, and apparently still is, riddled with holes that prevented spammers from using it in the same way they were abusing the formmail.pl scripts a few years ago.

    Microsoft announced time after time that they'd plugged those holes, but every time within a month or two spammers found another hole, and started abusing the Hotmail WebDAV interface again.

    There's plenty of discussion on this on news.admin.net-abuse.email over the years.

    I don't think it ever was as bad as formmail.pl was, but there were a few high profile spammers specializing in using Hotmail WebDAV exploits.

    --
    In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
  5. Alternatives: by JayJay.br · · Score: 2, Informative
    Really, I haven't taken my time to see if any of these below is different. However, there are other ways to access a Hotmail account from an email client.

    hotpop (shareware, for Windows. Still working here at my office);

    Gotmail. Free as in everything, for Linux.

    There are some more, I just can't pull them off my mind right now.

  6. Re:Last Straw? by JawFunk · · Score: 2, Informative
    I am. Have yahoo, hotmail and gmail. Gmail is favorite, but composing in outlook (Thunderbird is not compatible so far?) is way better. Gmail spell check isn't that drastic, but Outlook 2003 flows very nicely (and much better layout than the 2000 version).

    --
    [Please sign here]
  7. Of course this is a litmus test by TheAncientHacker · · Score: 2, Informative

    Notice the headline talks about how Microsoft is going to block Outlook and Outlook Express users from accessing Hotmail. What's really being cut out is WebDAV access. The actual press release from Microsoft clearly states that POP3 access WILL continue.

  8. Hotmail Popper by gmenhorn · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hopefully Hotmail Popper will still work. Hotmail Popper is a small application that allows you to check your Hotmail account e-mail from a normal POP mail client (such as Eudora, IncrediMail, Mozilla Thunderbird, Opera, Netscape, etc). Unlike standard mail accounts which allow users to retrieve their e-mail through a POP mail client, Hotmail can normally only be checked on the web. With Hotmail Popper, you can use your favorite POP mail client to retrieve your e-mail from your Hotmail account. In addition, Hotmail Popper allows you to send e-mails through Hotmail's service, as if it was a normal SMTP (outgoing mail) server.

    http://www.boolean.ca/hotpop/

  9. Re:You get what you pay for ... by benzapp · · Score: 2, Informative

    '94? I don't think so. It wasn't commercially available until the summer of 1996, Independence Day as I recall, only because a movie of the same name debuted that day as well.

    --
    I don't read or respond to AC posts
  10. Re:Hotmail Popper (Freeware Version) by BobPaul · · Score: 4, Informative

    It used to be up till 2.1.0. Download v2.1.0 or you'll have to pay after 100 e-mails xfered.

    I've used Yahoo!Pops for years to check my yahoo account (ever since they cut off free access to pop3). Too bad the parent's solution is shareware and not freeware.

    Both work great, though. They use the standard HTTP interface like a webbrowser (http-get?) instead of that stupid WebDAV protocol. A little slower than WebDAV, probably, but better than using a browser.

  11. BCC by macdaddy · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is what BCC is for. The receiving MTA doesn't have a clue that there were a grand total of 200 recipients. All it knows is that it's receiving a message destined for 2 (exp) users on its system. BCC is only known by the sending MUA and the MTA that MUA uses. Beyond that it's not transmitted.

  12. Re:No lie. by delus10n0 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Check this out, I've been using it for a while.

    --
    Not All Who Wander Are Lost
  13. Re:No lie. by timts · · Score: 2, Informative

    if I read it right, it's only for new users, so I should be safe to keep using outlook express to access hotmail. :D