Slashdot Mirror
Some Hotmail Accounts Wiped
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.'"
Although I also prefer Gmail, you're being extremely naive if you think any remotely hosted and controlled service is immune to issues of this nature. This should be as good a reminder as any for all of us to set up local backups for our email services.
On that note, does anyone have any recommendations for backup software/file formats? I seem to remember that last time I looked into the issue there seemed to be some lack of standardisation when looking for an open 'email archive' format to use.
"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.
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.
This makes their new marketing slogan for Windows Live all the more humorous! 'To The Cloud' indeed! More like POOF!
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
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.
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.