back to article Microsoft 'sorry' as Hotmail bug hits 17,000

Microsoft has apologized, but not explained why nearly 20,000 Hotmail accounts were mysteriously emptied of their contents during the Christmas holiday. Corporate vice president for Windows Live Chris Jones blogged on Monday that 17,355 Windows Live Hotmail accounts had lost all their email messages during the course of what …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Horns

    Microsoft ?Hotmail ?

    Who cares?

    I don't.

    Like a girl with a purse full of penicillin - best avoided.

    1. Allan George Dyer
      Coat

      What have you got against pharmacists?

      There's another reason to be carrying large quantities of penicillin?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Stop

        Er...

        I think a "pharmacist" with large quantities of penicillin in her purse would probably be more likely to be a "thief" or a "drug dealer" than a "pharmacist".

        I don't remember the last time my pharmacist had a purse full of penicillin!

        1. Allan George Dyer
          FAIL

          How many pharmacist's purses have you checked?

          And I didn't think penicillin was valuable enough to interest thieves or drug dealers, at least in the quantities you could fit in a purse.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      But you care enough to write a post

      stating you don't care.

      rather than either not clicking on the article in the first place or just not posting anything.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Cloud

    "Further, Microsoft has been PR-ing people hard, trying to convince us that Hotmail is just one of a suite of services that the company can competently and reliably deliver in – where else? – the cloud. ®"

    It is also where their heads are.

    1. Mike48US

      Cloud??

      But I've never heard someone refer to their ass as a "cloud" before!

  3. ratfox
    WTF?

    Huh?

    Hotmail still has that many users?

    1. Kool-Aid drinker

      No

      I suspect it should read "accounts" rather than "users". They're not the same thing.

  4. zen1
    Grenade

    for the record

    fuck "the cloud"!

  5. Graham Marsden
    FAIL

    Cloud?

    Is that the sort of cloud that delivers a short sharp shower of s$$t?

  6. P. Lee
    Welcome

    Cue Google...

    "Yoohoo! Our stuff works."

    "We can pick up your mail from hotmail allowing you to keep your hotmail address too."

  7. Alan W. Rateliff, II
    Paris Hilton

    Reminder of the Danger debacle?

    Not exactly the same problem, but yet another example of how little trust one should have in letting someone else have control of your data.

    Remember, you cannot have lightning without a cloud.

    Paris, another problem, altogether.

    1. Tom_

      lightning

      "Remember, you cannot have lightning without a cloud."

      What about in the plume of a volcano?

      1. Rich 30

        title?

        There's also the other type; Mushroom.

  8. A Non e-mouse Silver badge
    Stop

    Give them a break

    360 million users, and 17,000 of them have a problem. I make that less than 0.00005% of users were affected. (Sorry if I'm out by a decimal place)

    Next, the problem occurred over a holiday period, and was fixed within four days.

    All this from a service that costs nothing to the end user.

    If your corporate e-mail system lost your account's e-mails over the holiday, would they have been recovered by this morning (When you get back to the office) ? Or what about that e-mail account you have with your ISP (Which you pay for) ?

    As much as Microsoft/Google/cloud bashing is de rigueur, I think in this case, MS have been quite good.

    Disclaimer: I use a paid for e-mail service, not a free Hotmail/GMail/whatever e-mail account.

    1. BorkedAgain
      Paris Hilton

      ...or two...

      Yeah, it's more like just under 0.005%, but what's a couple of orders of magnitude when you're talking pissed -off freeloaders, right?

      I agree though; most in-house systems struggle to serve a fraction of the end-users with a fraction of the reliability that most cloud providers manage, even the comparatively pants ones like Hotmail.

      Not sure I'm buying the explanation though. Sounds a bit "training exercise" if you know what I'm saying...

      Paris 'cos she likes an extra couple of digits, according to our sources.

  9. wobbly1

    Less adept users or flakier technology?

    i give everyone a unique e-mail address to reply to. The over whelming quantity of the spam i receive use "To" address given solely to Hotmail users. Both Hotmail users who's unique "To" address comprise the largest proportion of the spam are sufficiently technical to operate an email account but not to understand it. It may be that the users of Hotmail remaining may be less aware of the problems at Hotmail and therefore more likely to have an unrecognised breached account.

    On the other hand I retain a hotmail account for historic reasons the quantity of spam to that account has dropped over the last year.( almost certainly most random spamming eg Sending spam to "a random word @hotmail.com")

    It's not clear from my tiny sample if hotmail is easier to breach or has a higher level of less adept users.

    do other spam tracking readers have similar experiences?

  10. Ian Moffatt 1

    Cherished accounts?

    'Users took to Hotmail forums pleading for Microsoft to restore their cherished accounts '

    Don't suppose these cherishers had backed them up then?

    It's a free service - what do they expect?

    Oh dear, how sad, never mind

  11. Field Marshal Von Krakenfart
    Boffin

    Shock, horror,

    as MickySoft product fails to work.......

    1. Bilgepipe
      Gates Horns

      Heh

      Love how the Microsoft Apologists downvote your post - in an article clearly demonstrating how shit Microsofts products really are. Exactly how crap does MS and the junk it keeps puking out have to get before the apologists accept reality clam up?

      All we need now is an Evil Jobs icon - oh wait, the first person to post already did that. How original.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Microsoft

    "Microsoft has apologized, but not explained why nearly 20,000 Hotmail accounts were mysteriously emptied of their contents during the Christmas holiday."

    I can tell you why - it's because MS are shit. Everything the do is shit. Their OS is shit (and full of security bugs), their browser is shit (and full of security bugs)... in fact, just about everything they've ever realsed has been shit (and full of security bugs). Sometimes I'm amazed that there isn't a security bug in Paint or Calculator or something - they seem good at putting bugs everywhere.

    Deleting everyone's email though - marvellous. Just what you want from your email provider!

  13. Richard Porter
    Thumb Down

    Would you

    entrust your email to an outfit like Microsoft?

    1. Fred 24

      never

      ever.

  14. Danny 5
    Go

    mine's still there

    since i have a US tattooed account, i was a bit worried this affected me too, but it looks like everything is still there. i'm a long time hotmail user and never really had any issues with it.

    would've been quite a shame had i lost it all, there's a handfull of old messages in there that hold sentimental value.

    1. Hans 1
      Boffin

      Backitup

      cf title

  15. This post has been deleted by its author

  16. Da Weezil
    FAIL

    Substance?

    Ah The wonderful cloud...... This is precisely why I wont trust any of my data to the cloud. Its mine... It lives in my machine and is backed up by me. I don't trust anyone else to look after my data.

    Anyway isnt a cloud just vapour lacking any real substance?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Exactly

      but they produce real matter, namely water.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "starting a Facebook group"

    is the latter-day "stern letter to The Times"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      re: "starting a Facebook group"

      "starting a Facebook group"

      is the latter-day "stern letter to The Times".

      But far less eloquent

      and from further afield than Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How twee?

    Launch a Facebook group! ... lol!! ... that's so last year!!!

    1. Bilgepipe

      Twee...t

      I was going to Tweet about this, but then I remembered that I don't care. And I don't have a Tw[i|a]tter account.

  19. Tigra 07
    Thumb Down

    No title required

    Hotmail is too slow and crashes a lot since Microsoft took over.

    On the other hand my Googlemail is full of messages from Google who like to send messages to me every couple minutes, whether i want them or not

  20. Glenn Charles
    Alien

    they forgot their trojans

    No, the prophylactic kind.

    --Glenn

  21. WoodyUK
    FAIL

    Not Just M$ but Lycos too

    Lycos's recent migration has resulted in user losing emails between 31st Dec - 4th Jan, bloody annoying as some were voucher gifts from Amazon!

  22. pan2008

    not bad as google

    That every 2-3 months decide to "restrict" access to their email service!

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