Filed under: Internet, Security, E-mail, Microsoft
Using Hotmail as a secondary address? Be very careful
If you're like me, you have at least two email addresses. One of these email addresses is for important business; you hand it out to co-workers, friends, and family, whose emails you actually want to pay regular attention to. The second email address is for other stuff, like signing up for newsletters, shopping online, or creating accounts for services on the web. Also, if you're like me, you might tend to forget to pay attention to that second email address for days, weeks, or months at a time. As it turns out, forgetting to check a free Windows Live Hotmail account might have some dire consequences.
According to the Windows Live help files:
Free Windows Live Hotmail accounts become inactive if you don't sign in for more than 270 days or within the first 10 days after signing up for an account. After an account becomes inactive, all messages, folders, and contacts are deleted. Incoming messages will be sent back to the sender as undeliverable. Your account name is still reserved. However, if the account stays inactive for an additional 90 days, the account name may be permanently deleted. If you don't use your Windows Live ID for 365 days, your Windows Live ID may be permanently deleted.What does this mean to someone who is using a Hotmail address to sign up for things on the web? It means that, once your year of inactivity has passed, anyone can sign up for a Windows Live account with your expired username. The unintentional side effect of this is that if your Windows Live account expires, one could potentially create an account with the same name and use the password reset function on almost any online service attached to that email address, receive the email with the password (or further instructions) and take over your account entirely without your knowledge. This very technique is how the personal accounts of Twitter employees were taken over by malicious users.
Ever want to see MySpace crash and burn? Or, are you at least a little tired of the horrific design/coding/everything nightmare that is MySpace? A couple of hackers plan to introduce security vulnerabilities in MySpace next month, revealing one a day as part of the "Month of Bugs" tradition. However, Mondo Armando and Müstaschio, in a kind of satirical, cynical, and humorous fashion, will attempt to subvert both the popular social networking website and the "Month of Bugs" trend simultaneously. From 
Within the past month, both HD DVD and Blu-Ray's AACS protection scheme has been 
No, it's not Microsoft making
us do the dirty work, it's 
In a rare, extremely cluetrain response from a corporation whose product has been hacked, Lego is actually welcoming the modification to its 3D design program that will enable users to avoid purchasing too many extra blocks when making custom kits. The backstory is that last month Lego launched a new program that lets users 
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
