ErnieK
09-27-2004, 01:24 PM
Citing concerns about spammers abusing the service, Microsoft on Monday will announce that it is dropping a feature from its Hotmail service that currently allows non-paying customers to access their email from Outlook and Outlook Express. The feature is based on a technology called WebDAV (Distributed Authoring and Versioning), an extension to the HTPP protocol on which the Web is based.
Since we implemented Human Interactive Proof (HIP) to ensure that only humans and not automated systems were opening Hotmail accounts, spammers have found other ways to go after the system," Brooke Richardson, the lead product manager for MSN told me in a pre-briefing Friday. "Recently, there's been an increase in exploits of the WebDAV protocol, which is used to enable people to access Hotmail from Outlook and Outlook Express. We've offered for free for some time, though it's typically a feature that other email providers charge for. But because of the rise in abuse of this protocol, we're making a change to WebDAV to curb abuse. Over the next few months, we're transitioning WebDAV to be available only to customers of our subscription services, such as Hotmail Extra Storage and MSN Premium. We expect this change will help us to more effectively stop spam emanating from Hotmail."
Full story
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=44029&feed=rss&subj=WindowsSecurity
Since we implemented Human Interactive Proof (HIP) to ensure that only humans and not automated systems were opening Hotmail accounts, spammers have found other ways to go after the system," Brooke Richardson, the lead product manager for MSN told me in a pre-briefing Friday. "Recently, there's been an increase in exploits of the WebDAV protocol, which is used to enable people to access Hotmail from Outlook and Outlook Express. We've offered for free for some time, though it's typically a feature that other email providers charge for. But because of the rise in abuse of this protocol, we're making a change to WebDAV to curb abuse. Over the next few months, we're transitioning WebDAV to be available only to customers of our subscription services, such as Hotmail Extra Storage and MSN Premium. We expect this change will help us to more effectively stop spam emanating from Hotmail."
Full story
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=44029&feed=rss&subj=WindowsSecurity