Confusion about hacking Hotmail

This may seem like a dumb question but I really am confused on this. But first off let me state that I'm NOT looking to hack into hotmail, NOR do I want to know how.

My question is this. When a person states on here that they are looking to learn how to hack into hotmail, are they wanting to know how to hack into the actual server or are they looking to just get a user's password? I thought just gaining access to anything that wasn't yours, or that you don't have permission to, was illegal. Don't these mail providers (hotmail, yahoo, etc.) have anything in place that can detect when they are being hacked so they can inform the user's they have been compromised? Or do they even bother to inform the user's to avoid them losing confidence in the service?

Any clarification you can provide would be greatly appreciated. I'm new to this and I want to make sure I understand.

Thanks.

Basically just looking for username passwords, usually done with social engineering.

You're better off pretending hotmail dosent exist.

Don't these mail services encrypt people's passwords on their servers? Is it that hotmail is the worst or are the other the same?

There are so many e-mail providers out there. Why does it always have to be hotmail.

Because the majority of grannies and 12 year olds have only heard about hotmail.

My thing isn't with hotmail. It's yahoo. Here's the situation that got me thinking about this... I have a yahoo account and a couple of times I've noticed strange little things like once an email I know was there wasn't there the next time I logged in and once a message I know I left as unread showed up as read. I have no proof that anyone was in my account and since then I've changed my password but the question in the back of my mind is, don't these have any legal obligations to tell us if we've been hacked??? or can they ignore it as if nothing's happened?

Have you read the disclaimer and policies, not sure but they prob cover their asses there.

I've re-read the privacy policy and it states what they do to protect you but nothing really about them having to notify you. I think I'll send them an email and ask about it.

Thank you for your guidance in this.

Why the heck would anyone want to steal a account? I mean just because its stolen doesn't mean that it will cover your tracks.

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Originally posted here by |The|Specialist
Why the heck would anyone want to steal a account? I mean just because its stolen doesn't mean that it will cover your tracks.

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simple. if someone gains access to an account of someone whom they want to 'spy' on. Then they could potentially gain the information in which they are interested in learning from the person who they are 'spying' on. They could also learn passwords from users, who send to the victims account, or even other passwords of the victim, who has emailed to other users (of course they would only see incoming messages unless the victim saved outgoing messages, which is not on by default with Hotmail). The list goes on and on, in what you can obtain by gaing access to someone's email account.

its alot eayseyer to get into anyones hotmail accounts than u think,
microsoft setup servers for employee use only so that you can send a email to a classified server address,ask for the password and stuff of any hotmail email address and it will send you all the info back. and of course these servers soon became public servers so any rookie or wanabee hacker knows about this and can get any account info they want

and yes microsoft tryed combating this by changing the servers, but of course the information always become public eventully

thats whay i dont use hotmail

scoobs: Where'd you hear that information at? I've not ever heard anything like that before, and if it's true that's really horrible.

Yeah, I forgot the link, but at MungaBunga and LordNikon's site, (I forgot name and link, damnit) at reveals a Microsoft test server that is used by the public. It really is sad though.

That is really sad, if hotmail workers are sending password, username, real name, address, phone number, IP, god only knows what else to who ever e-mails them and asks for it.

/me desides to stop useing hotmail, only for Messenger. :> That mean...
/me has to find a new e-mail provider.
Any suggestions on who??

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There are so many e-mail providers out there. Why does it always have to be hotmail.

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I do not know of any reason to use Hotmail or any other free server other than for a catch-all account in the first place. I have my "real" e-mail which I use for my really important stuff with PGP. For everything else, there's Hotmail, Yahoo! and whatever.

I figure: If anybody wants to use my Hotmail account, go ahead. All you will find is all the spam I will not get in my "real" account. With this said, I am pretty sure there are like-minded people like me out there, and my question is this:

Why are so many interested in looking at accounts that might be used for junk?

Or do people really use these accounts for important mail?

This may be a little off topic, but MicroBurn asked for it..

For more email providers, check out these links:

1. My Own E-mail - Has tons of different domains to chose from example [email protected], or [email protected] etc. etc. The layout of the inbox is alot like Outlook.

2. HotPop - A new one that offers about 100 megs of free storage and a couple of cool domains. Also, they think they have a good anti-spam system and provide POP3 access to your account.

3. WebMobile - A good search engine, that'll let you find a variety of free web-based email providers.

Also, why not get on google and search for something like 'Free Emails'.

Hope this helps. :)
Cheers

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Originally posted here by JCHostingAdmin
Yeah, I forgot the link, but at MungaBunga and LordNikon's site, (I forgot name and link, damnit) at reveals a Microsoft test server that is used by the public. It really is sad though.

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For anyone who's wondering:
http://www.hackology.com

Also the only MS test servers that are currently online, as far as I can tell from the site:
http://www.hmtest.com/
http://msn.com./

Note the dot after the com, although I have no idea what its significance is :)

-toad

sorry to say it is true what i said earlier.
it would take to long to explain all the details of it but there are about 3-5 msn servers hat will give you account passords, running at anyone time.

basicly hotmail is without a dout the most insecure email provider thre is,becuse everyone uses it.

i also agree that www.myownemail.com is good as it does give alot of endings to chose from

i used to have one like @the-pentagon.com :D

What is the hmtest, I went to it to see what it was, and it was like another hotmail thing. I tried to sign in with my [email protected] account. Then it said I had to have a hmtest.com e-mail account, so I signed up, and blah, blah, balh, anyways, what I'm really saying is, what the hell is this?

ha ha cool....

Sorry folks...I've seen so many of these I can't stand it anymore......

elfc: we love the insight you are so thoughtfully providing us with your posts....NOT. Please continue doing so...we love idiotic posts like this as they are so helpful in helping our membership keep their AntiPoints balanced. In simple laymans terms....quit or risk being banned.

MicroBurn: Yeah, I have absolutely no idea how it works either, I signed up for an account and tried to login and it didn't work, and i tried to use my normal hotmail account and it didn't work either. Microsoft must use it for testing something else about Hotmail... I wonder if you could figure out anything from the strange URL's...

elfc: Stop making useless posts please ;)

There have been a few scams / hacks of hotmail along the lines of ;
People emailing a specific email address at hotmail (lets us say [email protected] ; this is not asfar as I am aware a correct such address) with an exactly worded header e.g. "[email protected] password reset" (again not correct) with an exactly worded first line of text in the email containing a valid email address. Hotmail then mails the 2nd address the PASSWORD for [email protected].
There have been a few well publicised such "security holes"
I think the main reason why hotmail is so easily hacked is not because MS employees are giving pw / addresses out, it is because most of the admin tasks are automated ...
Having said that I once accessed my hotmail accont only to see someone elses emails ...

Of course any public email account can be accessed if you acess it on a public computer and U select "remember me on this PC" when logging on (ID / pw saved in cookies).
I dont condone any of this .....

well i dunno man mails are kinda vulnerable i mean srsly mails are always vulnerable one guy in my col (NOT ME srsly some one else) had kept a sniffer (Ethreal) and guess what he found on the mail from one prof to another and it contained some Q's for the midsems that we had in like 2 weeks lucky !$!@@@@@!% got the Q's aced the exam and told us all after that all prof's have been warned not to send papers via mail .. and so on and so forth ...
umm.. im guessing this was kinda off topic right /me smacks his head

You do sound like someone who could only pass a college exam that way, though... thanks for sharing!

Actually you need atleast a GED before you actually do anything, DOH!

Mind the periods/comma's/stuff and stuff, and you're getting there, stuff!