Microsoft Fixes Bug; Re-enables HTTPS for All Users
Yesterday, I blogged that users in Iran, all Arab countries, Burma, Nigeria, and the Central Asian nations had been blocked from turning on HTTPS encryption within Hotmail. This was true.
According to Microsoft, this was a bug that affected users not only in those countries, but also in the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, and Fiji. The company stated:
“We do not intentionally limit support by region or geography and this issue was not restricted to any specific region of the world. We apologize for any inconvenience to our customers that this may have caused.”
Having just tested this myself–by setting my country of residence on Hotmail to Syria and enabling HTTPS–I can state with certainty that the problem has been fixed.
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26.03.2011Neilbubbareno
My twitters not working i can’t get anyone to reply? i have been on 6hours tweting and nothing what do you think? Neilbbareno more info google
26.03.2011Lewis
But Microsoft has not fixed the Bing issue!
26.03.2011Jillian
You’re correct, and frankly, I don’t suspect they will.
26.03.2011Jo Dean
Sounds like a pretty good idea to me dude.
http://www.privacy-online.it.tc
28.03.2011SeL
I’m still suspicious. They make it sound like some bug that was not targeted to any particular “region”, but the list of countries seems anything but random. Most if not all have repressive regimes and/or have seen internal conflicts. Microsoft should be pressed further on this.
28.03.2011Jillian
I’m still suspicious, too, but in the interim, I’m just really glad this is fixed for users in countries where it’s needed.