Microsoft denies disabled secure access to Hotmail

While the Arab spring shakes the Middle East, Microsoft was alleged to have disabled the secure connection to connect to Hotmail mailboxes. In reality, it was a bug that was resolved within hours after its discovery. Many Arab and Asian users have been affected by this problem.
It was ultimately a simple technical problem. On Friday, blogger Jillian C. York reported that a Syrian visitor could no longer access Hotmail, the web mail from Microsoft, with the option "secure connection (HTTPS) enabled. Forewarned, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was then found that this concern struck many other Internet users worldwide.
In an article published the same day, the EFF has listed the countries affected by this problem: Bahrain, Morocco, Algeria, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Congo, Burma , Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. A varied list, but that begs the question: indeed, some of them are involved in the "Arab spring", while another is headed by authoritarian regimes.
There was therefore a short step to believe that Microsoft had disabled the encrypted connection to satisfy the claims of the leaders of these countries. But it is not. Asked by The Register, a spokesman for the U.S. firm says that this bug has also hit the Bahamas, Fiji and the Cayman Islands. Countries that are far from resembling those mentioned above.
"We do not intentionally limited the secure medium depending on the region and this problem was not limited to a specific location. We apologize for any inconvenience caused to our customers," he said. Since then, the encrypted access is again available for users in those countries. Much to the satisfaction of the activists who communicate via e-mail.
Encrypting the connection has recently been extended to other Microsoft services. Last November, the American giant has enabled this option for Skydrive service (file hosting), Pictures, Documents and Equipment. Another email service, Gmail, has also strengthened the encryption of the connections, forcing default secure access in early 2010.
In addition, Firefox users can also use an external module, HTTPS Everywhere. The latter, developed by the EFF, enables the encryption of the connection as soon as it becomes available. This includes services and sites like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Live, Twitter or WordPress. All tools can be used to power the Arab spring.