You probably have heard about recent “slip up” from American AT&T. As you know even when doing normal, everyday stuff your data and privacy might get exposed. Today it seems that “slip ups” do continue although countries and company involved are different.
According to news by TechWorld “Microsoft turned off HTTPS protection for Hotmail in Arab countries” and although “Microsoft denies intentional anti-privacy move, [and] fixes error” this sort of news are quite disturbing for quite a lot of people living in that region of world.
“Microsoft says it did not “intentionally limit” access to Hotmail’s HTTPS encryption service in foreign countries where freedom of expression is under attack.”
Still a lot of people freedom may depend on how securely they can send and receive their e-mail correspondence. This is exactly why we advise strongly to all of you (regardless of your location and actual content of the data you send and receive) to consider adding extra features that will take care of your safety and privacy.
Jon Brodkin from TechWorld, also says after EFF:
“”Microsoft appears to have turned off the always-use-HTTPS option in Hotmail for users in more than a dozen countries,” calling the move “deeply disturbing. […] For Microsoft to take such an enormous step backwards, undermining the security of Hotmail users in countries where freedom of expression is under attack and secure communication is especially important, is deeply disturbing,” the EFF said.
Microsoft fixed the error in its email service later in the day Friday and denied it was an intentional move to limit privacy in any particular region of the world.”
Syria, Morocco, Bahrain, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan and Algeria, countries where there have been recent anti-government protests, were among the affected countries, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The HTTPS option had also been disabled in Congo, Myanmar, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.”
Please have a look here in order to choose the best method for yourself: Hide Ip Tools.
If you have any questions about reviewed “products” or have some other concerns with relation to security and privacy in the internet, please contact us and we will do our best to explain and advise you.
Remember (as it was stated in our “China” related post):
This happens all the time — the Internet is just not a trusted network.
