when I saw some comments in my client's documentation about updating the user's email passwords at Microsoft's web-site, which didn't make sense.
When I called Sympatico's Tech-Support line, I was told that Sympatico is in the process of merging their client email services over to Microsoft's "Passport dot Net" system.
In other words, your conventional email account which is included with your Sympatico account, requires that you replace your temporary password with a new one, but the new password, like the temporary one, is stored at Microsoft as part of your MSN Passport!
Needless to say, it blew my mind! Why should anyone have to update their Sympatico email account at any other company's web-site at all? So, I asked the tech-support weenie to "escalate" the call (They really hate that word, by the way!), and when a supervisor came on the phone, I found out that Sympatico is MOVING their email system over to Microsoft's offices and onto Microsoft's email servers!
It's not just your passwords that are being merged into Microsoft's Passport system, it's you entire email account. It will no longer be managed by Sympatico at all, because the servers won't even be at their offices!
And consumers are NOT being told about any of this!
Unbelievable!
Microsoft, which was recently under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission for violating the trust of MSN and Passport users by providing an INSECURE Passport system, is now going to be managing the Hotmail, MSN and ISP email and authentication systems for all these customers of Canada's largest ISP???
To make matters worse, the customers aren't even being told! They're not being given a choice!
If you're a Sympatico client, check your email settings and take a close look at your PoP3 and SMTP server names. If they contain host names like
"pophm" and "smtphm" , your account has already been moved! If they don't contain those hostnames, then you'll be receiving an update from Sympatico sometime in the next 6 months. The "hm" in the hostname stands for "HOTMAIL", because that's the server that will be handling your emails!
My client is terminating her Sympatico account today, and moving to another DSL provider that just happens to be Linux-based.
Did anyone else here know about this? I know that Joe Hill new a bit about this, as I saw a post from him referring to it during a Google search, but I don't think he knew about the whole story. Sorry to send you the rest of the news this way Joe!
I searched through the list archives and didn't see any reference to this anywhere, so I wasn't sure whether or not any of the members on this list knew or not.
So, here's the update for ya guys and gals! Apparently, Sympatico intends to make the official announcement in the "near" future, which I think really means "as soon as we've moved 50% of our clients over to the new system", by which time it would be too late to switch back.
By doing this, will gain a shitload of new Passport clients by essentially forcing Yahoo and Google IMAP clients to move to Passport.
Most users won't pay attention to what's being done until some hacker get's into their Passport account and gets all their passwords and usernames for POP email as well as Hotmail and MSN accounts!
Too bad I didn't record the conversation from last night, but my client still has the Sympatico instruction documents at her place. I intend to scour those documents for anything I can find out!
If anyone has more details on this, I'd appreciate hearing from you!
Lanman
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