Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2001/08/24/reader_pushed_to_the_verge/

Reader pushed ‘to the verge of homicidal rage’ by Hotmail article

But admits he's a moron

By Linda Harrison

Posted in Bootnotes, 24th August 2001 11:53 GMT

Hacking Hotmail made easy

Thomas C. Greene's detailed description of how to hack a Hotmail account did nothing to win him the admiration of reader 'cpuguy'. Well, not initially at least.

Here's cpuguy's initial correspondence with Thomas.

You people (or should that read "you dopes"?) piss me off to the verge of homicidal rage.

I refer to the article posted 20/08/2001 at 06:51 GMT "Hacking Hotmail made easy". You self righteous, two faced, condescending plebs will not post a link location to the latest and greatest (read: Incredibly bloated) MicroShaft Operating System but, you will, and have done before, post a hack that your readers will go and try. What I don't understand is this, You blatantly tell your readers and the world that microshaft is a money hungry piss pot but, you won't post a link to help us poor folk (read: cheap bastards) download their software. On the other hand, you post warnings about bugs and viruses, then post on the same page a hack to help screw with peoples email.

Its bad enough someone can hack into an email account but, do you have to tell everyone how to do it too? That is just simply bad journalism. Its negligent, immoral, irresponsible, and down right wrong! I'm sure you'll toss this aside with the other flames you get, no doubt on a daily basis, but, please, think about what this will mean to the people who use hotmail. What about all the innocents, like Mothers and Fathers using email to talk to their kids off at school or the grandmothers or aunts and uncles, having a blast sending baby pictures back and forth. What you've done could very possibly make people that were just starting to get over their fear of technology, back off to the dark ages again.

I am a daily reader of your site and plan to remain such but, I'm begging you, get a clue!

To which Reg reporter Thomas fired off his own response.

there really is evidence that posting live exploits leads to far speedier fixes.

it's not just a theory. as you can see, this hole has been open long enough for someone to create an exploiter, and if it hadn't been reported, the blackhat community could have continued to develop it and use for a long time.

you can bet that MSN will get this one fixed in a heartbeat now that the word is out. i think the net effect will be *fewer* hacking incidents than if it had been kept quiet.

This calm explanation seemed to do the trick, and even went so far as to turn flame into flattery.

After reading your calm, informative response, I feel like a complete and utter moron cpuguy replied to Thomas.

Thanks for putting up with my early morning rant.®