Whirlpool

Lately, when I open the optuszoo home page, the various news boxes don't load, instead showing error messages. Is anyone else getting this? I'm just wondering if it is a problem at my end, or if Optus is having trouble with the new homepage? I've also being experiencing problems with their webmail service. Quite often, when I try to navigate to a new page, or to a new message, I get logged out.

Is there anywhere to find the changes that optus are making with this optuszoo thing, because I think that I remember hearing that the email is being transferred to microsoft for hosting, and I am wondering if they are in the middle of that at the moment. Am I also right in thinking that I've read that they are going to start to give microsoft our browsing information, so that they can start targeting us with ads?

Any information that people have would be welcome, as I am really starting to get fed up with optusnet's dodgy service.

jb12345 writes...

Am I also right in thinking that I've read that they are going to start to give microsoft our browsing information, so that they can start targeting us with ads?

The only information that they could supply would be details of pages within the optus.zoo.com.au/optuszoo.ninemsn.­ com.au domains that you visit. This has all been discussed before

Your 'faith' is interesting, to say the least.

Jack.Daniels writes...

The only information that they could supply would be details of pages within the optus.zoo.com.au/optuszoo.ninemsn.­ com.au domains that you visit. This has all been discussed before

1 - Optus have partnered with nineMSN for their new page. nineMSN is a Microsoft tradename, yeah?

2 - For me to log onto the Optus home page now (which I will not do anymore) I will be FORCED to create a 'WindowsLiveID' to log on.

3 - Microsoft are taking over Optus' webmail and all usernames and account details and contacts will be transferred to Microsoft so they can manage the system. Please read that again.

M$Live is being used to rape and pillage the market into using Vista. They want to establish a far more proprietary integration of the product so that you are forced to live with them stealing rego data, etc. all the time.

Solutions?

1 - Use MS Vista, latest MS browser, and webmail (non POP), and it'll all work.
2 - Tell Optus and MS to, ahem, you know what, and change ISPs. That's what I'm looking at doing right now. How dare they? Typical Orwillian MS tactics, I am offended.

I also sent this complaint to optus, no reply as yet ....

blucat@optusnet.com.au

blucat2 writes...

Typical Orwillian MS tactics, I am offended.

Dude, take a pill.

It's just business, plenty of ways not to visit that page or use their web mail.

Tell Optus and MS to, ahem, you know what, and change ISPs.

Indeed. and that is your prerogative.

I'll be staying, Optus have been more than adequate over the years and I would only consider leaving if my broadband service became unstable or unusable.

blucat2 writes...

2 - Tell Optus and MS to, ahem, you know what, and change ISPs. That's what I'm looking at doing right now. How dare they? Typical Orwillian MS tactics, I am offended.

I think you mean Orwellian.

EDIT> And I agree with Jimbo, Optusnet provide a stable service at a good price, why move and go to an unknown service. And blucat2, if you're that anti-MS you'd be running Linux on your desktop with OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc. I'm willing to bet you aren't.

jb12345 writes...

as I am really starting to get fed up with optusnet's dodgy service.

My mobile is with Optus and I use optuszoo to send sms (hate typing into a phone) but am getting really peeved because the sight seems to work randomly at best, bye bye Optus.

I find the time taken to open the added content, and web design on the new page is to the detriment of the whole optus zoo 'experience'. Still prefer the 'lighter' old page, RIP.

Unforfunately, whether you use the page/webmail or not, Microsoft will get your personal data/statistics/whatever else they collect. The deal is done with Optus.

Microsoft still must abide by the Australian Privacy Laws.

this has been mentioned all before in the other thread.

blucat2 writes...

1 - Optus have partnered with nineMSN for their new page. nineMSN is a Microsoft tradename, yeah?

Well not really. nineMSN is a business jointly owned by Microsoft and some part of the Packer empire, not sure if it hangs off Channel Nine or ACP, but it's somewhere in there.

EDIT: It's a 50:50 joint venture between Microsoft and Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL).

mediacentre.ninemsn.com....msn/default.aspx

2 - For me to log onto the Optus home page now (which I will not do anymore) I will be FORCED to create a 'WindowsLiveID' to log on.

Only for personalisation. You don't need a WLID for Member Services.

3 - Microsoft are taking over Optus' webmail and all usernames and account details and contacts will be transferred to Microsoft so they can manage the system.

Only if you opt-in to obtaining a WLID. Even then, Microsoft does not receive "all account details", I'm sorry but that is just nonsense. They also don't receive "all usernames" - you need to opt-in to obtaining a WLID on a per-username basis.

Further still OptusNet do not have ANY of your so-called "Contacts" at this time, especially as the current Webmail very notably has no address book. That, presumably, would be one advantage available to people with the new webmail, whenever it appears.

Member Services and Webmail are NOT the same thing, nor will they be. nineMSN will never provide Member Services, no matter how trendy it may be to try to claim that they will. They won't.

M$Live is being used to rape and pillage the market into using Vista.

How on earth does WLID imply that you need to use Vista?

blucat@optusnet.com.au

And after all this you've just gone and posted your username and e-mail address into a public forum? Are you really that concerned about privacy?

J3d1 writes...

Microsoft will get your personal data/statistics/whatever else they collect. The deal is done with Optus.

They will not get that much data. If you don't opt-in to a WLID then they would get almost nothing, only generic usage statistics of the myZoo portal, just as any website operator has.

If you opt-in to a WLID, then very basic details of your e-mail address and name would be available to them, and if you browse the portal while logged in, then they would be able to cross-reference your navigation through the portal, to enable personalisation.

They will never get access to what other sites you browse (not even OptusNet can legally maintain records on this), nor your usage information, since they don't provide Member Services.

Yes, there's some transfer of data there, but not much.

TicTacToe writes...

They will not get that much data. If you don't opt-in to a WLID then they would get almost nothing, only generic usage statistics of the myZoo portal, just as any website operator has.

Do they not have the database of all usernames and passwords, regardless of opting in or out? I think they do, encrypted, but they still do. And we all know how long encryption lasts now don't we?

Yes, there's some transfer of data there, but not much.

Some is still too much as far as I am concerned.

The new zoo does not provide any new services above that of the old page as far as I can see.

J3d1 writes...

Do they not have the database of all usernames and passwords, regardless of opting in or out? I think they do, encrypted, but they still do.

Things usually are not as simplistic as they may seem.

And we all know how long encryption lasts now don't we?

Passwords that aren't stored as clear text are normally stored only as the result of a one-way hash function. This is quite a different concept from other encryption, where you need to be able reconstitute the data at some point so therefore can't use a function that is practically impossible to invert.

You can't reconstitute from a one-way hash function. Instead what you do is take the password someone supplies, pass it through the same one-way hash funtion and compare the result to what you have stored. If they match, you know the password supplied must be the same, without ever actually having derived it from the hashed version.

TicTacToe writes...

You can't reconstitute from a one-way hash function. Instead what you do is take the password someone supplies, pass it through the same one-way hash funtion and compare the result to what you have stored. If they match, you know the password supplied must be the same, without ever actually having derived it from the hashed version.

Therefore, you can still derive the password, even through brute force methods.

J3d1 writes...

Therefore, you can still derive the password, even through brute force methods.

You are joking right?

A 8 character long password consisting of only letters and numbers has 218,340,105,584,896 possible combinations, assuming you've got a machine which is capable of checking 100 password combinations a second it would still take nearly 70,000 years to check all possible combinations. I'm not too worried.

J3d1 writes...

Microsoft still must abide by the Australian Privacy Laws.

Microsoft cant comply with the Victorian privacy principles/laws because they, as are all USA companies, are governed by the patriot act which requires they make available to US agencies any data they hold at any time it is requested. Thinking here of CIA/FBI and any other semi official agency.

I have changed from using the Zoo as a home page because it loads so dammed slowly (when it load at all), I am also moving my email from optus to another (owned by me) domain so that I have portability of email address when ever I want to change ISP.

TeedOff writes...

Microsoft cant comply with the Victorian privacy principles/laws

So If I am an American company, I don't have to comply with local/state/fedral laws of the country I do business in?

EDIT: So if Optus registers back in Singapore (Like News Corp did in USA), runs it's office from there, it is then not bound by local/State/Federal Oz laws?

Tezmyster writes...

You are joking right?

No

Check your figures. Your combos are right, your timings are wrong.
www.lockdown.co.uk/?pg=combi

Class F is a Pentium 100 to get 26 seconds I do believe (Letters and numbers) at 8 characters.

J3d1 writes...

No

So you're actually worried that out of over a million and a half mail boxes someone at Microsoft is going to single you out and take the time to decipher your password.

And when they do what will they have access to?

You're not Jerry Fletcher are you? :)

So If I am an American company, I don't have to comply with local/state/fedral laws of the country I do business in?

Last I heard NineMSN was a company registered in Australia

Tezmyster writes...

A 8 character long password consisting of only letters and numbers has 218,340,105,584,896 possible combinations

36(26 letters plus 10 digits)^8 = 2 821 109 907 456

Am I missing something here?

Jack.Daniels writes...

So you're actually worried that out of over a million and a half mail boxes someone at Microsoft is going to single you out and take the time to decipher your password.

Sure. If someone is particularly interested in me/you.

I thought we were talking WLID (ie: MS), not NineMSN (PBL/MS partnership)

You're not Jerry Fletcher are you? :)

Nope. My tin foil lined armadillo hat is still in it's box. ;0)

J3d1 writes...

Check your figures. Your combos are right, your timings are wrong.
www.lockdown.co.uk/?pg=combi

Class F is a Pentium 100 to get 26 seconds I do believe (Letters and numbers) at 8 characters.

I was guesstimating the times, but either way your link has a Pentium 100 as a Class A which would take 692 years to cover a 8 character letter/number combination. The Class F which would take 60.5 hours for the same is classified as "Typical for medium to large scale distributed computing, Supercomputers."

I'd be willing to bet that anyone with the processing power to crack your password in anything under a week using the brute force method probably have something more important to do with their time.

timb writes...

36(26 letters plus 10 digits)^8 = 2 821 109 907 456

Am I missing something here?

A-Z = 26
a-z = 26
0-9 = 10
Total = 62

Remember that capital letters and lower case letters are separate as per the ASCII table.

J3d1 writes...

I thought we were talking WLID (ie: MS), not NineMSN (PBL/MS partnership)

The URL is optuszoo.ninemsn.com.au

Sure. If someone is particularly interested in me/you.

If someone was that interested they'd get a court order and find out your passwords from the raw packets that are collected under that order...

Jack.Daniels writes...

The URL is optuszoo.ninemsn.com.au

blucat2 writes...

2 - For me to log onto the Optus home page now (which I will not do anymore) I will be FORCED to create a 'WindowsLiveID' to log on.

Ah, yes I was referring to WLID (MS), not ninemsn (PBL+MS).

If someone was that interested they'd get a court order and find out your passwords from the raw packets that are collected under that order...

That is another obvious option.

Hi guys. A few discrepencies over what some of you have said.

I said:
3 - Microsoft are taking over Optus' webmail and all usernames and account details and contacts will be transferred to Microsoft so they can manage the system.

Tic Tac Toe said:
Only if you opt-in to obtaining a WLID. Even then, Microsoft does not receive "all account details", I'm sorry but that is just nonsense. They also don't receive "all usernames" - you need to opt-in to obtaining a WLID on a per-username basis.

Tic Tac Toe, that is a word for word paste from the Optus Web Site. So if it's nonsense, then it's nonsense straight from Optus. I didn't make that up, I pasted it straight from their page.

RE: Password encryption: Here is another direct paste straight from the Optus web page:

26. What information are you sharing with ninemsn and MSN?
To allow you to personalise myZOO we need to allow ninemsn and MSN to have access to your username and password for personalisation i.e. your new Windows Live ID details.

Tic Tac Toe:
And after all this you've just gone and posted your username and e-mail address into a public forum? Are you really that concerned about privacy?

I consider my email address open, like my phone number. I encourage people who wish to communicate with me to have it. But when I call Optus support, which is now outsourced to India, some Indian guy asks me security questions including my password, home address, debit card number, Optus account number, you know the deal. There's a big difference between an email address and ALL of your personal information. I don't want Microsoft to have all that.

I'm more concerned about the overall trend for MS and the USA to have ALL information about everybody. Not to mention some overseas outsourcing company, information theft is already a big problem.

Tezmyster said:
And blucat2, if you're that anti-MS you'd be running Linux on your desktop with OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc. I'm willing to bet you aren't.

Or Apple. You may have heard of them, their shares are currently running at US$97/share. I have never (and never will) used Windows 98, 2000, me, XP, or Vista. I gave up in disgust at 95.

I said:
Typical Orwillian MS tactics, I am offended.

Jimbo said:
Dude, take a pill.

ok, mmm, that feels much better, I love you all :):)

There is no inconsistancy between what I have said and what is on the Optus FAQs on this. And lets make it clear exactly what it says.

You said:

blucat2 writes...

3 - Microsoft are taking over Optus' webmail and all usernames and account details and contacts will be transferred to Microsoft so they can manage the system.

And have gone on to say:

Tic Tac Toe, that is a word for word paste from the Optus Web Site.

Can you please provide a URL for this?

Now lets look at what is does say.

www.optuszoo.com.au/help...zoo#info_sharing

26. What information are you sharing with ninemsn and MSN?

To allow you to personalise myZOO we need to allow ninemsn and MSN to have access to your username and password for personalisation i.e. your new Windows Live ID details. We don't share any other information with them.

Obviously to make the FAQs broadly understood, they have to ensure they are not overly technical. Discussing a one-way hash function is not appropriate on such a broad FAQ, as it will confuse many users. In the interests of ensuring the gist of the arrangement is understood, it is more appropriate to simply say that the password has been shared, rather than explaining that only an encrypted hash of the password would be transferred.

Secondly, there is no inconsistancy with my comment that transfer of even this paltry amount of information ("your username and password") occurs as part of the opt-in process. You'll note that the quote makes specific reference to classing the username and password as "your new Windows Live ID details".

As for the rest of it - as it says, they don't share any other information with them

It repeats the same thing in Q27 on the FAQ page:

27. If I sign up for a Windows Live ID does this mean you are selling my information to ninemsn and Microsoft?

No, we are not selling any of your information to anyone. But, to allow you to personalise myZOO we need to allow ninemsn and MSN to have access to your username and password for personalisation i.e. your new Windows Live ID details. We don't share any other information with them.

Again, this is not inconsistant with anything I have said.

TicTacToe writes...

Discussing a one-way hash function is not appropriate on such a broad FAQ, as it will confuse many users.

Agree with what you say, however, Optus make no mention of one-way hash functions in the FAQs, just sharing username and password.

27. If I sign up for a Windows Live ID does this mean you are selling my information to ninemsn and Microsoft?

No, we are not selling any of your information to anyone. But, to allow you to personalise myZOO we need to allow ninemsn and MSN to have access to your username and password for personalisation i.e. your new Windows Live ID details. We don't share any other information with them.

How do you know that they have supplied a one-way hash and not your username and password (even in plain)? Unless you have experience in this or work for them( Optusnet), you are just guessing at the arrangements.

J3d1 writes...

Optus make no mention of one-way hash functions in the FAQs

They probably don't want people who don't understand what a one way hash is, to think that they're doing drug deals with Microsoft.

How do you know that they have supplied a one-way hash

Because that's the way things are done with authentication systems.

Jack.Daniels writes...

They probably don't want people who don't understand what a one way hash is, to think that they're doing drug deals with Microsoft.


LOL

Because that's the way things are done with authentication systems.

Ok then