RSS Feeds
Online
Microsoft Prohibits 'Tibet' in Hotmail Addresses, But It's Not What You Are Thinking
Posted by Jesus Diaz at 9:48 PM on August 8, 2008
David Gallagher at the New York Times had to do some rumour control when a reader wrote accusing Microsoft of prohibiting the word "Tibet" in Hotmail addresses to appease the Chinese government. No "freetibet@hotmail.com", no "tibetsmellsofwetmonks@hotmail.com", no "ilovetibet@hotmail.com." Is this another Chinese-Microsoft evil conspiracy? While there are some of those going on between China and companies like Microsoft, Google, or Yahoo, this is not the case.
As David discovered, it turns out that you can't register any name with the word "tib" on them, not just Tibet. Microsoft gave him an explanation for this: they wanted to protect customers of the TIB Bank in Florida, so they can't receive a message from "tib-support@hotmail.com" asking for their bank account passwords. As he was able to test, if you try to use any other bank name in the address, it won't work. Mystery solved! [NYT]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
Dean
Posted August 9, 2008 1:45 PM
Westpac, Commbank are banned but nab, ANZ, Commonwealth, StGeorge, Bendigo are all ok (and taken).
Adam
Posted August 9, 2008 7:20 PM
hmm, interesting article! And well found 'Dean' I suppose it's a good measure taken by MS, not often we hear of them doing the right thing :p *cough*vista*cough*!
DashTheHand
Posted 10:37 PM 8/8/08
@OMG! Ponies!: Doesn't matter if its hotmail or gmail or any email service, its ignorance in a futile attempt to protect the terminally stupid. If people are still falling for phishing scams from hotmail accounts, then they deserve to have the internet taken away.
DashTheHand
Aturayd
Posted 10:29 PM 8/8/08
Thats funny, because my hotmail address has tiberius*****@hotmail.com
but I made this email address around 6 years ago.. so that might explain it.
Aturayd
OMG! Ponies!
Posted 10:29 PM 8/8/08
Kaiser-Machead does not pronounce it "Mash-heed": I have enough porn in my life. Besides, if I wanted online sex, I'd use Second Life. AOL is so 1998.
OMG! Ponies!
rabiddachshund
Posted 10:29 PM 8/8/08
@Soko: Anyone who falls for that gets what they deserve.
rabiddachshund
tumnus
Posted 10:22 PM 8/8/08
Too bad email addresses aren't case sensitive.
tumnus
Soko
Posted 10:18 PM 8/8/08
yeah but does wamu-support@hotmail.com work? would think not
Soko
Kaiser-Machead's WALL-E fetish
Posted 10:13 PM 8/8/08
@Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity: Or you can simply use all caps, replace the i with a lower case L and no one would see the difference.
Kaiser-Machead's WALL-E fetish
Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity
Posted 10:11 PM 8/8/08
Use Tidet, and tell people you have dyslexia.
Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity
Kaiser-Machead's WALL-E fetish
Posted 10:09 PM 8/8/08
@weatherman: lol wow you're right. You can also use the initials BNY, which is commonly used for Bank of New York.
I can even make the name WashingtonMutualistheshiznat
Kaiser-Machead's WALL-E fetish
Kaiser-Machead's WALL-E fetish
Posted 10:07 PM 8/8/08
@OMG! Ponies!: AOL? :P
Kaiser-Machead's WALL-E fetish
weatherman
Posted 10:05 PM 8/8/08
Isn't that convenient? I can still register Citi-Helpdesk8@hotmail.com if I want...
weatherman
Kaiser-Machead's WALL-E fetish
Posted 10:04 PM 8/8/08
Seems that I CAN make those names.
But I can't even make the name Bank of Kramerica.
Evil bastards.
Kaiser-Machead's WALL-E fetish
OMG! Ponies!
Posted 10:04 PM 8/8/08
@DashTheHand: Oh darn. I don't have my Hotmail account anymore. Boohoo. Now where am I going to find a free email account that fills up with 20 new spams every day?
OMG! Ponies!
DashTheHand
Posted 10:02 PM 8/8/08
This makes zero sense. I'm going to start "Smith Bank" and boot all people with the name smith the hell off their email addresses.
DashTheHand
aussie
Posted 10:01 PM 8/8/08
Well that smells like a well planned excuse / lie.
aussie
ViperBorg
Posted 10:00 PM 8/8/08
Indeed. That is news.
ViperBorg
Kaiser-Machead's WALL-E fetish
Posted 9:59 PM 8/8/08
So if I wanted to make the name CarChase, Citislicker, or HankofAmerica@hotmail.com, I can't?
Kaiser-Machead's WALL-E fetish
William Hook
Posted 9:59 PM 8/8/08
Neat.
I wonder if it's only US banks though?
William Hook
OMG! Ponies!
Posted 9:54 PM 8/8/08
Redmond is evidently taking evil lessons from Google. Now that's news.
OMG! Ponies!
vinnyr
Posted 11:08 PM 8/8/08
or mystery unsolved....
Microsoft is lying through their teeth, its obvious that they are doing this to stop human rights activists from causing any kind of trouble during the olympics. I bet after the olympics are over, Microsoft will lift the restriction.
vinnyr
Hiphopopotamus
Posted 10:59 PM 8/8/08
@ecobore: Old people.
Hiphopopotamus
ronbailey
Posted 10:58 PM 8/8/08
For fuck's sake, you oughta just go and get the word "stooge" tattooed across your forehead and eliminate any doubts we had, preemptively. Do you think they block names with the letters B, O and A? or C I T I listed consecutively? I'm ashamed for you.
ronbailey
ecobore
Posted 10:52 PM 8/8/08
ah, I was just about to say, what about tiberius. MS are a bunch of hols anyway. What kind of idiot would respond to a phishing email from a MS address! In fact what kind of idiot would respond to a phishing email anyway!
ecobore
AJ_Syrinx
Posted 11:25 PM 8/8/08
Sounds like BS to me.
AJ_Syrinx
IphtashuFitz
Posted 11:21 PM 8/8/08
T.I.B-Support@hotmail.com
t1b-support@hotmail.com
t-i-b-support@hotmail.com
TheIslamoradaBank@hotmail.com (that's where TIB comes from)
enough said.
IphtashuFitz
sharpfang
Posted 11:56 PM 8/8/08
Yeeeh.
You can't use any 3-letter shortcut in your main address.
That's why I've done away with Hotmail, Yahoo and such.
sharpfang
GoingLikeSixty
Posted 11:47 PM 8/8/08
tibetneedsfreedom.com too
GoingLikeSixty
GoingLikeSixty
Posted 11:46 PM 8/8/08
BBT-support.com
bankingsecuritysupport.com
fifththirdbankhelp.com
TIB-security.com
I think the explanation was BS
GoingLikeSixty
wjousts
Posted 11:39 PM 8/8/08
@Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity: The ASD (American Dyslexic Society) finds your comment offensive.
wjousts
urbanturban666
Posted 12:17 AM 9/8/08
ok first of all, if i got an email from a hotmail account asking for bank info or a credit card ## is give it to them!!!
urbanturban666
ps61318
Posted 12:16 AM 9/8/08
@DashTheHand: @ecobore: I hope that there never comes a time when you do something stupid. Because no one, NO ONE will have even an iota of sympathy for you. Even when you become old. And senile. And your reflexes slow. And you become confused and more gullible. Because then your rights will be eligible for revocation because of the passage of time.
Be nice, guys!
ps61318
ps61318
Posted 12:09 AM 9/8/08
@wjousts: Their slogan: "Dyslexics of the World: Untie!"
ps61318
jkr2
Posted 1:21 AM 9/8/08
Hmm, the related story is rather... unrelated.
jkr2
Tony C
Posted 1:17 AM 9/8/08
Totally lame and random, if that's Microsoft's real explanation... Does that mean they also ban using "BoA" for Bank of America? "Citi" for Citibank? And other hundreds or even thousands of potentially critical company acronyms? Who would believe a financial institution would use a Hotmail or Live account anyway? Anyone that does deserves to be phished!
Tony C
Torley
Posted 1:44 AM 9/8/08
"They Call Me MISTER Tib... wha? Can't register?"
Torley
Parapraxis
Posted 2:26 AM 9/8/08
hmmm... this e-mail came from "Whack-off-via-bank@live.com"....
Should I give them my information?
Parapraxis
x23
Posted 2:13 AM 9/8/08
@OMG! Ponies! Amazing Bacon Drinks: 20 a day? it's been awhile... but i recall hotmail getting like 20 an hour.
x23
GadgetPlay
Posted 3:05 AM 9/8/08
@wjousts: Ah Ah Ah!!!
@Tony C: "Who would believe a financial institution would use a Hotmail or Live account anyway? Anyone that does deserves to be phished!"
Exactly.
@ps61318: K O! K O! Enough with the dylsexic jokes!
GadgetPlay
ndonahue
Posted 5:35 AM 9/8/08
I thought Google cornered the market on Stupid by not allowing .exe attachments in gmail, but apparently MSFT and Google want to compete on who's got more share of stupid in the world of free webmail.
ndonahue
JEmlay
Posted 5:33 AM 9/8/08
This is dumb. Who ever falls for a hotmail account is a moron.
JEmlay
Ricorich196
Posted 6:05 AM 9/8/08
Bank of New York doesn't exist anymore it's now Chase if I remember right.
Ricorich196
eduardjm
Posted 8:33 AM 9/8/08
This might just be oversight. bofa-support@hotmail and anything-creditunion.hotmail still work.
The programmers who write for Microsoft are more than capable of filtering out TIB from Tibet. They probably figure its not so important for someone to have "tibet" in their email address, nor should they care. It's just an email address. If its that critical, one could purchase a domain and set up email for that.
eduardjm
kzooguy
Posted 9:33 AM 9/8/08
Anyone who responds to a request from a bank with a hotmail account deserves to be phished.
kzooguy
frerad
Posted 5:24 AM 12/8/08
freethatcountryoccupiedbychina@hotmail.com is available.
frerad