Jennison, your idea would make it more difficult but actually only slightly
more difficult for an automated computer system to get HotMail
accounts.  What Microsoft and Yahoo are doing is devising systems that
defeat computers and require an actual human being to intercede.  The
creeps that Microsoft and Yahoo need to defeat or at least slow down a lot
are both spammers and hackers.  If the creeps can sign up for hundreds of
thousands of e-mail accounts per day, they can jam spam and launch denial
of service attacks.  If they cannot get these e-mail accounts so
plentifully then it's much harder for them to cause the rest of us lots of
grief.

Microsoft does not want to use toll-free numbers, because there are just
too many ways for creeps of another kind to jam them with calls, causing
real customers to be locked out.  I guess Yahoo hasn't generated quite so
many enemies, but it could happen to them too, and they would have to
switch to non-toll-free numbers.  In the US it is now so cheap to make a
long distance call that nobody can really object to paying a few pennies to
make a non-toll-free call, but even a few pennies is enough to defeat the
toll-free line jammers.

Folks, we have lots of serious access problems that we need to fight
companies about.  This is not one of those.  If we're not willing or able
to pay for the call to Microsoft, then we may just have to put up with the
annoyance of signing up when there's a sighted person around to help.  If
this were my most serious access problem I would be one happy person.

John



At 06:35 PM 7/26/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>Hello
>
>What about a set up where in a unique four-digit PIN is generated
>on the screen that a JAWS user, for example, would write down. They would
>then be directed to a toll free number where they would either key-in or
>quote this PIN, resulting in the embedded character string being given to
>the caller. Finally, the user would key in the string, resulting in
>them completing their registration. The call could be routed to either an
>existing MS support center or to a voice response system. It is similar to
>the Yahoo concept, but adds an extra level of security via the caller
>needing to have a PIN to get the character string.
>
>Pranav, you mentioned in an e-mail the importance of having a local
>number for folks to call. I am assuming that MicroSoft has a network of
>call centers that support their products internationally, so providing
>local or toll free numbers to call shouldn't be an issue.
>
>Just my $0.02.
>
>Jennison
>
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John Gardner
Professor and Director, Science Access Project
Department of Physics
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331-6507
tel: (541) 737 3278
FAX: (541) 737 1683
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://dots.physics.orst.edu

-----------------------
Check out the EASI web:
http://www.rit.edu/~easi
Check EASI Courses and Clinics
To sign off this list
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