Where is this super computer that stores all our e_mails from our Hotmail accounts?

Run_to_da_hills

Just looking at my free email account with Hotmail. I have used up only 1% of just two of my Hotmail accounts which both add up to 10Gigs. That’s a hell of a lot of space on a free server that any tom dick and harry can set up multiple accounts on.

Where is this Super Computer? No doubt the US Government has access to it through the Patriot act and the recent agreement on exchanging digital data with the European authorities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA_PATRIOT_Actrecent

If only 1/4 the population of Ireland I.e. 2,000,000 had only one hotmail account it would need 10,000 Terabits of disk space to accommodate each account and this is just Ireland!!!, No doubt this would be run on a RAID system with several duplicate servers for back up, Where is this monstrosity of a computer kept???? :eek:

Mahatma coat

I'll look up the details later but I remmember that the english had a building in wales that was outed through the FOI act, apparently it wa 11 storeys tall ahd no windows and was used to record every phone conversation that took place from ireland to England from the seventies to te nineties

so its not that improbable that they have this recording technology, AFAIK tho the ISP's are obliged to maintain records themselves for up to 5 years, so basicly they can only issue as many accounts as they can record ( open for correction on this bit)

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

jesus christ..

MoominPapa

I would imagine its in one or more data farms. So what?

johnnyrotten

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

If only 1/4 the population of Ireland I.e. 2,000,000 had only one hotmail account it would need 10,000 Terabits of disk space to accommodate each account and this is just Ireland!!!,

Population of Ireland is 4,100,000 ( CSO 2007)

Ciaran500

They would be banking on people like you (and me) who barely scrape their 10gb limit. I'd be very suprised if they were in a position to offer every account the full 10gb.

petermcqueen

MoominPapa wrote: »

I would imagine its in one or more data farms.?

Correct, all the data is held in data centres, there are numerous centres located aound dublin and ireland. Also many more are continuing to be built.

MoominPapa wrote: »

So what?

I think the original poster has a concern about his privacy/freedom. Clearly he does not live in disneyland like yourself.

MoominPapa

petermcqueen wrote: »

Correct, all the data is held in data centres, there are numerous centres located aound dublin and ireland. Also many more are continuing to be built.

I think the original poster has a concern about his privacy/freedom. Clearly he does not live in disneyland like yourself.

Here in Disneyland the physical location of storage is only one aspect of data security. Is it not the same in cloud cuckoo land? Again - so what? Where is the conspiracy?

bonkey

petermcqueen wrote: »

I think the original poster has a concern about his privacy/freedom.

Is it a valid concern?

And how, incidentally, is their freedom challenged here?

Run_to_da_hills

johnnyrotten wrote: »

Population of Ireland is 4,100,000 ( CSO 2007)

4,000,000 + how many foreign Nationals and illegal migrants that are residing in every corner of this island???

Most or if not all of these are communicating home with emails and Msn

Ciaran500 wrote: »

They would be banking on people like you (and me) who barely scrape their 10gb limit. I'd be very suprised if they were in a position to offer every account the full 10gb.

That space must be reserved, they cannot very well email you and say, "Sorry, mate we can only offer you 1gig because we are running short of space" The empty space is there. I havn't mentioned about all the deleated emails that also must be stored for 5 years. Eircom.net were able to retrieve hundreds of emails from my former account that were deleated when I needed to go through stuff. They charged me premium phone rate and had to give proof of account.

bonkey

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

That space must be reserved, they cannot very well email you and say, "Sorry, mate we can only offer you 1gig because we are running short of space"

Yes, actually, they can email you and say that. You aren't paying them a cent for the service, and they reserve the rights to change the terms and conditions.

The empty space is there.

No, its not. It would be economically irresponsible for them to have it there. They have sufficient spare capacity to meet any conceiveable short-term surges. They have sufficient upgrade capability to meet any forseeable short-term growth. They have the ability to add large amounts of storage to their system faster than it can be conceiveably demanded.

As I mentioned above, they also have the right to change their terms and conditions if and when it ever becomes impossible to meet demand, or when it is no longer part of their strategy.

I havn't mentioned about all the deleated emails that also must be stored for 5 years.

Must they?

Eircom.net were able to retrieve hundreds of emails from my former account that were deleated when I needed to go through stuff. They charged me premium phone rate and had to give proof of account.

What, exactly, do you mean by "deleted"? Do you mean that the account was closed, and you assumed that this meant the contents were deleted...or do you mean that before the account was closed, you deleted the mails from your mail-account and emptied your "trash"?

Run_to_da_hills

bonkey wrote: »

Yes, actually, they can email you and say that. You aren't paying them a cent for the service, and they reserve the rights to change the terms and conditions."

It would be misleading advertisement if they advertised 5 gigs and couldn't follow it up whether it was "free" or not. Nothing is "Free" as you say. there is a reason for everything. Microsoft make millions on advertisments on "Free" email sites as with every one else, they are not the SVP One thing they can do and I got caught out with it, they can terminate an account and "deleat" everything if it is not accessed within a relitvely short timeframe.

bonkey wrote: »

No, its not. It would be economically irresponsible for them to have it there. They have sufficient spare capacity to meet any conceiveable short-term surges. They have sufficient upgrade capability to meet any forseeable short-term growth. They have the ability to add large amounts of storage to their system faster than it can be conceiveably demanded. "

They must have the back up availible, no point providing a seervice and not being able to sustain it. They started off with offering only a few megs, which i recon is plenty enough for anyone emailing, when one talks gigs its for storing mp3s videos etc.

bonkey wrote: »

As I mentioned above, they also have the right to change their terms and conditions if and when it ever becomes impossible to meet demand, or when it is no longer part of their strategy. "

Microsoft is a professional run business, they are not going to change their terms and conditions like that, "Dear Mr Bradshaw, due to an excessive demand on or Hotmail e mailing service we are now going to reduce your 5 gig limit to 2 Gigs because you are not using it, we need this extra server space so more people can use it.":rolleyes:

bonkey wrote: »

What, exactly, do you mean by "deleted"? Do you mean that the account was closed, and you assumed that this meant the contents were deleted...or do you mean that before the account was closed, you deleted the mails from your mail-account and emptied your "trash"?

All my emails up to a certain date got deleated, not sure if it was a Eircom policy or through my own error. I didnt bother with this as there was nothing too important until about 6 months later I relised an important invoice was required. I requested this from Eircom, instead of just sending me a few emails covering that week, they sent me back about 500 previous deleated emails going back that year.

Mahatma coat

article posted by casey last week
http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/in-a-state-of-surveillance-1301589.html

Ciaran500

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

It would be misleading advertisement if they advertised 5 gigs and couldn't follow it up whether it was "free" or not. Nothing is "Free" as you say. there is a reason for everything.

Companies do it constantly, they attract you with the promise of space but they would be expecting that very few people will actually be using the space.

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

They started off with offering only a few megs, which i recon is plenty enough for anyone emailing, when one talks gigs its for storing mp3s videos etc.

With a 10mb file size limit you're not going to be storing much video and only 1-2 songs at a time. Theres much better ways to store files online anyway.

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Microsoft is a professional run business, they are not going to change their terms and conditions like that, "Dear Mr Bradshaw, due to an excessive demand on or Hotmail e mailing service we are now going to reduce your 5 gig limit to 2 Gigs because you are not using it, we need this extra server space so more people can use it.":rolleyes:

Yes, they would. I guarantee if it started to become uneconomical to have 5GB used by everyone they would cut it off. Like you said they only offer this to make money.

bonkey

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

It would be misleading advertisement if they advertised 5 gigs and couldn't follow it up whether it was "free" or not.

You agree to terms and conditions as part of the sign-up process. Part of the terms and conditions that you agree to is the term that the service provider has the right to alter said terms and conditions. If you didn't read the terms and conditions and aren't aware of this, this is not their problem...its yours.

I agree that it would result in bad press for a service provider who did this, and I'm not sure its ever likely to happen anyway, but the reality is that if they needed to do so, it would be done having decided that the bad press would cost less than not changing the terms and conditions, and thus altering the service.

The best example I can give is some years ago when "unlimited surfing" was offered either free or for a pittance by many ISPs in England. Some time later, they discovered that they couldn't actually afford the bandwidth being demanded by people who took them at their word, so they changed the terms and conditions to define what constituted "unlimited". In that case, I would argue they did engage in a false practice because they wanted to keep the term "unlimited", but apply limits to it. No-one is offering you unlimited storage though. They're offering you a specific amount, and are reserving the rights to change that amount up or down. If the changed it from 10GB to 100MB and still claimed to be offering 10GB then you'd have a valid argument about false advertising...but I'm not suggesting they'd do that. I'm suggesting they'd offer some reason to the public and would change the service being offered. They would presumably give anyone using more than the current limit some sort of concession, such as a cap at their current mailbox size, or a set amount of time to find alternate storage arrangements, or the option to pay for the storage....but the point is that they have the right to do this.

To illustrate...from the GMail Terms & Conditions:

You acknowledge and agree that the form and nature of the Services which Google provides may change from time to time without prior notice to you.
...
you acknowledge and agree that Google may stop (permanently or temporarily) providing the Services (or any features within the Services) to you or to users generally at Google’s sole discretion, without prior notice to you.
...
You acknowledge and agree that while Google may not currently have set a fixed upper limit on the number of transmissions you may send or receive through the Services or on the amount of storage space used for the provision of any Service, such fixed upper limits may be set by Google at any time, at Google’s discretion.
...
In particular, Google, its Subsidiaries and Affiliates, and licensors do not represent or warrant to you that:
...
your use of the Services will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or free from error,

...
Google, its Subsidiaries and Affiliates, and its licensors shall not be liable to you for:

(A) any indirect or consequential losses which may be incurred by you. This shall include ... any loss of data suffered by you;

(B) any loss or damage which may be incurred by you as a result of:
...
(ii) any changes which Google may make to the Services, or for any permanent or temporary cessation in the provision of the Services (or any features within the Services);

(iii) the deletion of, corruption of, or failure to store, any Content and other communications data maintained or transmitted by or through your use of the Services;


These are all pretty typical and you'll find similar in teh terms and conditions of any other major free-email service provider. If you have a free email account, you agreed to these things.

They must have the back up availible, no point providing a seervice and not being able to sustain it.

I've included the relevant part of GMail's T&Cs above which says otherwise. I agree that they would endeavour to have it, but thats different.

Microsoft is a professional run business, they are not going to change their terms and conditions like that, "Dear Mr Bradshaw, due to an excessive demand on or Hotmail e mailing service we are now going to reduce your 5 gig limit to 2 Gigs because you are not using it, we need this extra server space so more people can use it.":rolleyes:

The IT business is rife with companies who ceased the provision of free services, or who introduced charges to services that were previously free.

You can argue from incrediulity all you like about what you think they would or would not do. I'm saying that they have made sure from the get-go that they have the legal right to do what I am claiming they have the right to do and have showed that there is precedent for such things happening.

You want another example? Take the likes of Dell computer. They used to offer free phone support. Then one day, they announced that this wasn't the case any more. So it was mostly certainly a case of "Sorry Mr. Smith, I know it may have been advertised as free when you bought your pc, but the Terms and Conditions allowed us to change that, and now you have to pay for it".

All my emails up to a certain date got deleated, not sure if it was a Eircom policy or through my own error. I didnt bother with this as there was nothing too important until about 6 months later I relised an important invoice was required. I requested this from Eircom, instead of just sending me a few emails covering that week, they sent me back about 500 previous deleated emails going back that year.

So basically, you don't really know who deleted what, or how, nor can you say for certain that Eircom had them because it happened to be recent enough to fit into their backup strategy, or because htey were legally obliged to have them.