Windows Live is entrusted with safekeeping the email, contacts, photos, documents, and more that over 500 million people bring to our services each month. Today is worldwide Data Privacy Day, and we’re observing it by focusing on a critical way to help keep your data private: protecting it from account hijackers.

Over the last year, we have made significant investments in this area, and we are honored that the European security and safety organization TüV Trust IT Corp. awarded its Seal of Trusted Email Service to Hotmail, making us the first US-based web mail service to receive the seal. In the same month, Fox Business ranked Hotmail as the #1 email service for safety and security. While we’re excited to receive this feedback, we know that this is an ongoing battle against hijackers that demands our continued focus, and we will work relentlessly to keep you safe. We think of this in three parts – joining forces across the industry to pool our resources, blocking abuse algorithmically, and giving customers tools to stay in control.

Joining forces across the industry

Data privacy and security really takes an industry-wide effort. More than ever, access to the data in your accounts is connected across multiple services. Additionally, because many people use the same password across their multiple email and social networking accounts, if a hijacker compromises one account, the rest may quickly fall victim. This interdependence makes it more important than ever for these initiatives to be cross-industry, and we are aligned with Google and others in this fight.

Blocking abuse algorithmically

Windows Live is continually getting smarter about detecting and neutralizing threats automatically. One way that hijackers attempt to steal your data is by creating fake email addresses or websites that impersonate “official” ones and ask for your passwords or other information. To help protect against these schemes, we add a green shield icon next to messages from known, trusted senders, and we use Microsoft SmartScreen to automatically recognize and warn you about suspicious senders and messages.

Despite precautions, passwords can still become compromised, so we constantly monitor for suspicious behavior. For example, if we detect login attempts from multiple continents, we will check to verify that a human is using the account, because hijackers often use automated scripts. And if we detect major changes in volume of email being sent or spam-like activity, we will automatically cut off the spammer to stop the abuse and allow you to reclaim your account.

We provide you with tools to stay in control

Although we work hard to prevent abuse, you also play a big role in setting yourself up to be secure and in control of your account. Beyond making your password more complex and never sharing it, there are things that you can do to help keep it secure.

For example, if you are using a public computer that is vulnerable to key-logging, instead of entering your true password, you can use a single-use code, a one-time password sent to your cell phone.

We also offer advanced and reliable password recovery options. When you set these up in advance, they act as a spare key to your account and allow you to take back control if a hijacker tries to lock you out by changing your password. Setting up at least two of these “proofs” – alternate email address, cell phone number, or a physical PC that is designated as “trusted” by your account – will allow you to retake control of your account in seconds, should it become compromised.

For these tools to be effective, we need to make sure that you know about them, so here’s a short video about how to stay secure.

If you’ve ever received an email from a friend’s account that was hacked (e.g., advertising prescription medication or asking for money because they’re stuck in a foreign country), you should share this information with them so they can keep themselves safe as well. As always, let us know what you think and how we can make your account even more secure.

Dharmesh Mehta

Director, Windows Live Product Management

In June of 2010, we connected Office 2010 to SkyDrive so that you can share and access your documents across the web. Over 30 million people have now accessed Office documents on SkyDrive! We’re extremely happy that we have reached so many of you!

In August, we connected Hotmail to Windows Phone and iOS devices via Exchange ActiveSync. Combined with Outlook Connector, you now have a seamless experience for getting to your mail, calendar, and contacts across your Windows PCs, phones, and the cloud.

In October, we connected OneNote on Windows Phone 7 to SkyDrive so that you could access your personal or shared notebooks across your PC and your Windows Phone.

Starting January 18^th in the US, you can download OneNote Mobile for the iPhone. For a limited time, we’re even making it free. We’re working to make it available in other regions as well, and we’ll keep you updated as it becomes available.

What’s so great about OneNote?

OneNote holds a special place in my heart. I started using OneNote almost a decade ago, when it was in development. It was the first experience where I could combine ink, text, images, and markup all in one application. I watched OneNote mature into the most powerful and flexible note taking application through three Office releases. As someone who is heavily focused on both work and life related productivity (I happen to use Getting Things Done), OneNote is my note taking hub for myself and my family.

With OneNote now connected and syncing to the web, across your PCs, and across your Windows Phone or iPhone you have access anywhere to the best note taking tool. For things like:

• Your to do or project list everywhere
• A place to organize vacation plans and trips with your friends and family
• Recipes that you’ve collected, allowing you to quickly pull them up at the grocery store and purchase ingredients, or when you are standing over your stove following the instructions
• A collection tool for your research, like what holiday gifts to get next year, or what car to purchase next.
• A notebook that you can share with members of your household, or students in a class and collaborate in real time using handwriting, text, audio, documents, tables and web content

It’s great to see OneNote available on the iPhone. I hope more people are introduced to what I feel is a truly innovative product. For more details, please visit the Office blog.

Happy note taking!

Omar Shahine
Group Program Manager, Windows Live

If you are using Windows Live Essentials on Windows XP, or are still using a pre-2011 version of Windows Live Essentials (including Messenger), starting this week, you’ll see a required update that is rolling out in all 48 languages. This minor update to Windows Live Messenger and the other Windows Live Essentials programs includes a set of important security updates, performance improvements, targeted bug fixes, and some other, minor changes. The update began rolling out last May, but because of the security improvements included, it will become mandatory over the next week or so.

The update does not require you to download Windows Live Messenger 2011.

As we mentioned in a previous post on Windows Live Messenger video and photo sharing functionality, this Messenger update simplifies how you start a video call from within Messenger pre-2011. Rather than individually managing your and your friend’s webcam feeds and audio, you can now start a video call just by clicking the “Video” button in the conversation window or by clicking the webcam icon. Also, you can more easily make video calls to your friends who do not have webcams, controlling the audio for both you and your friend by clicking the speaker and microphone icons.

Piero Sierra
Group Program Manager, Windows Live

Last week, Steve Lohr of the New York Times explored the evolving landscape of computer vision. Steve notes that computer vision – which broadly includes robotics, object detection and recognition, sequencing, as well as modeling and object interaction - is moving into the mainstream; what would have required a super computer just a decade ago is now possible on common computers of all types. At Microsoft, we believe in the judicious use of these technologies as one way Windows helps you be more creative in how you find and organize your media.

In addition to leading facial recognition technology, the latest release of Windows Live Photo Gallery includes two new technologies called Photo Fuse and Retouch. To bring these technologies to our customers, we turned to one of Microsoft strongest assets - Microsoft Research. Windows Live has a history of partnering with Microsoft Research as an efficient way to move cutting-edge innovations into mainstream products.

Photo Editing Innovation in Windows Live Essentials 2011

Photo Fuse & composite imaging

Photo Fuse started as a Microsoft Research (MSR) project, in conjunction with the University of Washington, as an attempt to solve the common problem of taking flawed group shots. Iterating over the course of several years, Photo Fuse is based on the same high-quality image matching technology found in Photosynth, Bing image search, and panoramic stitching.

Photo Fuse makes it possible to take the best parts of similar photos and fuse them together into one composite shot. For example, it’s common in a group picture for someone to have closed their eyes or looked away from the camera in a series of attempted pictures. In Photo Gallery, you can select all the pictures and Photo Fuse will guide you through picking the best slices from each photo and then merge them into one.

You can also use it for other scenarios like taking unwanted people or objects out of a scene. Or, you can get creative like Jason Moore recently did in exploring Seattle.

Here’s an example from the folks who worked hard to make Photo Fuse a reality. You can see how we combined the two photos on the left to make the one on the right.

Another related problem that had to be solved was how to effectively composite while taking into account the minor shifts in camera position between shots. Between any two given shots, people move their cameras ever so slightly. Here, MSR helped combine existing technology with panoramic stitch to remove motion gaps between the images. This image stabilization step is tricky because it needs to “see past” all of the moving people and stabilize on the background. 

Retouch made easy

Retouching photos and removing unwanted artifacts is a feature usually reserved for expensive professional tools and has required tedious work to do. The traditional approach is to select a patch to clone and then blend that patch on top of the blemish you want to remove. Instead, Photo Gallery will analyze the surrounding pixels of the blemish to find out which path or patch will be the best fit. Afterwards, the patch is isolated, rotated, scaled in place, and then blended. The result is often better than what one could achieve by manually manipulating a photo – and it’s done in one click.

For example, Arwa didn’t care for the bruise on her arm in the photo below.

So she used Retouch to remove it.

(Click for a full resolution image, where you can see how imperceptible the retouching really is.)

Photo Fuse and Retouch are just two examples of how Windows is using computer vision technologies in surprising and fun ways. We encourage you to try Photo Gallery yourself and let us know what you think. (Photo Gallery is free and available to customers who use Windows Vista & Windows 7.)

Brad Weed
Group Program Manager
Windows Live Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, and Writer

On December 31, 2010, a number of our users reported their email messages and folders were missing from their Hotmail accounts.  I want to take a little time to explain what happened, and what steps we’ve taken to fix this problem and prevent it from happening in the future.

In Hotmail, one way we monitor the health of the email service is through automated tests. We set up a number of accounts with different configurations, and then use automated tests to log into these accounts, simulate normal user activity and behavior, and report when errors are found. We use scripts to create and delete these test accounts in bulk. The way we delete a test account is to remove its record from a group of directory servers that route users and incoming mail to the correct mailbox. 

On December 30^th, we had an error in a script that inadvertently removed the directory records of a small number of real user accounts along with a set of test accounts. Please note that the email messages and folders of impacted users were not deleted; only their inbox location in the directory servers was removed.  Therefore when they logged in, a new mailbox was automatically created for them on a new storage server that didn’t contain their old messages and folders.   This is why the accounts received the “Welcome to Hotmail” message. 

The issue was first reported on December 30^th, and initially our support teams were unable to trace the source of the problem.  A “ticket,“ (notification that an issue needs investigation), was entered into our issue alert system on December 31^st.  This issue was one that had not arisen before, and at first, we did not assign it to the correct team for action.  Additionally, because there were a relatively small number of reports, the volume wasn’t high enough to set off alarms. This meant we had a ticket in the system that was getting no action. 

We raised the priority of the ticket on January 1^st after continued reports, and by that evening, we’d identified the root cause of the problem.  Our first step was to restore these users’ entries in the directory servers, which we did by early on the morning of January 2 PST.  We then merged their old email messages and folders with any new mail they’d received throughout the day on January 2^nd. This required multiple passes to capture all the accounts and messages, so for some users, service wasn’t completely restored until January 5^th. We completed the merge for 16,035 users on January 2^nd and by January 5^th had completed this for the remaining 1,320 users who were affected by this particular issue.

100% data recovery

I am happy to report that no user data was permanently lost in this particular incident, that is, we had 100% recovery of existing email and folders in the affected accounts. The only unfortunate exception to this statement is that, if you were affected by this incident and you didn’t sign in to your account between the time of the incident and the time your account was restored, then any messages sent to your account during that time would have bounced.

What we’ve learned

To prevent similar problems in the future, we’ve taken the following actions:

• We are updating our infrastructure to use a separate code path for provisioning and removing test accounts, so that our testing no longer risks affecting real user accounts. 
• We are changing our issue alert process so that when multiple users report missing data, these issues get a higher priority and immediate action.
• We are updating our feedback process so that we can more clearly communicate status to affected customers through the support forums.

Other reports

We’ve also received reports of unrelated data loss issues, including people who set up a POP client (an email program on their computer or mobile phone) that, unbeknownst to them, was automatically deleting their messages from the server. Others found, after investigation, that their accounts had been closed as a result of not having signed in for 270 days.

If you think you’re missing email from your account, first check this Solution Center article on the most common reasons for missing email in Hotmail. If you don’t find a solution, be sure to report it in the Hotmail Solution Center Forums, as the more reports we get, the more quickly we can figure out and address your problem.

We apologize to the Hotmail users who were affected by this issue. Our commitment to protecting your data is a top priority for the entire Windows Live team. We will continue to investigate new incident reports as they come in, and we’ll share new information about these on this blog.

Mike Schackwitz

Windows Live Hotmail team

P.S. Here are a few related links you might find helpful if you’re having trouble with your Hotmail account:

• How to help protect your Hotmail account from being hacked
• The most common reasons for missing email in Hotmail
• How to recover a compromised Hotmail account