" We don't need legislation, just make your passwords difficult to guess. The senator probably had a simple password (ie birthday, pet name, college, etc etc). The best passwords are 16 characters long or longer and contain letters (lower and upper case) and numbers. For example wi2d8ZowL30Nwh6t Why is that better than say may191964 or 19may1964? Two reasons, the first being it's a lot harder for a human to guess a 16 digit (or more) random password, and secondly it's much harder for computers to brute force a 16 digit (or longer) random password. For those that don't know what brute force means, basically it's a computer program that attempts to log into an email or forum or whatever happens to be targeted using a know login name or email address by going through every possible combination of letters and numbers. The senators email was most likely hacked by a human, and one that she told the password to, or the person guessed the easy password she had set. One final note, never use the same password more than once. "

" It is surprising that any professional person would use Microsoft Hotmail for their email service. Like any service, you pretty much get what you pay for. "