Safely signing in on a computer that's not yours
One of the big problems with the proliferation of spyware and bots is that using a computer that has not been in your possession or control 100% of the time could result in bad things happening when you log into a website. Basically your password can get stolen and your account hijacked. If it’s your email or Facebook account that this happens to, a lot of really unfortunate things can happen to your data, and your friends can get spammed.
This is why I never use anyone else’s computers but my own, and I insist on taking my iPhone and laptop with me when I travel and using either Wifi or International data to get my email, log into Facebook etc. However there are cases where you need to get to your email account from a computer that’s not yours (like a hotel to print out a boarding pass, get important documents in your email etc). For this reason, the folks that work on Windows Live ID built a single-use code login feature.
The way this feature works is that when you type in www.live.com or www.hotmail.com there is an option to Sign in with a Single-use code.
![Image001 Image001](http://getfile0.posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/omarshahine/p2RvPZTIAO8vzOxV41Gn2jeIGMsO2cBjPJWflT6yw7GApNpCB6Cjoeo3mPFL/image001.png)
Selecting that option will send an SMS message to a mobile phone number with a numeric code that you can then use to log in.
![Image002 Image002](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F47a5defd-3d15-4cdc-8ab6-76d290b9ad83_412x543.png)
This feature requires that you previously registered this code with Windows Live, which you can do at http://sms.live.com
Here is what the SMS message looks like.
![Image005 Image005](http://getfile8.posterous.com/getfile/files.posterous.com/omarshahine/XEl83dLjaFvvrB4mcSqWGftuK1V4ZeHOHpyFhW451KPxJBUyU8U9Dop4EkrH/image005.png)
I hope more services add these really useful safety features.