"Microsoft said late Thursday that problems with its .Net Passport servers briefly locked some subscribers out of their online accounts."

Looks like another repeat of the networking outage problems which plagued the service last May. Although only a fraction of users were affected, those that were experienced severe problems with signing in and in using the MSN services.

"MSN subscriber Nancy Carroll said the glitch prevented her from signing on to instant messenger and one of her two Hotmail accounts. "I can live without checking the (one) e-mail every day, (and) lack of IM is aggravating but not crucial these days," she said."

More here.