Random Connection Refused Errors

You may need to talk to your service providor on this one. I have not seen this problem myself but I have heard my ADSL service providor's staff talk about it. This is a bit outside my technical expertise, but simply:

With some ADSL and cable modems it is possible for someone outside to 'bounce' activity off of your modem. They use your modem to act as a relay for their traffic and this is usually done by spammers and hackers to mask their true address.

They can do this as your connectionwill retain the same IP address and configuration for the entire time that your connection is live.

1. The advice given here is to turn off the modem when not in use. This will result in a regular change of IP address and change the config for the IP address when it is issued to someone else.

2. Set all the security options available on your modem to not allow externally initiated activity. Many have security features like NAT, routing instruction capability, and basic firewall capability; if yours has any use them.

BTW Mine is set to only allow actrivity to be initiated from my internal network and uses Network Address Translation to ensure that those addresses never go out.

Try turning the modem off for a few hours when you go out, and then see if all works OK when you first turn it back on.

This is a very tricky problem and I am sorry that I can not give you a definite answer, all I can offer at this time are some possible areas to look at. This link is from a recent Tech Republic bullettin that has links to earlier problems reported with the .NET PASSPORT

http://cl.com.com/Click?q=b0-NZvfQQJcNkcXofQZh_hI9HXNL_A4

Since you indicate that this is a problem on your PC only and that access is OK from other PCs, then it can be a Trojan or virus on your PC or a problem with the cookies on your system have been corrupted. You can clear these out and then get new ones issued when you next visit the sites.

To clear the files open Internet Explorer go to the Tools Menu >> Internet Options >> General tab then use the buttons 'Delete Files' and Delete Cookies' to clear the storage areas. Close Internet Explorer and then reopen it and try accessing the sites.

Also run a virus scan with current definitions just to be sure.

Sorry I can't offer a clear answer

here is the detailed view of the time out error i recieve in outlook express. im starring out my email address

Configuration:
Account: Hotmail
Server: http://services.msn.com/svcs/hotmail/httpmail.asp
User name: ******@hotmail.com Protocol: HTTPMail
Port: 0
Secure(SSL): 0
Code: 800ccc19

and also the errors from it if this can help anyone to identify the problem

Unable to poll for new messages on your HTTP server. Account: 'Hotmail', Server: 'http://services.msn.com/svcs/hotmail/httpmail.asp', Protocol: HTTPMail, Server Response: '', Port: 0, Secure(SSL): No, Socket Error: 12002, Error Number: 0x800CCC19

One point I just thought of that is most likely irrelevant, but several week agao i had trouble logging into my Hotmail account. When i finally logged on I had to change the link stored in My Favorites, this followed one of the security breeches at Hotmail and seemed as if they had made changes to their system.

The URL currently in My Favorites is

http://loginnet.passport.com/login.srf?id=2&svc=mail&cbid=24325&msppjph=1&tw=0&fs=1&fsa=1&fsat=1296000&lc=3081&_lang=EN

This then changes tothis URL

http://login.passport.net/uilogin.srf?id=2

Neither of these seems to match the information you have psoted in your latest added information. I just wondered if it may be that you are trying to use an older URL link that has some problems relaying on.

Wish you luck in sorting this one out, it is a real bugger of a problem.