[anybody who shows up for a job interview with a resume saying "router ops
for microsoft" should be viewed warily]
http://www.microsoft.com/info/siteaccess.htm
Microsoft Explains Site Access Issues
On Tuesday evening and Wednesday, many Microsoft customers had difficulty
accessing the company's Web sites. The cause has been determined, and the
issue is resolved.
At 6:30 p.m. Tuesday (PST), a Microsoft technician made a configuration
change to the routers on the edge of Microsoft's Domain Name Server
network. The DNS servers are used to connect domain names with numeric IP
addresses (e.g. 207.46.230.219) of the various servers and networks that
make up Microsoft's Web presence.
The mistaken configuration change limited communication between DNS
servers on the Internet and Microsoft's DNS servers. This limited
communication caused many of Microsoft's sites to be unreachable (although
they were actually still operational) to a large number of customers
throughout last night and today.
This was an operational error, and not the result of any issue with
Microsoft or third-party products nor the security of our networks.
Microsoft regrets any inconvenience caused to customers due to this issue.
At approximately 5 p.m. Wednesday (PST), Microsoft removed the changes to
the router configuration and immediately saw a massive improvement in the
DNS network.
All sites are currently available to customers. Again, Microsoft
apologizes for the inconvenience.