taken from http://morouxshi.com/2008/10/27/aim-the-trout-salmon-coho-screenname-and-how-to-stop-it/
AIM, the Trout, Salmon, Coho Screenname and how to stop it
So for the past few weeks I have been bombarded with chat requests from random people. These random people just kind of start a conversation out of nowhere. I posted about one such encounter a few weeks ago. It is technically not spam. It is just random people contacting each other. Turns out it is some kind of online communication experiment called TheGreatHatsby.
TheGreatHatsby looks to start conversations between two random people through AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). The Bot hides its identity by changing all instances of the user’s names into it’s own name. So if you see a chat log of the conversation every time a user mentioned his/her screen name the Bot would change it to the Bot’s name.
I do not know who started this, or who created the bot. The wikipedia entry which I found randomly (and luckily) lists two websites where you can find more information. The sites seem to be more of a collection of theories more than actual answer sheets. I honestly think this is quite annoying personally, but I could see it’s use specially since I’ve been wanting to write a post regarding Tworl and meeting random people through AIM like in the days of ICQ.
You can recognize the Bot by having names that are Trout, Salmon or Coho.
You can stop the messages by typing:
$optout
Then it will respond with:
OPERATOR: Are you sure you want to opt-out? If you do, you will *never* be contacted again on the account “”. There is *no way* to opt back in and undo this.
If you are sure, type “$optout DADD”. Remember, this is permanent and irreversible!
Type what it asks:
$optout DADD
And you will recieve one final (hopefully) message:
OPERATOR: You have opted out. The account “” will *never* be contacted again. Good bye!
So for the past few weeks I have been bombarded with chat requests from random people. These random people just kind of start a conversation out of nowhere. I posted about one such encounter a few weeks ago. It is technically not spam. It is just random people contacting each other. Turns out it is some kind of online communication experiment called TheGreatHatsby.
TheGreatHatsby looks to start conversations between two random people through AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). The Bot hides its identity by changing all instances of the user’s names into it’s own name. So if you see a chat log of the conversation every time a user mentioned his/her screen name the Bot would change it to the Bot’s name.
I do not know who started this, or who created the bot. The wikipedia entry which I found randomly (and luckily) lists two websites where you can find more information. The sites seem to be more of a collection of theories more than actual answer sheets. I honestly think this is quite annoying personally, but I could see it’s use specially since I’ve been wanting to write a post regarding Tworl and meeting random people through AIM like in the days of ICQ.
You can recognize the Bot by having names that are Trout, Salmon or Coho.
You can stop the messages by typing:
$optout
Then it will respond with:
OPERATOR: Are you sure you want to opt-out? If you do, you will *never* be contacted again on the account “”. There is *no way* to opt back in and undo this.
If you are sure, type “$optout DADD”. Remember, this is permanent and irreversible!
Type what it asks:
$optout DADD
And you will recieve one final (hopefully) message:
OPERATOR: You have opted out. The account “” will *never* be contacted again. Good bye!