Public Service Announcement: The Salmon Bot
It's probably foolish of me to do this, given what I'm about to tell you, but I will anyway.
There's a bot going around at the moment which is not unlike the hat bot, whereby it initiates IM conversations with two people and relays messages back and forth. So it appears the both of you are IMed by a stranger and neither has any idea why or how it happened.
The conjecture is the bot is triggered by updating your LiveJournal. I guess it watches a new posts page or something. Short of friendslocking all one's entries, I suppose the best solution is to remove your IM information from your profile page, or bury it in your plain text information section. Which is what I'm about to do.
Like the hat bot, this one uses variations on the name salmon: I've been hit by TyrannicalSalmon, NumerousSalmon and one other that I can't recall. Maybe KindSalmon. So watch out for strangers whose screen names end in salmon. The kind thing to do is explain that it's a bot and just go on your way.
These blog entries also discuss the topic:
http://miss-anthropy.livejournal.com/161594.html
http://ericjay.livejournal.com/150665.html
http://community.livejournal.com/themissinghat/
Update, August 2, 2008: According to 125thdimension, the Salmon Bot now sometimes appears as AdjectiveTrout, so it's taking on more of a general piscine nature these days.
Update, February 12, 2009: An anonymous commenter reports that "You can reply with '$optout' with no quotes and apparently the 'Project Upstream' bots will leave you be."
Update, February 21, 2009: After posting to LiveJournal, I received a *coho IM. Recalling there is a way to opt-out. I used the above command and received a request for confirmation -- repeating the command and a phrase consisting of a mix of letters and numbers. I am, supposedly, now irreversibly opted-out from receiving cohobot IMs. We'll see what happens.
Update, July 21, 2010: Salmonbot has revived as an ICQ-using, ye olde English speakin' bot. $optout still seems to work.
There's a bot going around at the moment which is not unlike the hat bot, whereby it initiates IM conversations with two people and relays messages back and forth. So it appears the both of you are IMed by a stranger and neither has any idea why or how it happened.
The conjecture is the bot is triggered by updating your LiveJournal. I guess it watches a new posts page or something. Short of friendslocking all one's entries, I suppose the best solution is to remove your IM information from your profile page, or bury it in your plain text information section. Which is what I'm about to do.
Like the hat bot, this one uses variations on the name salmon: I've been hit by TyrannicalSalmon, NumerousSalmon and one other that I can't recall. Maybe KindSalmon. So watch out for strangers whose screen names end in salmon. The kind thing to do is explain that it's a bot and just go on your way.
These blog entries also discuss the topic:
http://miss-anthropy.livejournal.com/161594.html
http://ericjay.livejournal.com/150665.html
http://community.livejournal.com/themissinghat/
Update, August 2, 2008: According to 125thdimension, the Salmon Bot now sometimes appears as AdjectiveTrout, so it's taking on more of a general piscine nature these days.
Update, February 12, 2009: An anonymous commenter reports that "You can reply with '$optout' with no quotes and apparently the 'Project Upstream' bots will leave you be."
Update, February 21, 2009: After posting to LiveJournal, I received a *coho IM. Recalling there is a way to opt-out. I used the above command and received a request for confirmation -- repeating the command and a phrase consisting of a mix of letters and numbers. I am, supposedly, now irreversibly opted-out from receiving cohobot IMs. We'll see what happens.
Update, July 21, 2010: Salmonbot has revived as an ICQ-using, ye olde English speakin' bot. $optout still seems to work.