public service announcement: *salmon is an AIM bot
Mood: suspicious
Posted on 2008-02-25 10:27:00
Words: 64

Seconds after I posted, I got an IM from a user named favoredsalmon. Searching found these entries showing it to be a bot of some kind, so it's probably best to ignore it.

I've also gotten a few IMs from bots saying "your friends-only posts are publicly available" with a link that crashes Firefox (and probably does horrible things to IE). Be ye wary!

8 comments

Comment from kernelm:
2008-02-25T10:36:22+00:00
That's why I set Pidgin to "buddies only". :)

(And yeah, Northcross is the one on Anderson. Highland is down near I-35 where East 290 splits off.)

Comment from untasted:
2008-05-07T10:26:39+00:00
Mm. /: Someone tries to contact me on AIM every time I post to my LJ community, which is rather strange and, yeah, always with "salmon" in the name. The one you posted was just one variation I got. I don't accept the IMs, but they come in rather often. I've gotten one from "westwardsalmon," one from "trojansalmon," etc. It always has "salmon" in the name. It's rather worrisome. Did you ever find any more information on it? And did you ever get any other messages? I certainly get the messages rather regularly. I've gotten at least 15 or so, but, like I said, I don't accept them. So I'm not even sure what they say, if anything.

Comment from gregstoll:
2008-05-07T10:30:51+00:00
Yeah, I've been getting messages pretty consistently whenever I make a public post. It's been a while since I accepted one but I think it said something to the effect of "did you know your private posts are publicly available?" with a link that I foolishly clicked the first time.

So it's annoying but I wouldn't worry about it - just don't accept the messages or anything...

Comment from untasted:
2008-05-07T10:59:03+00:00
Ah. You should check this out: http://community.livejournal.com/themissinghat/profile

It's far more interesting than I thought. Have you ever tried conversing? It isn't actually a bot after all. Well, it is, but you end up being linked to another LJ user who has recently updated and has an AIM name in the profile as well.

Comment from aesthetic:
2008-05-14T21:27:55+00:00
Thank you. I've been trying to verify if this is indeed a bot for the past couple of weeks. It's quite annoying - I'd like to find more information about it...

Comment from gregstoll:
2008-05-14T22:46:21+00:00
The community untasted linked above has some good information - basically it's connecting two random(?) people over IM.

Comment from anonymous:
2008-06-16T22:51:32+00:00
I don't think its a bot. I just got an IM fron a "salmon" sn and it was an actual person? But in their window, I had a "salmon" sn. So basically both of our SNs were viewed as "salmon" sns and we were sending each other IMs that we didn't really send? Idk if that makes any sense. Aaha.

Comment from anonymous:
2008-09-07T15:29:02+00:00
Basically, Salmon connects two random people to each other via AIM, but gives them each a unique descriptor + the word salmon. For example, some person is IMing you as "unfetteredsalmon," and you think, "what the hey?" while at the same time, you are IMing that person as "[something else]salmon," and they are also thinking, "what's going on?" the salmon bot sends one line to you and to your conectee, appearing as if it came from the other person, to start the conversation, but after that it is just you and the other person conversing. If you type in your friend's screen name and your screen name on the salmon site (which I have forgotten,) chances are it will connect both of you and then you can be in on a little dirty trick. That's how I found out about Salmon in the first place.

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