I do not like Fish, said Sam I Am

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/