Got IM Spam?

Artem Russakovskii — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 04:44:51 +0000

Everyone hates spam, right? Right, well maybe except for security researchers – it pays their bills. But the rest of the sane world does, and so do I, and while gmail has figured out a way to deal with the problem 99.9% of the time, nobody invented instant messenger anti-spam solutions yet [I think].

Lately I have been getting increasingly annoyed with a certain unexplainable, persistent, and surprisingly intelligent botnet on AIM. From time to time I would get messages from some sort of a fish variation. My list so far consists of the following IM names: CroppedCoho, FortifiedTrout, FreshenedupTrout, FrozenSolidTrout, HandcuffedCoho, KissableCoho, PreferentialCoho, SmarterCoho, TentativeCoho, WantedCoho, and YoinkedTrout. Does it look annoying already? Well, it is.

Each of the conversations would start out casually, the bot would respond quite wittily and intelligently, and the whole conversation would eventually either lead to me getting pissed off or the bot promoting reddit in one way or another. What is reddit’s affiliation with this botnet? I’d like to know myself.

Here’s an example of one conversation:

(1:15:12 AM) frenchcoho Ever watched a marmot bite a lamb to death while blindfolded? No? Well, you're sure in for a treat!
(1:15:36 AM) archon810 let me guess
(1:15:37 AM) archon810 trout?
(1:15:50 AM) frenchcoho i think so.
(1:16:06 AM) archon810 #reddit?
(1:16:33 AM) frenchcoho what about it?
(1:16:41 AM) archon810 it's gay
(1:16:44 AM) archon810 like you
(1:16:53 AM) frenchcoho …good one?
(1:16:57 AM) frenchcoho you sure got me.
(1:17:14 AM) archon810 run along now
(1:17:28 AM) frenchcoho okay?

(8:51:25 PM) smartercoho Ever watched a marmot bite a lamb to death while blindfolded? No? Well, you're sure in for a treat!
(8:51:35 PM) archon810 fuck off
(8:51:37 PM) archon810 i hate you
(8:51:44 PM) smartercoho You don't even know me

or just blatantly frank:

(7:13:13) yoinkedtrout We're discussing Trout in the IRC channel #reddit on irc.freenode.org.

At this point I had enough. Sure – it was all very mysterious but at the same time incredibly annoying. A few seconds of googling led me to this page, with instructions of how to stop the nonsense and a Wikipedia link that finally shone some light on the puzzle.

(9:51:18 AM) handcuffedcoho Hey, let's be friends.
(9:54:29 AM) archon810 $optout
(9:54:32 AM) handcuffedcoho OPERATOR: Are you sure you want to opt-out? If you do, you will *never* be contacted again on the account "Archon810". There is *no way* to opt back in and undo this.
If you are sure, type "$optout 35DA". Remember, this is permanent and irreversible!
(9:54:44 AM) archon810 $optout 35DA
(9:54:44 AM) handcuffedcoho OPERATOR: You have opted out. The account "Archon810" will *never* be contacted again. Good bye!

Phew, and it’s over. I hope… Probably until the next smartass decides to code up a new bot variant.

Google Helps Break Down The Language Barrier (In A Brilliant Way)

Artem Russakovskii — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 06:20:20 +0000

Today Google announced the release of 29 translating robots that you can just add to your friends list in Google Talk. Then you can talk to them, getting instant translation in return. You can also enter a group chat and use the bots as translators between other people and yourself.

The only downside is that the Google Talk client doesn't seem to support group chats just yet, so you have to use the Gmail in-page one.

I think it's a brilliant idea if you ever deal with foreign languages. How many times have I forgotten a word while translating a paper or trying to talk to my mom back in Ukraine? A quick IM to the en2ru Google bot and problem solved.

On the other hand, if anyone understands Russian, check out this nonsense en2ru gave me:

For those who don't, it said something like "It's delaying Chzhechzhu" (which makes no sense at all). Granted, I did misspell 'is'.

Original announcement: http://googletalk.blogspot.com/2007/12/merry-christmas-god-jul-and.html

beer planet » bot

Got IM Spam?

Google Helps Break Down The Language Barrier (In A Brilliant Way)