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| | Have you been Salmoned yet?There is a weird, entertaining, yet almost entirely pointless internet phenomenon going on right now where you'll get a random message from an unknown IM account with the word Salmon in it. In my case, the message and user name were:
[12:22 PM] PlugInSalmon: Search Engine Optimization people are evil. They want to eat your fucking soul.
At first, it seems like some random user is messing around with you, but the person you're talking to is also in the same boat. They just received the same message from another Salmon account. Here is the first few lines of the conversation that happened today:
PlugInSalmon: Search Engine Optimization people are evil. They want to eat your fucking soul.
atuti777: who is this...?
PlugInSalmon: ok
PlugInSalmon: ??
atuti777: ????
PlugInSalmon: but souls taste good
atuti777: who are you?
PlugInSalmon: i might ask you the same question you im'ed first
atuti777: no i didn....
PlugInSalmon: ok well im nonna and you
atuti777: sushi
atuti777: how did u get my IM name?
PlugInSalmon: like i said it poped up and you im'ed me first
atuti777: what did my first IM say?
PlugInSalmon: FlightySalmon (2:21:55 AM): Search Engine Optimization people are evil. They want to eat your fucking soul.
atuti777: Flighty Salmon?
atuti777: [12:22 PM] PlugInSalmon: Search Engine Optimization people are evil. They want to eat your fucking soul.
atuti777: looks like someones hacked IM
PlugInSalmon: very possible
atuti777: do i show up as FlightySalmon?
PlugInSalmon: yes
atuti777: and you show up as PlugInSalmon
PlugInSalmon: hm that is weird bc mine is supposed to be punk nonna
atuti777: and mine atuti777
Having researched this phenomenon for an hour today on google, apparently there is a bot (random program on a random server) online that connects two IM users using fake accounts with the word "Salmon" included. The bot will take two accounts and send them both random messages (like the one about Search Engine Optimization people). The follow up messages are then passed through to each user through the fake accounts. That's why in the above example, I showed up as FlightySalmon and "punk nonna" showed up as PlugInSalmon (which I must say, is a bit dirty). As expected, confusion ensues after the first contact, and sometimes people figure it out and sometimes one user just blocks the Salmon.
It seems like the AIM account names were scraped off blogging websites (xanga, livejournal) and the bots were triggered after that person updates his or her blog. In my case, the Salmon message happened four minutes after my pondering American Cockroach post (and you can see I put up a test post to see if anything happens - it didn't). This is actually a smart way to ensure that the person is sitting in front of his or her computer when the bot is triggered.
There are plenty of posts online chronicling people's experiences on being salmoned. There is even a Wikipedia article on the phenomenon and a livejournal community for the "victims" of salmoning. The bot is run by "Project Upstream" and it's been going on for several months. In fact, on their website, you can request to have yourself (and any other IM handle for that matter) salmoned. It looks like Project Upstream did come out publicly in live journal but didn't really leave much information. According to Geotool, the server is hosted somewhere in Germany (but that doesn't mean much).
Since the chat is going through the Project Upstream server (so I presume) they may be logging all the conversations. It would be great if someone went through and published the best and worst of the salmon conversations or analyzed the conversations to see what percentage of them ended up in anger and confusion. Nevertheless, I'm glad someone is taking on a pointless yet entertaining project like this confusing the world a little bit and putting smiles on geeks around the net.
As for me, I'm enjoying how creative they can get with their Salmon account names: PristineSalmon, PlugInSalmon, FlightySalmon, FallenSalmon, MonetarySalmon, TyrannicalSalmon, WellFundedSalmon, FabulousSalmon, NumericSalmon, PieEatingSalmon, StampedingSalmon, PreciseSalmon, NumerousSalmon, FlavoredSalmon, OpenedSalmon, DefacedSalmon, ClothSalmon, VerboseSalmon, BrewedSalmon, DruggedSalmon, SheepleSalmon, NeedsMoarSalmon, KlingonSalmon, ColonizedSalmon, NauseousSalmon, GassySalmon, GroundedSalmon, DeadlySalmon, AttentiveSalmon, AbrogatedSalmon, WinningSalmon, ReifiedSalmon, YearningSalmon, DivorcedSalmon, SoupySalmon, LogicalSalmon, VerticalSalmon, UnfetteredSalmon, ChangeSalmon, SolidifiedSalmon, ColonialSalmon, WartySalmon, SquirmySalmon, BullyingSalmon, SqueakySalmon, WishfulSalmon, TenaciousSalmon, EncyclicalSalmon, ClothedSalmon, AwesomeSalmon, ViralSalmon, ObscureSalmon, FleetingSalmon, DullardSalmon, CogentSalmon, GelledSalmon, QuantumSalmon...
Okay, enough. This is really making me hungry for salmon.
| | | Posted 7/15/2008 2:27 AM - 73 views - 3 comments
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