Of course, this modus operandi comes with its own problems, mainly in the form of spam.  Normally I’m not one to complain about spam – heck, I go through the 900+ spam messages I get a day when I’m bored; if I had a quarter for every time I picked up an ‘herbal Viagara’ e-mail, my school tuition would be paid for – but over the past week, I’ve gone from entertained to thoroughly annoyed.

The problem itself is pretty fishy, and I’m at a loss for any explanation beyond what Google seems to be yielding, but in short, I’ve been plagued by plenty of instant messages from screen names starting with an adjective and ending in “trout.”  So far, I’ve been contacted by MindlessTrout, AssociatedTrout, and most recently RationedTrout, but there have been plenty of others in the mix.

Typically, these screen names will send one message, then tend to not respond to anything I say.  The exceptions, however, are those few that will respond with a simple greeting and nothing else.  In only one instance have I had any form of intelligent conversation, and that’s not saying much.  I’ve included the conversation below:

RationedTrout: Dennis Kucinich? Do you like Dennis Kucinich?
Nick Tabick: who are you
RationedTrout: I dont really care
RationedTrout: …..
RationedTrout: who is this?
RationedTrout: hmmmm??HMMM????!!!!!!
Nick Tabick: first you
RationedTrout: katy
RationedTrout: .
Nick Tabick: katy what
RationedTrout: ….first let me ask you this what state/country r u from ?
RationedTrout: u nameless person u
Nick Tabick: not sure i want to give that information to you until you answer my question
Nick Tabick: you first
RationedTrout: i dont like givong out my last name
RationedTrout: paranioa issues ya know?
RationedTrout: whats your FIRST name buddy?
Nick Tabick: could i ask you why all of my personal information is relevant to you?
RationedTrout: with your random barrack things
RationedTrout: cuz you asked me what my name was
RationedTrout: oh and i dont know you
RationedTrout: and you aked me random things
Nick Tabick: then why are you instant messaging me?
RationedTrout: so i thought “do i know this person?
RationedTrout: so the nI asked
RationedTrout: and im bored
RationedTrout: so thats why
Nick Tabick: and you have other screen names that end in “trout?”
RationedTrout: me? no I dont
RationedTrout: oh yeah and you asked me a question first so I answered
RationedTrout: and it progresssed from there
RationedTrout: yep
Nick Tabick: how did you get this screen name?
RationedTrout: i dont have this screen name
RationedTrout: how did YOU get mine?
RationedTrout: this is a little awkward
Nick Tabick: you messaged me first
RationedTrout: when?
Nick Tabick: six minutes ago
RationedTrout: what did I say?
Nick Tabick: RationedTrout: Dennis Kucinich? Do you like Dennis Kucinich?
Nick Tabick: did you type that?
RationedTrout: …thats not my screen name though
RationedTrout: this is odd
RationedTrout: cough c
Nick Tabick: what’s my screen name showing up as, then
RationedTrout: whos dennis kucinich?
RationedTrout: columnizedTrout
Nick Tabick: that’s not my screen name either
RationedTrout: ………okay
Nick Tabick: something tells me there’s something fishy (no pun intended) going on here
RationedTrout: lol same here
RationedTrout: hmmmm

From what I can gather as the result of this conversation, either these “trout” are semi-intelligent bots, or they’re randomly IMing people then connecting you with someone else, using some random discussion topic to confuse the two people they’re linking, which is just about everything Wikipedia has to say on the subject.  (I haven’t gathered too much additional information, other than that they all seem to be IMing just one of my screen names as opposed to two or more of the five I actively have attached to Trillian, so however they ended up with my username, it wasn’t scraped from here.)

If anyone else has had some random messages from the fish, I’d love to hear about it.  Maybe we can come up with some consistencies in who/what they target?

Addendum (8/19/2008): A bit of creative searching and some help from the commenters (Thank you, Colin!) has turned up what might be a solution to the trout troubles.  According to this link, responding to the bot with “$optout” should stop them from bothering you.  I just tried it out myself, so we’ll have to see if I get any more fishy instant messages.

And while I’m at it, I’m pretty amazed at the number of responses, both here and on sites like Twitter en masse.

For anyone who intends to be building something like this in the future, even if it’s an experiment, it would be cool to get a little bit of a heads-up explaining what it is, and getting my permission before letting the cat out of the bag.  Is a little etiquette too much to ask?

Addendum 2 (8/19/2008): I think it’s safe to call responding with “$optout” a permanent working solution as long as this response from the bot speaks the truth:

HornedTrout: Are you going to die?
Nick Tabick: $optout
HornedTrout: OPERATOR: Are you sure you want to opt-out? If you do, you will *never* be contacted again on the account “NickTabick”. There is *no way* to opt back in and undo this.
If you are sure, type “$optout 2DF2″. Remember, this is permanent and irreversible!
Nick Tabick: $optout 2DF2
HornedTrout: OPERATOR: You have opted out. The account “NickTabick” will *never* be contacted again. Good bye!

Note:  The “2DF2″ is probably a randomly-generated string so you can’t automate the response, the equivalent to a rudimentary (but copy/paste-able) captcha.

If you are waiting for the next IM, you can speed up the process by adding yourself to the queue with the request page here.  (At least, that’s what I did.)  I would also consider submitting yourself to that page to be a reasonable test of whether you are indeed blacklisted, as I have tried a few times and not heard a peep.

This also brings up a fork in the road as far as preventative measures; you can either hope your screen name doesn’t get IMs, or you can trust that the bot’s creator(s) will be true to their word when they say that they will never contact you again, queue your screen name with the request page, and respond with “$optout” as soon as the bot gets around to you.

I think it’s safe to call this issue closed.