Note: This post is not a regular post and is intended for people who may find my blog from searching Google for “unstoppablecoho” like the last couple of visitors I had.

Two days ago, I posted about my strange encounter on AIM with somebody named unstoppablecoho. I originally thought it was a bug with the IIT network, but I quickly received comments from two people who had also been randomly messaged by an unstoppablecoho. Upon further investigation, I found this Wikipedia article that explained everything.

Apparently, sn’s ending with some combination of [adjective]trout, [adjective]salmon, or [adjective]coho is a bot called the TheGreatHatsby. The bot “instigates conversations between pairs of AIM accounts.” Read the wikipedia article for a full description.

Wiki says “TheGreatHatsby may no longer be active. No one has reported being contacted by TheGreatHatsby since late 2007.”

I think it may have been reactivated, considering my experience and the experiences of the two other people who commented on my blog.

Here is an article detailing how to opt out of this “social experiment:”

You can stop the messages by typing:

$optout

Then it will respond with:

OPERATOR: Are you sure you want to opt-out? If you do, you will *never* be contacted again on the account “”. There is *no way* to opt back in and undo this.
If you are sure, type “$optout DADD”. Remember, this is permanent and irreversible!

Type what it asks:

$optout DADD

And you will recieve one final (hopefully) message:

OPERATOR: You have opted out. The account “” will *never* be contacted again. Good bye!

For those looking for even more information, I found the above links from this forum post.

I’m glad to see this mystery solved. However, I am still going to continue advocating using Gtalk over AIM for several other reasons.

Update: Got contacted again by “onlyonecoho.” Followed the above guide, and it acted as expected. Hopefully, it will never contact me again…