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AIM Bots: Useful or Spam?
An anonymous reader writes "Imagine my surprise this morning when AOL AIM popped up a window and introduced me to two bots that it automatically added to my buddy list. " Two seperate issues- one is simply auto adding robots to your friends list, which is very uncool. The second is a corporation using bots in an official capacity. This is an interesting trend, although technically speaking, not that far from the eggdrop of old.
Right-click, Delete Group. Done.
--Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
try swearing at them or asking for sex; a recent New Scientist article found that this would provoke some bots into fighting back :)
I could really use a friend.
Actually, it popped them up on Trillian Pro, too.
I HATE it when I am playing Enemy Territory and I get killed by a guy with aimbot. I like to play skill, not hacks.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
And the first thing I did was delete them. I don't need some "shopping buddy" to automatically add themselves and promote buying over their network. Someone missed the ethics boat on this one.
Their servers, their rules. I can't complain about the cost of the service, after all, and this sure beats getting hammered by popups every few minutes while connected to their system.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I'm just surprised that AOL has taken this long to begin sending you advertisements via AIM. They have a near-monopoly on IM communications (near monopoly, I know that there are others out there, but everyone I know has an AIM name), and I'm hardly surprised that they have started to send people advertisements via IMs, since they put all of the resources and effort into maintaining the servers that people connnect to.
And Gaim latest (yep, heard of it). I don't know what that post was about. Why would it matter what client you're running?
Add me to the "immediately-deleted-and-moderately-annoyed" list.
Haida Manga
I see this as the future of advertising. Everyone is now using GAIM or some other alternate client, so people miss all of AOL's annoying (yet profit-generating) ads.
AOL had to think of something new -- some way of profiting off of their protocol. Sticking interactive ads, that people think of as their "buddies"! What could be better?
These bots sneak in to your list, pretend to be your friends, and if you send them a message, BAM! Custom ads delivered right to you.
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
How does it make you feel that a corporation using bots in an official capacity?
I can't say I'm glad I'm the only one. At least now I know it wasn't because I installed AOL Triton. I posted this rant against AOL in the last "AOL Sucks Ass" story.
I hate using AIM but I have friends who I chat with and they won't use anything else. I use Trillian so I can use ICQ and Yahoo! Messenger as well. I signed in this morning and I get this message from AOL that said "We've installed two new bots ShoppingBuddy and MovieFone. I thought "What the fuck is this shit?" It may have been because I installed AIM Triton preview to see if I could get the video chat to work. This is even more egregious than all the ads and tickers and additional software they want to install on your computer. Anyway I blocked them.
In the past, I've had to go in and edit some of the AOL files to get rid of all sorts of crap. AOL is about as welcome as an anal probe. They want to block other peoples intrusive software so they can foist their crap on you. AOL's idea of "consumer friendliness" is to come into your home uninvited, bend you over, put an anal probe up your keister, and tell you just how wonderful and lucky you are to have it. Your very own mini-Federal-pound-me-in-the-ass prison in the comfort and safety of your own home. Only 9.95 per month!
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Big deal -- I just deleted them. As long as AOL doesn't turn the service over to spimmers, a few like this from AOL is tolerable.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I use Adium on OSX and also received this message this morning. The two bots were automatically added.
I can predict many users here will bitch endlessly about it. The fact is that the service is free. If it means that I have to right click on each of the names of the bots and choose "Delete....", to use this service for free, so be it.
What's the big deal?
In a way this will make a honeypot network for them to find new aim worms. If the bots receive random links and nonstandard code from users they can maybe get a quicker lid on an exploit. It would be nice if this had been opt-in though.
Now imagine if you programmed even a rudimentary adaptable AI into an AIM bot, and had it talk to other AIM bots with a similar AI. You'd have them talking to each other, learning from each other. Then imagine if they had web crawlers attached to them, learning about the Internet, communicating their findings back to each other.
The only way we'd know if the Internet became sentient is if it stepped up and said 'hi.'
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
At IBM we use Lotus SameTime internally as our IM infrastructure. Several enterprising folks have written various sametime bots that allow us to look up acronyms (WhatIs Bot), look up employee info from our directory (BluePages Bot), and others I can't think off off the top of my head.
Michael C. Hollinger
No thanks. I don't like using Jabber servers which shut themselves off from other Jabber servers and are still in "beta." (How hard is it to set up a Jabber server that you declare it as "beta" for months?)
For more information, click here.
Apparently once you've installed someone's software or used someone's product on your computer, they have the right to tinker with your machine and settings at will.
I was more than a little distressed to find these things appearing on my Buddy List. Like any "feature", don't I get the right to refuse it? Of course the cute little system message tells me I can right-click and delete them, but that's not the point. If you're going to add capailities to something, fine, but give the opportunity to say yea or nay first.
While not as bad as Sony's rootkit fiasco, it does point out the growing hubris of we, the software users of the world, when we believe that we still have control of how our systems work and how they are configured. It's not just worms and viruses now, but wholesale invasion by any company that feels you're not using their product most effectively. Pretty soon I expect Adobe Reader to ask me "Should you be reading that?" or IE to say "Sorry, no Slashdot for you today!"
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
It did for me - I'd suggest it was a function of their accounts database and how they're implementing this rather than the client itself, because in ubuntu breezy's gaim, it popped up (and added two buddies and a group to my list) and was banned forthwith by yours truly.
1) You can delete them.
2) These are provided by AOL, not random companies.
3) This is a free service, and it's theirs. You have absolutely NO right to complain about their business practices. If it bothers you, don't use AIM or their servers.
This dose of "stop your whining, you spoiled unrealistic brats," has been brought to you by the grumpy old techy (tm).
The names some parents come up with! After that, no wonder the lady took up with someone who uses her.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
What I wonder is what happens security-wise when some AIM virus (always new ones popping up) manages to infect these bots? When it's just a question of one person's buddy list being used by a virus to propagate, the infection is limited somewhat by the low number of contacts. What happens when the same contact appears in say 75% of people's lists? Granted, the bot is administrated by AOL directly and no doubt has better security in place than your average user or user's bot, but I wonder if perhaps such a wide-reaching target will prove irresistible for virus writers. Just musing, I'm sure some people more familiar with the inner workings of AIM can refute or corroborate this idea.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
What is actually so unethical about adding 2 entries to your buddy list on a service they provide? I had no problem with it other than being mildly confused 2 seconds before I painfully deleted 2 WHOLE buddies from my list. Seems like such a mild issue to get so steamed up about.
The bots themselves: potentially useful The bots installing automatically: spam Simple as that.
That is strange. I use Trillian and have not seen the 'bots. How many Trillian users (please indicate if you are using the free or Pro version) have had the 'bots added to their buddy lists? Also, which group are they added to?
December 2, 2005 (AP Newswire)
Microsoft has announced a new addition to it's popular MSN Chat service - ClippyBotTM. According to Chief Software Architect Bill Gates, ClippyBot will "be a welcome addition to your buddy list. ClippyBot will watch for common behaviors, and will provide you with gentle, helpful assistance in completing those tasks." When asked about those users who might not want ClippyBot to be added to their buddy list, Gates replied "We are always responsive to the needs of our users. Removing ClippyBot from your buddy list is as easy as editing 13 registry keys!"
#DeleteChrome
That's where you failed it. It's *their* buddy list, and they're just letting you use it under the terms of the EULA.
-- Too lazy to get a lower UID.
I thought they were useless at first, but if you have a cell phone like the sidekick2 where web browsing is super slow, but AIM works flawlessly, the bot will let you do movie lookups much quicker.
SearchIRC - Now with live chat directory!
The pornbot, the pharmabot, the nigerianbot, the casinobot....
It seems that today is my day to be the token geezer.
The situation you describe was not all that long ago. Anyone who can drive legally was already breathing at the time.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I guess it confirms you total geek l33tness (and almost certainly your male gender) that you can compare unwanted AIM messages and rape. If ever you get in the real world and meet some women ask them if they're the same thing.
on a very basic level you can remove unwanted AIM bots with a simple click, a rapist's victim has no such option.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
Here we are... found a list out on the intranet... I didn't know a few of these existed. I'm sure other corporations have some as well.
Who Is - do BluePages name and phone info searches
Helpline - Helpdesk FAQs searches
What Is - Definitions of acronyms
StockQuote - IBM and all other stock quotes
Dictionary - English language dictionary
SkillTap - contact others that may be able to help you
W3Alert - send broadcasts out to selected groups
Michael C. Hollinger
The true question is: why did my IM client forgot to ask me about those new contacts? I would have denied those bots in the click of my mouse...
If someone adds YOU to THEIR buddylist, then you are notified. If YOU add SOMEONE to your buddylist, you are not notified (since you added them).
Here AOL added these two buddies to everyone's buddylist. This is easy enough since AOL has stored a copy of your buddylist on it's server for years. Clients connect and then sysnchronize the buddylist. The buddies showed up in your client durring the sync. As far as your client knew, you logged in on a different computer and added these two names yourself (thus putting them in the server-side buddylist). The fact that AOL added the names on your behalf is transparent to the client.
So that's why.
I'm with you on this one. These are services that acutally add value to the AIM platform. Why on earth are we all complaining that they've added features. If you don't want to search for products, or get movie times in your area, don't use 'em. If they offend you, delete them from your buddy list. Don't go complain they shouldn't be adding resources for us all to use.
Now, if these things start initiating conversations with me, unsolicited, that's going to be a problem, and I will be the first to complain (and loud). As it stands now, though, aside from a short message informing me of a new feature, these things are non-intrusive, USEFUL resources. That's more than I can say for that irritating ad window above the buddy list, and no one's lobbying to get that removed.
What am I missing?
I personally would much rather get an instant response on movie showtimes from the MovieFone bot than have to load up a new tab in Firefox, go to my favorite movie website, enter my ZIP, and wait for all of those pages involved to load. Am I alone here?
All the player needs to move is move into a position where they can see their opponent, and the auto-aim takes over. Of course, perhaps player = AOL, and we are the opponents ...
If someone adds YOU to THEIR buddylist, then you are notified
Not on AIM you aren't.
Yeah, and when they re-add them every single time you log in, and when they disable blocking or banning them, and when they IM you every 15 minutes with links to cool, hot stuff that you just have to buy, will it be a big deal then? Why not, it's their software. Since you're installing it on your machine, I guess you agree to grant them root on your system, too. I mean, they provide such a wonderful, free service, so it's not a big deal, right?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Hmm... I use Trillian Pro, and the bots were never added to my contact list.
;^)
I guess it must not *snicker* fully support the AIM protocol or something.
How disappointing...
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Darwin award material, maybe. They have some pretty obvious disincentives to doing so, but it'll be a long time until artificial intelligence is a match for natural stupidity.
In any case, this is a (speculative) matter of imposing the death penalty for suicide.
Why not, it's their software. Since you're installing it on your machine, I guess you agree to grant them root on your system, too.
Usually when people crank up the straw man factory it means that they haven't anything better to say.
As noted elsewhere, I don't (read: can't) run the AOL IM client, and the suggestion that I would give them root access seems to be nothing more than trolling.
In the meantime, the service is useful, and for me more useful than the Microsoft-only services at MSN and Google. Obviously, that could change. I'll wait on events rather than flying off at the handle.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I guess this shows which one has better support for the protocol. ;^)
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
I'm sure the people who used to have the screennames shoppingbuddy and moviefone dont like this at all.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
From the "for what it's worth" department....
Today I was in need of a new photo printer, and had decided on an HP Photosmart 8750. Several area stores listed it, none in stock. I was about to give up and have it delivered, but then signed on to Gaim and there was "ShoppingBuddy" I figured, what the heck, I'll give him/her/it a try. Well about 4 IMS, a couple clicks, and a phone call later, I found my beloved printer at my local OfficeDepot, a store I hadn't thought of checking previously. An hour later and my new printer is churning through a stack of 8x10's I needed to produce.
So there you have it. ShoppingBuddy is in fact useful.