Slashdot Mirror
Thousands of ICQ Numbers Deleted
BondGamer writes "Many ICQ users woke up and found their ICQ numbers were no longer working. There is a topic on the ICQ support with more than 1,500 replies. There are pages upon pages of other topics asking what happened. As of yet, there has been no official response from AOL about what has happened."
DMCA takedown notices because they were found in the decimal representation of some movies?
You don't have to bother with registration or obnoxious UI. And if you use a fairly unique nickname, you can still keep in touch with friends.
Their ICQ accounts have not been baleeted, they've simply been reassigned to a new number.
If they can guess the number within 96 hours they can keep their account. Everything is the same eccept the number. A minor problem is that it does not update your friends' ICQ numbers if they're in the same lottery.
I don't see the problem.
Probably a server drive crash, and this is where we discover AOL have been reliably backing up their ICQ server to /dev/null all these years.
(and it seems mine is gone too, but I haven't used it in 4 years.)
-- Soruk
I am not an ICQ number !! I am a human being !!
But call me, #6 !!!
Who is #2 ??? Eric Cartman ?!
Official response? Expect something along the lines of "We are trying to determine if we do indeed host this 'ICQ' service and who would be in charge, but chances are, we either fired them or that quit years ago."
That's exactly what I thought. Oh, the good years of my first experiences with IM. The joy when they merged the chat with the messages. I wonder if my account still works.
Sounds like they let a sql n00b into the production database...
"Jimmy, could you get me a report for user #12345678?"
"Sure boss, I'll use my awesome SQL skillz"
clacketty clack... osql.exe... clacketty clack clack
select * from IcqUsers
wait wait wait
"Hmmm, that user is very far down the list. I'll get rid of these earlier records so that record will show up faster."
clacketty clack... delete from IcqUsers where UserID
wait wait wait
"JIMMY WTF ARE YOU DOING???? CANCEL THAT QUERY NOW. YOU'RE RUNNING IT AGAINST THE PRODUCTION DB"
"Yessirsirright now sir!!!!!!!!!"
and you can complete the story.
Not anymore
Foxed Design
I don't know if anyone still uses it, but I sure as hell remember my UIN even though I haven't touched ICQ since something like 2000. It's great how I can remember the now-usless 8-digit number for so long and not remember my parents birthdays.
ICQ was my first instant messaging client, modern clients owe a lot in terms of features to Mirabilis' innovations. Buddy pounces, file sharing, ability to send messages to people while they were signed off. It also had a generally fun feel to it's gui and sound design. I'm still peeved that it was also my introduction to account theft, somebody with a Czech email address is happily the new owner of my six digit number.
delete from Users where clue = 0;
thousands of people screaming in total darkness, but alas they could not be heard; HAL-9000 deleted their account to let them in...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Is this just a publicity stunt to remind people that ICQ still exists? :)
:)
Bad publicity is still publicity.
It shows that you don't have to be good at something, as long as you have critical mass of users locked in.
I was under the impression that AOL has been trying to kill ICQ for years now. How are these people so (un)blissfully unaware of the situation?
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
I'm from central Europe, and here everybody is using ICQ. It's gone so far that ICQ is synonymous with IM, and people exchange ICQ UINs instead of phone numbers...
I didn't use or even installed ICQ for at least 5 years :)
but wanted to check if my really old account with a nice 7 digit account number was still active.
Used: http://go.icq.com/ (no installation needed) to check.. and it is still working, guess i got lucky.
Now for another 5 years of not using it (but of course wanting to keep it
Number of people i _personally_ know who use ICQ: pretty much everyone.
Number of people i _personally_ know who use something else than ICQ: pretty much noone.
Here in Czechia, ICQ is simply THE im to use.
IT just makes no sense to register on something else when you know you wont be able to talk to anyone. And it makes no sense to switch if majority does no switch with you.
---
In the end stuff like aim or messenger have exaclty same type of bloat (sometimes even more anoying than icq bloat) and zero killer features.
-- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
*uh-oh* :-P
My 7 digit uin it's still active, I remember it like my phone number. Ahh those were the days. I left icq after all my contacts went to yahoo or msn.
My guesses:
1.- Someone broke in and messed up the db
2.- A random clean up?
3.- Publicity? (As stated in comments above)
4.- Server failure
That's almost as big of an accomplishment as meeting your fiance on Slashdot!
Considering the the ICQ serves as a personal identification number, I think you actually got some truth in that joke.
I lost my sig.
Almost everyone complaining has a 6 digit or shorter account number. They just f*cked their million oldest, most faithful users.
Thankfully, my number is 7 digits.
I guess someone at AOL must've read a certain article about computers needing to forget...
It appears to just be a bug, and your numbers are safe. Backup, remove, reinstall as described here: http://boards.icq.com/boards/view_messages.php?tid =4555&topic_id=2216365.
YMMV
At least among my frineds/colleagues there is no substitution for ICQ. Anyone with MS Messenger or other IM clients seems to be like a white crow. For example in Russia ICQ for sure has 90%+ IM share (if not 99.9%). I worked in central Europe - almost same situation. Everyone uses ICQ. And one more remark - official client sucks. That's true, so noone really bothers using it. There are so many nice substitutions. Like "qip".
Not possible. AOL have been haemorrhaging customers for years, which has limited their advertising revenue somewhat. No company wants to lose customers, even of free services, because it makes their portfolio look good if they want to sell.
This is more likely just a screw up.
and with the two of you about to be happily married, BAM! AOL deletes her!
I'm from central Europe, and here everybody is using ICQ. It's gone so far that ICQ is synonymous with IM, and people exchange ICQ UINs instead of phone numbers...
.. I at least won't start it with disgust anymore.
Same in Eastern Europe, although Skype appears to be catching up as a replacement.
Just few days ago I was talking to friends about the new ICQ6, and the conversation went along the lines of:
ME: you gotta check the new ICQ, they dumped the silly flash voice/cam, the terrible horn and oh-oh sounds. It's a lot better.
THEM: great! so are you switching back to ICQ (note: they are all on ICQ)
ME: no, but
And just as I gave them this compliment (it is a compliment! i hated the damn thing), now this story runs. They're out of luck, for sure.
Apparently everyone and their dog use it in Russia. Right before they turned GAIM into Pidgin I installed GAIM 1.5 and logged on to my neglected yahoo and ICQ accounts. My 6 digit ICQ was still working up until this morning, and every single day I get at least 3 Russian girls (or so they claim) wanting to chat, and at least 2 spam messages in Cyrillic trying to get me to click in some shady URL that I wouldn't touch with Firefox barricaded behind the Proxomitron and a Firewall on an unpluged computer powered-off =P
At least one of the alleged Russkys I actually started chatting with is cute. They sure know how to make them in the Ukraine ;)
+Raider of the lost BBS
Oddly enough it was working perfectly until I went to create an account. BTW, my name is ";Drop Table;"
First post = troll. Cleverly worded post designed to enrage others = flamebait.
It seems that certain IMs just gained popularity in certain parts of the world for whatever reason. I was in the Philippines a few months ago and yahoo is the "IM synonym" there. ICQ used to be the big thing in my circle of friends back in the late 90s (it was pretty much the ONLY thing back then). Then moved to yahoo for a while (does ICQ even have webcam support in 2007?) and its sort of settled on MSN as my non-geek friends started to pile up. Don't really know why that came to be -- whether its just because its packaged with Windows or because they had far superior webcam support for a while there, or perhaps some other factor -- as I was one of the last people I know to switch up to MSN (back in my "lets hate on M$ cause its cool" party-lining days:P).
At least one of the alleged Russkys I actually started chatting with is cute.
Congratulations. You've been speaking to the goatse guy.
-- Soruk
Your friends flirted with your girlfriend on ICQ too? What's her number again? :-)
Go somewhere random
In the beginning the client was quite nice and simple. Later on it became soo bloated I decided to follow my friends and to start using the MSN Messenger which was sooo nice and simple. Now the latter is also filled with useless features. :(
Don't these companies understand that there are many people who just want a simple, graphical chat window?
And yes, I also use IRC in a screen session every day.. but unfortunately just 5-10 other _technical_ friends are there. My experience is that it's nearly impossible to teach quite a number of less technical people how to use IRC.
In an ideal world, this would teach people something about the disadvantages of relying on a centralized server controlled by a corporation over which you have no influence for your communication-infrastructure.
Msn, and Aim have similar problems.Meanwhile, Jabber is the way of the future. Open protocol. Multiple interoperable implementations. Gateways to these "legacy"-protocols anyway, so you can still talk to your icq/msn-using friends. Multiple simultaneous logins. Server-side storage of buddy-lists (so log on from a different location/new computer and everything is there)
Oh, and for added bonus, jabber-ids on the format of email-adresses are a lot easier to remember than ICQ-uins.
Fix here
We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us
I felt a great disturbance in the Net...as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
Do or do not, there is no try.
in case it helps, the equivalent of Trillian for macintosh is Adium -and I fully agree with the previous post :-)
Herve S.
I tried his ICQ number this morning 666 and it's gone. The bothers me as we really had a good deal in play. He was going to make me Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It was all most done. Blair announced his resignation and I was to step in as planned. He even had a way figured out to get around the fact that I am a US Citizen and everything. Seeing how the US was already taken.....
I wonder if I can sue them for interference with a contract?
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
The Netherlands is central? You're on the coast.
I hardly ever turn icq on any longer on account of the Russian/Czech/Ukranian spam. Very annoying and last time I turned it on some damn spammer who kept on spamming on me 'added me' - annoyed I checked and yep, my preferences were to not allow anyone to add me but for some reason spambot boy was able to. I don't even know what the purpose of doing that is but I definitely don't like it and don't turn the icq on for just that reason.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
Obviously they didn't forward that message that all their friends sent them, so their accounts got flagged as inactive and deleted.
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pag econtent?lp=de_en&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pressetext. de%2Fpte.mc%3Fpte%3D070511018
I HATE AOL. I HATE AOL. I HATE AOL. Its the worst company on the planet
You can't buy publicity like that.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Did they not read the e-mail that was sent round last week saying that ICQ was running out of numbers and that some would be re-allocated unless they proved they were active users by sending the e-mail on to all their ICQ using friends?
Too late to complain now, you should have read the e-mail and sent it on like me. It's not hard, sheesh.
I wish to remain anomalous
It would be cool if the English language had colorized syntax highlighting.