@palafo

For several months, I had been getting mysterious instant messages from strangers. Somebody with an unfamiliar username ending in -coho would IM me “hey” or “who’s this” or some bit of nonsense. I would typically answer “Do I know you?” or “Who’s this?” Then the other person would answer: “What are you talking about? You IM’d me!” They turned out to be as equally baffled and suspicious as I was. It took me a while to conclude these people were not scammers or pranksters but victims of the prank too. Eventually, I searched for “coho” and “IM” and found the answer: It’s an annoying but apparently harmless Web bot.
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