Prepair to be Pissed - Project Upstream set to Ruin your AIM forever..

[Ioo]

So try to follow me...

I was sitting at work and I got an IM

<11:50> drearysalmon: Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Now, for the record, I hate IM SPAM, Start it with a bible verse, and I just go nuts...

So here is what I learned, the whole chat is below. There is this new FREAKS called "Project Upstream" and here is what they do... someone adds your name to them, and they randomly connect two people, making it look like one person IM'ed you... but the mask both names... so you do not know who you are talking about.. and they start yelling at you and you do not know why!!!

http://project-upstream.awardspace.com/

Here is some other stuff
http://dred1367.livejournal.com/112096.html

and
http://www.philliprhoades.com/wiki/index.php/SadisticSalmon_an_AOL_AIM_threat_by_Project_Upstream
http://beaglej.livejournal.com/156619.html
http://innerworkingsofaspacecase.blogspot.com/2008/07/project-upstream.html


<11:50> ME: What?
<11:51> ME: Jesus is a fraud, and quoting Isaiah will not change that
<11:51> drearysalmon: bible?
<11:52> ME: Written by man to suit the needs of man
<11:52> ME: Yes your statement is Isaiah 53:4 if I recall
<11:53> drearysalmon: why a bible quote?
<11:53> ME: that is what you sent me
<11:53> ME: <11:50> drearysalmon: Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
<11:54> drearysalmon: wasn't me. I guess you know what the cohos are?
<11:54> ME: It was you... I do not know you and that is what you IM;ed me
<11:55> drearysalmon: project upstream?
<11:55> drearysalmon: I don't IM anyone I don't know
<11:56> ME: then you need to scan your PC, you have a trojin sending span to randon people
<11:56> ME: because this popped up out of no where
<11:57> ME: <11:50> drearysalmon: Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
<11:57> drearysalmon: who are you?
<11:58> ME: I am a random person that you just spammed... I mean no harm, but I was sitting here working and your IM poped up with the thing I pasted above
<11:58> ME: If you did not do it, then you have something on your PC, and it is spamming bible verses
<11:58> drearysalmon: oh I know you mean no harm
<11:58> drearysalmon: google these screen names
<11:59> drearysalmon: theyre designed to get you to IM a random person
<11:59> ME: Google what screen names?
<12:00> ME: You have done it before...
<12:00> ME: http://dred1367.livejournal.com/112096.html
<12:01> drearysalmon: google project upstream
<12:01> drearysalmon: its a really badly executed social networking experiment
<12:01> drearysalmon: they reuse names for different people
<12:01> ME: So who are you?
<12:02> drearysalmon: I'm Tino
<12:03> ME: So why did YOU send me a IM, and what on your PC did?
<12:03> drearysalmon: nothing on my PC did
<12:03> drearysalmon: it took my screen name from a list online
<12:03> drearysalmon: and masked it
<12:03> ME: has this happened to you before?
<12:03> ME: how do you know about this
<12:04> drearysalmon: it has
<12:04> drearysalmon: because I did some research
<12:05> ME: odd!

[Chulanowa]

1. Uniting people through dislike of their program for uniting people. Gotta love it!

n/t

[enlightenment]

2. There are apparently people who find this 'social experiment'

amusing.

That is even stranger than the spambot.

I am so very glad that I don't engage in any IM activities.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. One step you can take, for better IM security:

Get rid of the AIM client, which is a proven malware injector and serious security hole and get this:

http://www.pidgin.im/download/

It really does work very well. One of my customers, a young man addicted to IM'ing of every sort, uses it and loves it. He formally used AIM and I had to reinstall his operating system, because of all the malware that was injected on there by AIM and IE. He now uses Pidgin and Firefox. Problems solved.

[Ioo]

5. Yah I use Trillian

AIM is a nightmare

[Warpy]

4. If you like chatting up wrong numbers

you'll absolutely love Project Upstream.

At least that's the impression I got when I searched it out since I'd never heard of it before.

http://community.livejournal.com/themissinghat/199227.html

"Unfortunately, the nature of our operation requires certain information about us to be kept out of the public eye. For that reason, we will respond to comments, and answer questions, at our discretion only. But don't let that stop you from making some great comments on this entry! We look forward to reading them all."

Uh-huh.

And their murky main page: http://project-upstream.awardspace.com/