A former Gizmodo author modified his title to 'Slackbot' and remained nameless for months

Apparently, hiding on Slack isn't that tough; All you must do is fake that you’re a bot. that is it it brewTom McKay did this when he left gizmodo in 2022, and he remained unknown by the positioning's administration for months.

in a put up on xMackey shared some screenshots of the brand new “Slackbot” persona he adopted after formally leaving gizmodo, He additionally confirmed that the verge That this silly prank actually occurred.

If you happen to're not glued to Slack many of the day like me, you won’t know that Slackbot is a pleasant robotic that lives within the messaging service. This helps you do issues like set reminders, discover out your workplace Wi-Fi password, or let you recognize while you're talked about in a channel you're not part of.

When it was time for him to go away, Mackey changed his present profile image with one which resembled an indignant model of Slackbot's unique icon. He additionally modified his title to “Slackbot”. By the best way, you’ll be able to't change your title on Slack to “Slackbot,” as a result of the service will inform you that that title is already taken. it does This works if you happen to use a particular character that appears like one of many letters inside Slackbot, resembling changing “o” with the Unicode character “o”.

This transfer hid Mackey's energetic Slack account for months, stopping his account from being deleted. It additionally allowed them to ship bot-like messages to their coworkers, resembling, “Slackbot reality of the day: Hello, I'm Slackbot!” it's a reality. Have a lazy day!” My colleague Victoria Music, who used to work right here gizmodoIs under no circumstances stunned by how this example has unfolded, and says, “As a former co-worker of Tom's and a G/O media survivor, this tracks.”

no method Everybody The corporate will fall prey to this trick, as few have safety measures in place to stop this sort of factor. however maybe gizmodoAdministration thought Mackey's account had already been deleted. Or possibly they simply weren't curious sufficient to take a look at the duplicate slackbot with suspicious eyebrows.