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# A former Gizmodo writer changed his name to ‘Slackbot’ and stayed undetected for months
- URL: https://werd.io/a-former-gizmodo-writer-changed-his-name-to-slackbot-and/
- Published: 2024-02-26T19:00:45.000Z
- Updated: 2024-02-26T19:00:45.000Z
- Author: Ben Werdmuller
- Tags: NotableLinks, #Import 2025-06-13 09:20

"When it was his time to leave, McKay swapped out his existing profile picture for one that resembled an angrier version of Slackbot’s actual icon. He also changed his name to “Slackbot.”" Genius.

Serious talk: this is actually a pretty common trick. You can't change your name to Slackbot in Slack, because the bot is already there, but you can use a unicode character that's visually indistinguishable from an "o". Malware and crypto scammers do something similar all the time. You'd think there would be better mitigations.

But whatever. This is hilarious. Nice work. [#Technology](https://werd.io/tag/Technology)

\[[Link](https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/23/24081249/slack-slackbot-gizmodo-tom-mckay)\]