What might this mean?

[Treasure Ballinger]

Hello Savvy Forum-ites;

I'm stumped.  If you IM'd someone that you'd never before spoken to; and you received a message back that asked you to supply a password and some specific language, in order for your message to 'get through', what would you conclude?  Is it some sort of RLV thing?  Some type of constraint where someone isn't allowed to chat?  Do you think the restrained avatar (if that's what it is) knows it's there?  Any insights would help especially if you've seen this before.  Thanks!  Oh, and I am pretty positive this wasn't a bot.  Very extensive profile and long term resident.

[Madelaine McMasters]

I don't think I'd conclude anything, Treasure.

I hate being wrong.

I have run into something like this in the past and it's not been the kind of nonsense that interests me. But, I'm pretty particular about my nonsense.

;-)

[ObviousAltIsObvious]

it is probably just a home made spam filter, some people do the same thing with email. automatic response is not too commonly used, but some TPVs do have support for that.

[KarenMichelle Lane]

Kewl, you've chatted to a scripted agent-bot. The old timer's account may be

1) Stolen [usually because they used one of the top 100 used passwords]

2) A well thought out scam

3) Other

[Marigold Devin]

I probably would be a little bit concerned that someone or their automatic message was asking me for a password. Did the response just look like a normal IM reply? 

[Treasure Ballinger]

I wasn't actually 'concerned' as I wasn't about to supply any kind of a password.  I just stopped talking to it.  And yes, it looked like a normal IM reply, as far as how it was set up. 

[Marigold Devin]

I know that you wouldn't be daft enough to give out your password details (hope you didn't think I was implying that).

Maybe the person you IMd just was having a 'fun' day - like I sometimes do when I answer the RL telephone and say something like "Thank you for calling. Please note your call may be recorded... for training purposes." Friend or foe, they usually hang up at that. :matte-motes-big-grin-squint:

[Pussycat Catnap]

I'm suspecting its an anti-spam filter. Which seems a bit illogical. Spammers go after group noticed and group chat.

An RLV thing would not give you the instructions on how to get around it... I'm not sure if RLV even has a chat block feature. I've always wondered though what was the point of logging into a chat game where you have your chat disabled so that you just sit there looking at a screen of your toon logged in while I guess... you watch Netflix in another window.

 

[Marigold Devin]

Was it perhaps a Tiny Empires player?  They're a bit of an unknown quantity to me, but you say you never IMd this avatar before, and I wondered what drew you to do so now. Tiny Empires wear HUDs, perhaps they, like RLV, could be programmed with some type of message ? (I am, I admit, clutching at straws a little - its just a suggestion - but a lot of the Tiny Empires avatars are old accounts, and some do go to the trouble of having lots in their profiles.

[Dora Gustafson]

It could be as simple as a busy response

You can edit your busy response to almost anything you like

:smileysurprised::smileyvery-happy:

[Treasure Ballinger]

If I am inworld, I greet anyone who arrives on my sim; it's specific to disabilities and disability related info, people with hearing loss, and has a lot of other resources that people come to find, because they heard it was there.  It was just a greeting, and offer of help if one wants.  If they're just browsing or came to see the galleries or something, I leave them alone after that greeting.  That's what led me to IM them.  Otherwise, I'm kind of a loner and rarely IM someone out of the blue like that. 

[Deej Kasshiki]

There was nothing like that in Tiny Empires back when I was playing it regularly. That's been quite a while ago though and the game could have changed drastically but, I really don't see something like this being a Tiny Empires "feature".

[Treasure Ballinger]

Thanks Dora, I thought of that; it just seemed like a lot of stuff to go through, just to say 'I'm busy, go away', lol.   But sure you could be right.

[Sassy Romano]

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

I'm not sure if RLV even has a chat block feature.

 

---

It does.

It could very well be an RLV thing where someone does have to "authenticate" before chatting with the recipient but without knowing the style of effect that's intended, it's difficult to comment on it really.

[Dora Gustafson]

When you see the hilarious stuff you find in people's profiles you will know that everything is possible

:smileysurprised::smileyvery-happy:

[Pussycat Catnap]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

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Pussycat Catnap wrote:

I'm not sure if RLV even has a chat block feature.

 

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It does.

---

Yeah um... Just take this smily:

And make it as big as you can.

 

If I want a 404 screen of non-interraction, I can just type in a bad URL on my web browser, and not waste a whole bunch of bandwidth getting to it. But RLV people have their scene, and I've long since figured out I'm not compatable with them.

 

[Marigold Devin]

I certainly understand why you would start a thread about the rather unusual message you got. It has been a puzzler. Dora, I think, has the nearest right answer - an auto busy message.

(As for my Tiny Empires suggestion - like I said, I was clutching at straws - just throwing out another possible suggestion.)

 

[Lewis Luminos]

There used to be, in some viewers (Emerald and, I think, early versions of Phoenix), a feature which encrypted chat and optionally, asked the person you were chatting with to confirm that they agreed to the chat being encrypted or not. I don't recall a password being involved but you may have run up against someone using a feature like this.

I think it more likely that this was in somebody's "Busy" response and they were using it to phish for passwords.