Hiding on Slack as a Bot: IT Brew’s Tom McKay Goes Undetected by Gizmodo’s Management for Months

Unique Prank Durations on Slack: IT Brew Writer Masquerades as Slackbot for Months

Pretending to Be a Bot Enables Extended Hiding Period

Tom McKay, an esteemed former employee of Gizmodo, managed to remain undetected on the site he left for months by assuming the identity of a bot on the widely-used messaging platform, Slack. Through the clever ruse, McKay was able to roam freely, carrying on with his daily activities while appearing as a helpful software assistant. The elaborate charade was unleashed in 2022, leaving Gizmodo’s management clueless about McKay’s continued presence on the platform. The fascinating saga was first recounted by McKay himself on the IT Brew website with corroborating screenshots of his “Slackbot” persona, effectively confirming the authenticity of the story when pressed for comment by The Verge.

A Path to Camouflaged Existence

Slack, primarily a communication medium, is complemented by its in-built bot, Slackbot, which assists users with a wide array of tasks, including reminders, generating Wi-Fi passwords, and notifying users of mentions in channels they may not be a part of. Taking full advantage of this feature, McKay decided to emulate the appearance of the exuberant Slackbot. By slightly tweaking his profile picture to match that of Slackbot’s, and renaming himself “Slackbot” on the platform, McKay successfully created an almost indistinguishable presence. Although trying to change one’s name on Slack to “Slackbot” itself is prohibited, McKay bypassed the restriction by replacing one letter in “Slackbot” with its Unicode look-alike, as demonstrated in a tongue-in-cheek Tweet.

Months Pass Without Detection

Thanks to McKay’s ingenuity and a general lack of suspicion, his decree of feigning an artificially intelligent companion went unchallenged for an impressive period of several months. The cunning disguise not only shielded his active Slack account from deletion but also granted him the flexibility to casually deliver bot-like messages to his unsuspecting colleagues. Sample exchanges included McKay serenading his coworkers with phrases like, “Slackbot fact of the day: Hi, I’m Slackbot! That’s a fact. Have a Slack-ly day!” Astonishingly, colleagues who had previously worked with McKay at Gizmodo acknowledged the plausibility of the situation, implying that his mischievous act was congruent with his personality.

A Familiar Tendency at Gizmodo?

While it might be expected that not all companies would fall prey to such a prank, other organizations have implemented robust security measures to prevent such playful subterfuge. However, it seems either Gizmodo’s management erroneously assumed McKay’s account had already been deactivated or they simply failed to recognize the duplicate Slackbot with its telltale set of distinctive brows. Regardless, this impressive episode raises fascinating questions about the perceptive abilities within the Gizmodo hierarchy.