A former Gizmodo writer changed his name to ‘Slackbot’ and stayed undetected for months
theverge.com
A former Gizmodo writer changed his name to ‘Slackbot’ and stayed undetected for months::Former Gizmodo writer Tom McKay managed to stay in the company’s workplace Slack even after leaving. All he had to do was change his name to “Slackbot.”
Why would he do this
Gizmodo was bought out by a bucket of shitheads that clearly dont have their IT sorted, so it sounds like he did this out of a sense of mischief and curiosity.
It's a fun IT story he got on leaving a bad org. Sounds like a win for a tech writer.
Why not?
I want this headline art turned into a slack emoji. I want to add it to my company slack
Reminds me of the time I found a professor's lanyard (not the ID) in college and would just wave it around. Half the time, security shrugged and let me through without scanning my ID.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
That’s what IT Brew’s Tom McKay did when he left Gizmodo in 2022, and he went undetected by the site’s management for months.
If you’re not glued to Slack for most of the day like I am, then you might not know that Slackbot is the friendly robot that lives in the messaging service.
It helps you do things like set reminders, find out your office’s Wi-Fi password, or let you know when you’ve been mentioned in a channel that you’re not a part of.
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.
Have a Slack-ly day!” My colleague Victoria Song, who previously worked at Gizmodo, isn’t all that surprised that this situation unfolded, and says, “As Tom’s former coworker and a G/O Media survivor, this tracks.”
Of course, not every company will fall for this trick, as some have security measures in place to prevent this kind of thing.
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