So my good buddy Courtney sends me a link. I click on it. Hey neat, it's some "hunt down Osama" game. Sure, I'll play it. Doo-dee-doo, pick up the nukes...okay, this is boring. Closed.

15 minutes later, I'm getting IMs from half of my buddy list saying, "Neat game." What? I didn't forward that link. It wasn't that interesting. But the IMs continue, including replies from people I have on my buddy list that I haven't talked to in months (I guess I need to clean up my buddy list). What the hell is going on?

The "game" installed some spyware on my system that was going from person to person on my buddy list and sending them a link to itself, without telling me. I can't say as I'm a big fan of this. Great, I've got a virus. Turns out the software, buddylinks.net (and no, that link won't install the software on your computer, but downloading the games off their site will!), is developed by a group of folks that actually thought automatically sharing links with everybody on your buddy list would be a GRAND idea, particularly if those links installed the software that perpetuates the process! Disturbingly similar to an internet worm, if you ask me, which is probably something covered by federal hacking laws.

So after hours of deleting and reinstalling software, plus going to the buddylinks website to "opt out" all my screennames, I think I'm clean. Just to be on the safe side, I'm running Trillian for the time being. Corey found another way of disabling it through the buddylinks configuration files, but I was able to completely remove it from my system. We'll see if it returns.

Anyway, through me and Courtney and God knows who else, it's transmitted through most of my friends and their friends and THEIR friends, not to mention the entirety of CSC (although I'd like to think I'm not the only idiot that introduced it at work...I hope I hope I hope).

So I'm trying to think of a suitable response to the buddylinks folks. Should I send a nasty email? Probably will, yes. Should I attempt to file a class action suit? The idea has merit. Heaven forbid I should ask all my hacker buddies to LAUNCH A DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK, since that would be illegal. I could never tell someone, "PLEASE LAUNCH A DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACK AT BUDDYLINKS.NET" and not feel the pangs of conscience.