Homer Simpson and the Kimya Botnet

An anonymous reader writes "As all hardcore Simpsons fans know, [e-mail] was revealed to be Homer Simpsons' email address in one particular episode, registered by one of the shows writers, who would reply to fans as Homer himself. After a flood of messages, 'Homer' signed off — seemingly forever. Well in the last few days, security company Facetime Communications reports that anyone who had Homer on their AIM buddy list would have noticed his sudden reappearance. Unfortunately for all, he appears to have been hacked and pushing malware links which deposit those unlucky enough to run the file into a Turkish Botnet. The message claims the file is a 'web exclusive' episode of the TV show — an interesting way of targeting a specific group of fans who would assume Homers return would only coincide with something special like (say) a TV episode just for them. What I want to know is, is Homer smart enough to run an AV scan?"

Opening files

Opening unknown files could get you hacked. Doh!

Obligiatory Homer Quote

They have the Internet on computers now?

Re:

The internet? Is that thing still around?

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"Wow! A blue car!"

One of my favourites!!

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Does it have speed holes?

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Mhmmmm, turkey... Mhmmm, botnet..

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There was more to those brownies than you thought.

Re:All TV characters should have e-mail addresses

All TV characters should have e-mail addresses. It's a no-brainer
 
Yeah, but only Homer Simpson should have an @aol.com address.

Nelson Muntz's response

Haw haw!

Running AIM and clicking on random executables?

Sounds more like Ralph.

Ineteresting tactic

Anyone in the printing or marketing industries is familiar with the concept of Variable Data Printing (aka One-to-One Marketing, or any of a number of other marketing buzz words). If you cater the ad/promo/mailing to the recipient, you can send out far fewer pieces to fewer participants, but thanks to higher hit percentage, yield better results.

I'm sure the number of attempted infections from this attack are very small in the scale of typical virus'. But I would not be surprised if the number of successful infections was pretty high, relatively speaking.

Don't recall that episode

I guess I'm not hardcore enough. Does this mean I have to turn in my geek card?

Re:

The player's handbook clearly says I shouldn't lose XPs for tha...I mean, uh, I don't get your nerdy joke!

I can imagine how this will wrap up

"Hello, this is Homer Simpson aka Chunkylover53! The court has ordered me to IM every person in town to apologize for my botnet scheme. I'm sorry. If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, send one dollar to : Sorry Dude, 742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield. You have the power!"

Re:I can imagine how this will wrap up

I'll need your state to actually send the dollar to you. :)

Re:I can imagine how this will wrap up

Of course! It's the state bordered by Ohio, Nevada, Maine, and Kentucky. You know the one!

homer...

mmmmmmmm... trojans...

Re:homer...

mmmmmmmmmm... turkey...

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Great, now I'm hungary.

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Joey, have you ever been in a turkish botnet?

Of course

What I want to know is, is Homer smart enough to run an AV scan?

He's a NUCLEAR SAFETY EXPERT at a Nuclear Power Plant. I am sure that qualifies him to run antivirus. Right?

That was episode...

S14E08 - The Dad Who Knew Too Little
(#EABF03 / SI-1403) aired January 12th 2003

is it a bad sign, that i found it within 1-2 minutes?

Re:he's not online

I don't know why you had a problem. That's a perfectly cromulent username.

Re:he's not online

It is very embiggening of you to make this comment!

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Ya, its still there. The government, and comcast, haven't killed it off totally, yet.