The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

You might remember several years ago in an episode of the Simpsons Homer’s email address was given out as ‘chunkylover53@aol.com’. For a while there was a real email address, with one of the show’s writers responding to emails from curious fans, using the persona of our favourite yellow-skinned, fat, bald bloke. As is the way with such things though, word got around and the trickle of emails to ‘Homer’ soon became a torrent, way too much for the staff to handle, so the address was allowed to lapse. Except now the Register is reporting that Turkish hackers have cracked it and used it to send emails and links to anyone who added the chunkylover name to their AOL Messenger friends bar – clicking on the links takes the user to malware-laced sites. As the Reg points out some folks who might normally ignore such links as potential spam/malware may fall for this thinking this is still a valid email contact, so if you get a message from Homer, don’t get too excited. Our Springfield correspondent Kent Brockman asked for Homer’s side of the story but his spokesperson said Mr Simpson was not available for comment.