husband got an e-mail the other day. i told him about it and he told me he thought it was a scam. he told me it said .con instead of .com. what he didnt know was i copied and sent it to myself. it does not say anysuch thing. so i confronted him about it-long story. anyway i need to know what the heck this is and my computer wont open it. the file name is data chunks. when i tried to open it told me something about a picture file, but it may not be a picture.<p>i am not so computer knowledgable-so i was wondering if i sent it to one of you whiz's-could you tell me what the heck it is. i really need to know. im praying to god its not some new virus or something.

you need to tell us more Nikko.
Was it an attachment to an email? what is the exact name and extension of the file?
what email client do you use? Outlook, yahoo, hotmail?
From what email address did it come?

nikko,<p>several e-mail viruses and worms come in this format. The files appear to be images, such as jpg, gif, tif, png, music files, as mp3, or sound such as wav, avi, etc.<p>The files are bogus, so they won't open, but at times they will run in the background of your computer, installing worms, troyans, and other pests that can cause your computer to have "health problems", from a worm which only purpose is to slow down your computer's speed to trojans designed to register every one of your credit card, social numbers.<p>Erase this e-mail as soon as possible, update your anti-virus if you have one, or purchase one such as McAffe or Norton. Run a disk scan and see if your machine is clean.<p>Next time scan the file before you open it.<p>Hope this helps!

dear space-thanks for the reply-i will try to answer you questions-im a little computer slow so bare with me.<p>it did have an attachment-looks like a zip file?
the exact name of file-im not sure what you mean by this? please explain, also dont know what is extension.<p>we use aol e-mail<p>alostwife-thanks for the info-this is all so confusing-we did run norton on the system-nothing came up.

A zip file is a compressed file, it can be anything, from a picture to a document. the extension zip indicates it can be opened by a de-comnpresor such as winzip.<p>Sometimes zip drives get corrupted, and so it is difficult if not impossible to open them. Don't worry about it, whatever it was, if you couldn't open it, your husband wasn't able to open it either.<p>Since your Norton scan came out clean, chances are it was just a harmless file.<p>Just some advise, next time you get a zip file scan it, I think Norton 2002 doesn't have that feature, that is why at my place of work we use McAffee, (we deal with many viruses ;-&gt [img]images/icons/wink.gif" border="0[/img] so maybe, just don't open any of this files UNLESS you trust the person they came from, and even then be careful, some of the most destructive viruses out there, such as the I LOVE YOU virus, were distributed automatically using e-mail addresses from the computers of the people that got infected by it, so when you thought it was a safe e-mail from a friend or relative it turned out to be a virus.

Nikko,
an attachment is a file that is attached to the email, I'm not sure how AOL mail works but there should be something that indicates if the email you received has an attached file.<p>As for the name of the file, typically all files have a name and an extension in the format xxxxxx.xxx. The name is the first part, before the period, and the extension is the 3 letters after the period.<p>If the extension is .zip, then it's a zip file, if it's .doc, then it's a Word file, etc. If it's a zip file, you'll need winzip to open it, if it's a Word file, you'll need MS Word to open it (or another text editor). Let us know what name and extension it has and we'll guide you further. <p>NOW BEWARE; VIRUSES DO COME LIKE THIS, AS ATTACHEMENTS TO THE EMAIL, SO IT'S BEST TO IDENTIFY WHAT IT IS BEFORE OPENING OR ATTEMPTING TO OPEN IT. SINCE YOU ALREADY DID THAT, IF IT WAS A VIRUS, YOU ARE LIKELY INFECTED, BUT IF YOU RAN NORTON AND IT CAME UP WITH NOTHING, MAYBE YOU'RE IN LUCK.

If your virus protection is UP TO DATE you're probly ok...but it has to be current in order to read the new virus types. The KLEZ is the biggest one I'm fighting these days. It actually shuts off your virus protection if it isn't up to date, then it mails itself to everyone on your mailing list as well as everyone listed on any forwarded mail in your mailbox and then it starts attacking all your .exe files. It's a doozy to be sure.<p>If you're getting a message that it can't be opened, it might just be because you don't have the same program that it was intended to run in. Like if I sent you a word document and you didn't have microsoft word...you wouldn't be able to read it.<p>I'd suggest deleting the email and making sure your virus protection is up to date. If it's not, update it and then run a full scan.

dear space-thanks again-here is the info...the file says DataChunks.zip (56059 bytes)<p>i really want to know what this is to find out if husband is lying to me-it came from the adress julhennyc@aol.com. this person has a profile-i checked. i need to know.<p>ps the subject said...20011222.chk8<p>[ June 05, 2002: Message edited by: nikko ]</p>

i e-mailed this person and i can tell you from the response i believe it was a woman. i need someone to open this up for me and find out what it is. i also e-mailed them and asked them to let me know who they are. im waiting for the response on that. husband is still saying he is clueless-and i kinda believe him, but is pissed because he feels as if i am accusing him of something-i think my marriage is comming to a head-i cant do this. hes gonna be pissed at me-i didnt destroy the trust. gotta go before i break the keyboard. if you can help me-please let me know.

i really need some help here

I sure can't help you with that file. But just curious what you e-mailed that person.. . what did you say? What did they say?

Nikko,
You probably don't have winzip installed in your computer which is the program that opens .zip files.<p>You can get a free evaluation version (good for what you need to do) at www.winzip.com. Download winzip evaluation version for your operating system, and install it, then you should be able to open the .zip file.<p>But do update your Norton antivirus first, and scan the file before you open it.<p>I don't know if I should even offer; but if you can't do all this, and feel comfortable doing it, email me the file to spacecase59@yahoo.com and I can check it out and send it to you in a format you can read/see.

Send it to the email in my signature. I may not respond until tomorrow, though, just so you know.

Well maybe it was a chain letter. if the zip file doesnt open in your computer i don't think it will open any other way, overall if it gives you an error regarding the encoding, not that you don't have the program. If you could quote the error message for me I can try to help you.

dear space-thanks for the offer-if not to much trouble, i will take you up on it. thanks<p>faith-i told them i received the file, but computer had a problem and couldnt open-what is it.<p>they e-mailed me back saying it was a few days ago and they didnt remember,lol.
most men in e-mails to other men dont use lol-plus the writing is in a pretty italic form, girlie.<p>all others-thanks for the ideas and input.

dear space-thanks for the offer-if not to much trouble, i will take you up on it. thanks<p>faith-i told them i received the file, but computer had a problem and couldnt open-what is it.<p>they e-mailed me back saying it was a few days ago and they didnt remember,lol.
most men in e-mails to other men dont use lol-plus the writing is in a pretty italic form, girlie.<p>all others-thanks for the ideas and input.

send it; I'll check it out.

Nikko, this new virus (and actually many before it) will email themselves with the heading of someone else. Meaning, they steal the "from" path from another email...one either on your machine or on the machine it came from. It also sends itself to everyone not only in the persons address book, but also those from any forwarded messages on their machine (most are people they don't know, but relatives and friends of people who know them). I've been recieving 6 or more a week...each one with a different "from" person...but when you look at the real path they all came from the same person. This person has yet to get rid of their virus, so I keep getting the messages. I highly advise NOT opening this attachment. Most likely it is a virus. I still advise that you make sure you haven't already contracted it. Run your antivirus program. I'm a computer tech so I do this all day long 5 days a week. Take care.

It could very well be a picture she sent him. If it is, I bet she's sweating over there right now. Along with your H...

dear space-thank you so much. now i will run virus protection again.<p>h4f-thanks for input-i wish i knew more about this stuff. thanks<p>finding-not the case, but a funny visual,huh?<p>now i have to deal with husbands reaction to all this. his indignation at me not believing him and trusting him has had me vomiting all day-i may hit my goal weight after all. his selfishness has no bounds i guess. something new to deal with. im thinking of doing a 180.