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[monkeymule2]

[QUESTION] Message on Word?

[QBKooky]

It could be because Microsoft Word encrypts your name and "business" into any file you create in part of it's MASSIVE padding of .doc or whatever files.

Seems very possible this was just a discrepancy between your own versions of Word. ?

[troy]

Word is famous for randomly inserting bits of data into documents that it saves. I wouldn't worry too much about it, though.

However, I do recommend unplugging any web cams you may have.

-Troy

[Macavity]

I think I'll do that too . . . *unplugs Creative Webcam NX*

[monkeymule2]

I am pretty positive that is it not random data added on by Microsoft word. I will upload the file.

If you are reading the file, you will notice that it is split into three sections. The first says my name, and then has some unidentifiable symbols. This is a greeting.

The next section says my name again, but differently, each letter has symbol around after it. It also says something that is knows about me, that I work for Nathan Epstein Inc. (or, it thinks I do). I remember typing that where is said "company" in something. It was either my .net passport, or for my gmail account. Either way, my Microsoft word would never have heard of it. This is the body of its message.

Then, it politely ends the message by saying goodbye. I think it is a message. Read it for yourself.

[keybsnbits]

I think you're misinformed or full of it. But please, prove me wrong.

[monkeymule2]

I was trying to put together the conversation between "Midshipman Arrets", and "Oni tech Kowalski". I saved a file containing some of this text. I opened the file, something downloaded, and the text was different. I think it is a message, but it may be completely unrelated. If you have a different theory as to how it happened, then I am all ears.

I know it does not follow the ai's habit of pasting together other emails messages, and I am just as confused as you are.

[TheDude]

what file did you save and what did it save as is it the name of the file above, if it did shouldn't we be able to still get that file... frankly I don't have much faith in this either.....

[monkeymule2]

I saved that file. The file had this text when I saved it (I just ran and found it on ilovebees):

maybe we could..."
Midshipman You know what they say: Happy ship - crew. Yeah. (coughs) Yeah, I know a lot of about these systems.
Midshipman

I tried to open it, and I belive it told me that word needed to update in order to read the file. Then, I opened the file, and it had changed to what is it now. I know it is the same file, because it was named after the first three words in the dialouge.

[missphinx]

Can we assume your virus protection is up to date and in use?

[simgoff]

The problem is, the file attached doesn't have the name " maybe we could.doc". Instead, it's called "~$ybe we could.doc".

MS Word creates one of these files whenever you open a document. Try it for yourself - open a Word document, then while Word is open, look in that directory for a (possibly hidden) file starting with ~$. If you can find it, open it in Notepad, and you will see the same thing has occurred again - your name, then your name spaced out with little boxes, and then your company.

Best guess for why this happened, Word had some kind of fit and closed abruptly without deleting the ~$ file... It happens, I've actually found a couple of similar files lurking in My Documents while looking further into this.

Sorry it's not something more exciting

[number8]

I suggest redo the entire procedure again. Find the text, copy and paste it in word, and see if you can duplicate the result. Wouldn't hurt to clean out old files, do a virus check, and heck reinstall word if you have the time. See if you can duplicate the result. While what you desribed is unusual (even for Word), I don't think it's an actual clue but rather something wonky with Word or the OS. I also suggest instead of Word, copy and paste to Notepad and see if anything comes up.

[monkeymule2]

Yeah, I think Simgoff is right. I did a search for ~$, and found a similar file, but with a more random letter combination instead of the by by. This probably means that the by by is the result of a random letter combination too.

I guess this has nothing to do with anything.

[eMouse]

Here's a quick lesson on web pages.

All web pages are text. Saving an HTML file is the same as selecting 'view source', then saving the source. That just gets you the text html file.

Since most people who want to view a page off-line want more than that - they want the images and other support files, IE gives you the option to save the 'complete' page, or as a single web archive.

If you use either of those options, you are altering the original web source. Saving as a complete page rewrites all the links in the source to point to local files. Saving as a web archive writes a MS-custom archive file which contains web source and image data.

It sounds like you saved as a single web archive. By doing so, you created an entirely new file that is only based on the original web site.

In other words, the file cannot be trusted because a significant amount of code was added or altered in the process of saving.

Plus the ~$ is Word's way of naming a temp file. So that file is going to be worth even less than the archive file.