Avast Caution Potential Infection Was Detected: Suspicious whitespace sequence

I often get the WinXP Avast verbal warning when downloading usenet photos:
Caution: Potential Infection Was Detected: Suspicious whitespace sequence

What is a "suspicious whitespace sequence" in a digital JPEG photograph?
Can I download the usenet photo and "see" the suspicous whitespace
sequence?

Is it really a virus?
If not, what?

donnie

donnie wrote:
> I often get the WinXP Avast verbal warning when downloading usenet photos:
> Caution: Potential Infection Was Detected: Suspicious whitespace sequence
>
> What is a "suspicious whitespace sequence" in a digital JPEG photograph?

Delimiters

> Can I download the usenet photo and "see" the suspicous whitespace
> sequence?

Yeah with an editor that can read the file and display it in a binary
format.

>
> Is it really a virus?

No

> If not, what?
>

Your friend Google will tell you.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...ter&btnG=Search

donnie wrote:

> I often get the WinXP Avast verbal warning when downloading usenet photos:
> Caution: Potential Infection Was Detected: Suspicious whitespace sequence

Isn't this the security whole in Windows graphics that could make
binary code inside a picture execute on the system if a fault
happened? Maybe that is what it is warning you about?

I have used avast! for several years and NEVER seen that message, so I
would be very careful with those images if I were you. Suspicious...
--
Lars-Erik - http://www.osterud.name - ICQ 7297605

donnie wrote:
> I often get the WinXP Avast verbal warning when downloading usenet photos:
> Caution: Potential Infection Was Detected: Suspicious whitespace sequence
>
> What is a "suspicious whitespace sequence" in a digital JPEG photograph?
> Can I download the usenet photo and "see" the suspicous whitespace
> sequence?
>
> Is it really a virus?
> If not, what?
>
> donnie

Maybe it's this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitespace_(programming_language)

--
Sue

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well
dance.
Unknown

In news:qi603v9e8cta$.14bq5dnk2ocf7.dlg@40tude.net donnie
<drbudd@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> What is a "suspicious whitespace sequence" in a digital JPEG photograph?
> Can I download the usenet photo and "see" the suspicous whitespace
> sequence?

From what I've read the warning is about suspicious spaces in the filename,
not the image.

Some folks send executables with many spaces in the name, in hopes that the
".exe" extension will be missed by the downloader.

--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN bert@iphouse.com

In rec.photo.digital donnie <drbudd@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I often get the WinXP Avast verbal warning when downloading usenet photos:
> Caution: Potential Infection Was Detected: Suspicious whitespace sequence
>
> What is a "suspicious whitespace sequence" in a digital JPEG photograph?
> Can I download the usenet photo and "see" the suspicous whitespace
> sequence?
>
> Is it really a virus?
> If not, what?
>

The problem is the filename ... and that fact that Avast is very cheap.

If you really want good coverage and fast performance, consider NOD32 from
http://www.eset.com

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: D281 77A5 63EE 82C5 5E68 00E4 7868 0ADC 4EFB 39F0

Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
> In donnie wrote:
>> I often get the WinXP Avast verbal warning when downloading usenet photos:
>> Caution: Potential Infection Was Detected: Suspicious whitespace sequence
>>
....
> The problem is ...that Avast is very cheap.

Fatally flawed argument, Thomas. Apache is free as well but your
internet experience depends on it everyday. The cost of Avast is fine
and, if you look at comparative AV tests, so is its effectiveness which,
really, is what matters.

Doesn't it?
>
> If you really want good coverage and fast performance, consider NOD32 from
> http://www.eset.com/afinebut$$$ware
>

Y.a. fine option but, happily, OT for our group.

-Craig

In rec.photo.digital Craig <netburgher@removegmail.com> wrote:
> Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
>> In donnie wrote:
>>> I often get the WinXP Avast verbal warning when downloading usenet photos:
>>> Caution: Potential Infection Was Detected: Suspicious whitespace sequence
>>>
> ...
>> The problem is ...that Avast is very cheap.
>
> Fatally flawed argument, Thomas. Apache is free as well but your
> internet experience depends on it everyday. The cost of Avast is fine
> and, if you look at comparative AV tests, so is its effectiveness which,
> really, is what matters.
>

The Avast method of using filename to block viruses/worms/malware/etc is what
is fatally flawed. My comment about Avast being very cheap should be taken
contextually.

>
> Y.a. fine option but, happily, OT for our group.
>

I have chosen NOD32 because it works VERY WELL and impacts my system minimally
compared to all over antivirus/antimalware options that I have tried. I
suggest it for that reason only. It is your option to ignore my suggestion.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: D281 77A5 63EE 82C5 5E68 00E4 7868 0ADC 4EFB 39F0

Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:

> The Avast method of using filename to block viruses/worms/malware/etc is what
> is fatally flawed. My comment about Avast being very cheap should be taken

The e-mail methods of alerting can be setup by the user. So if you
don't like that you can disable it. It still uses many other methods
--
Lars-Erik - http://www.osterud.name - ICQ 7297605

In rec.photo.digital Lars-Erik ?sterud <.@.> wrote:
> Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
>
>> The Avast method of using filename to block viruses/worms/malware/etc is what
>> is fatally flawed. My comment about Avast being very cheap should be taken
>
> The e-mail methods of alerting can be setup by the user. So if you
> don't like that you can disable it. It still uses many other methods

Excellent. I had doubts that it was picking up spyware or malware with any
accuracy. Certainly, NOD32 was able to find things that Avast missed [as did
McAffee and the five minutes of Norton 360]. I do recall that everything it
found was stored in my cookies or a couple of zip files I had stored [inside
emails].

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: D281 77A5 63EE 82C5 5E68 00E4 7868 0ADC 4EFB 39F0