What is it called when you've got this thing on your computer that takes control of your e-mail address and starts sending random messages through it, although under different aliases? 'Cause lately I've been getting these e-mails of someone's account blocking my mail, where the mail is from my address but my name is something like "Jannie Conway" and obviously I'm not the one sending these. So I figure I've either got the virus of some sort (and my virus scan doesn't know it's there), or perhaps somebody's hacked my e-mail account, in which case I should probably see what happens if I change my password.

Oh, and apparently these include attatchments of some sort, which I have a feeling I should not open. Which make me wonder if these spam-blocked e-mails are possibly spam themselves, made to make me think I've got problems.

Well there are also Spyware and Trojans which usually aren't found by Virus Scanners. Spyware search for Spybot Search and Destroy or Adaware, Trojans search for something called A2 Antitrojan.

As for the email, do you use the web to access it. If not you might want to try a different mail program or update you OS, since Outlook Express has had quite a few updates to it to fix security holes in the software. Also set in options to view all email in text only format, HTML formatted messages can sometimes be bad news if from an untrusted source.

But yes I would stay far away from the attachments.