Need some input for a story.
Character receives picture by email from unknown sender and what's to track them down.
Outside of contacting the police, what are their options?
That's "what's to track" should be "wants* to track"
exif data
>>7847728
Reverse Google image search.
Other than that, it depends of what's in the picture.
>>7847728
you could have them googling how to trace an email and following whatever steps come up
>>7847728
I feel like it's not a great premise, because I wouldn't open any file I didn't know the sender of, afraid it would be malware or something
>>7847841
lol 10/10 answer
>>7847841
Maybe the character lots onto a Mongolian stamp collecting forum and starts a thread about the best way to track an image, guising his inquiry as research into a character in the story he's writing.
>>7847841
thats a pretty good thing you could make your character do.
BUT
since your character is most likely a better version of yourself, you could also write that he makes a thread on /lit instead of using google (because your character is stupid) and then some wannabe patrician assholes give smug answers.
>>7848302
kek
>the premise wasn't given
>didn't say they received a file
>I wasn't specific enough
I won't give more details than what I deem necessary. The point is that the picture matters to the character, but contacting the police is out of the question. Finding the sender is also important. They send an image embedded, not anything you need to download.
>>7849007
If the image is a photo it can still be saved and then the exif data examined to show the camera type, the date, time and even location if the camera has GPS (most don't), depends on time period
When you send an email there's usually information in the headers that includes things like the IP address of the sender. There are online services that search for other images made by the same device using exif data. It's also theoretically possible to do this without exif data - every device has minute unique flaws in the lens that can be used to identify them. He could also contact the email's host (example: hotmail.com) and try to persuade them to hand over the details of the sender, if the email is abusive. If the host isn't a commercial one and he suspects it's owned by the seller, he can try to run a geofag/whois on the site's host and whoever has the rights to the URL. He could DDOS the site and run an internet-wide scan to identify which otherwise hidden server is slowing down minutely and find it that way. None of these things are science fiction, but they can all be subverted if the sender is smart.
It depends how knowledgeable about tech your character is, and given that you don't seem to have the first idea about any of this, I don't think you should write a main character who's knowledgeable about tech. Have him hire a PI; they will know about these techniques and have access to police/government tools that let them try them out.
Watch a bunch of Hope X videos on youtube. This one's a classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNZrq2iK87k
