Not sure exactly, but if cops (let's just call them that for simplicity) are going to have to work with an ex-con, especially one who is recently out of jail and on parole, there's going to be at least one of them who is unhappy about it, thinks it's a bad idea, and just flat out doesn't trust the hacker. That's the "antagonist government agent". There should also be a "sympathetic government agent" who thinks that the hacker is the best hope they have of catching the bad guys. This is good for dramatic tension, but also very realistic IMHO. Lose the antagonist and there's no point in making the hacker an ex-con, lose the sympathetic one and he never gets picked to do the job.
Well the thing is, is that the hacker is a minor character. He's really there to get the plot from point A to point B, and the story is so busy with the MC, and the antagonists, that I do not know how much time I should devote to how other police feel about working with the hacker. Especially when those other police are also not as main of characters compared to the two main cop characters, who are so busy with the antagonists, that they do not spend a lot of time with the hacker, and just rely on him when they need to. Is that a bad approach, or should I devote time to how these less major characters feel about each other, especially when the story concentrates on other themes?
This is the way to go. I've got an idea you could use, Ryan. Let's say the HD camera has some tiny smudges on its lense. They are barely noticeable, but when you freeze the image and zoom in, you can see them. There are many of them, and they appear on every recording. Your bad guys has bought the camera second hand. The previous owner of the camera has posted many family videos on his blog. Your ex-con knows that if he'd get a supercomputer to analyze every video posted on every blog in the area, he might get a match. He meets resistance, nobody believes it'll work, but in the end he gets his will, they find the seller of the second hand camera, and the seller lets the police know who bought it. A fellow student of a friend of mine is actually writing his thesis on exactly this method, but he's analyzing photos instead of videos, which is a lot less demanding. It's mainly for catching people who take pictures they shouldn't have.
There's no such thing as untraceable on the web. Everything can be traced back to it's source, it just depends on the people looking for it to find the clues.
There was an instance where kidnappers were captured due to a tech blowing up the reflection in the kidnapper's eyes during the video. The cameraman wasn't wearing a mask and was identified. You should watch the show from USA called Mr. Robot. It focuses on an engineer tech, at a cyber-security company, who's a hacker as well. 1st off there is no such thing as being "completely" untraceable. It could take minutes, hours, days, months, or even years. The best that can be done is making it so unrealistic that the attempt isn't even being made. An example would be a combination lock. A number lock with options of 0 - 9 and 4 entries would total 10,000 possible combinations. A number lock with options of 0 - 9 and 8 entries would total 100,000,000 possible combinations. A password with letters and numbers (not even symbols) with 8 words/numbers in it would be 36 ^ 8. There's a simple formula for figuring out how many combinations is possible. The amount of possible choices ^ the amount used. That's why it's almost impossible to hack a REAL password with capital letters, symbols, and numbers which are mixed appropriately. I may be off by a few, but a suggested password possible outcomes would be 93 possible choices. That's including symbols, capitalization, & numbers. So even if you only have 5 (suggested of 8 characters minimum) it's 6,956,883,693 possible outcomes. Now the way hacking works is that they use so many different possibilities that it becomes pointless to try or even use a computer to run through it. You could bog down even the best of supercomputers for YEARS with a simple command. What is googol ^ googol ^ googol ^ googol ^ googol? There's numerous amount of ways to make a website "virtually" untraceable. If you don't have experience or knowledge in this subject you should probably just stick clear of it in general. Ex: FBI agent rubs his hands against his forehead in frustration. "It's pointless, he's virtually untraceable, it would take us months to unravel all this. It'll be too late by then." Then have them caught by a human error or person. Phone call, identified in person, etc. Maybe they're transporting the victim and come across a road stop for something completely different.
Okay thanks, I can do that. I don't have to use the untraceable website idea necessarily. Mainly the villains, want to make their kidnap and ransom videos accessible to public viewing, without getting caught, so the can create a media and public frenzy about it as well. But is there a way to broadcast such videos of felonies to the public without an untraceable website? One person recommended to me that they use youtube, but wouldn't youtube censor such brutal real violent content, where they have to harm hostages, since demands are not being met?
Hey they only get taken down after someone complains or one of their admins finds the website. however Facebook, twitter have live stream now which is impossible to censor. Recently someone used twitters live stream (periscope) to live stream a rape. Also the other night a lunatic killed a police officer and his wife and I am sure he live streamed that as well, ill find the article later if you don't know what I am referring to.
Okay thanks. But facebook and twitter would still cooperate with the police though, in finding out where the uploaded video came from, right? Wouldn't it be more difficult for the villains' to hide where the videos came from on twitter and facebook, as oppose using their own website, which they could control, which would not cooperate with the police in comparison?
pretty much everything is traceable for example tor proxies which hide ip addresses are traced by the exit nodes but a lot of things are traced by going to the proxy owner and getting them to give up the log files thats normally how law enforcement will find someone. another way is if its a hacker hacking from home you can trace the phone line to get them =]
Okay thanks. Well I could write it so that either the police trace the videos, or they end up catching the kidnappers by different means. I find a lot of whether or not, they could catch them by hacking and tracing is kind of contradictory, since I have many different answers. I could write it so that the police catch them by tracing and get into technical detail. Or I could just write it so a lot of the technical detail is skipped over, and the police catch them different ways since I do not know all the variables. What do you think?
Unless your specifically writing a computer hacking story, I think it would be best to keep it simple and catch them by other means. Think of the scene is Sneakers where Robert Redford's character gets declared an "honorary blind man" because he was able to help his friends piece together a location that he'd been taken to, blindfolded, by means of telling the real blind man the sounds he'd heard on the way.
Well I could write it so that the cops concentrate on other leads instead of the hacking. That's how I wrote it before. But a couple of readers had a problem with it saying they didn't understand why the police seem to concentrate on other leads and disregard the hacking, putting in the background as a priority, when it should be higher. They said I should have a better explanation as to why they cannot trace it if that's the case.
