Now, let's talk about image files--
so multimedia files and EXIF data.
Does your device have to have location information turned on?
So your personal device, this about this.
And you may want to think about your own device,
do you have location data enabled for pictures?
If the answer's yes, coordinates will be stored
in every picture you take.
But what if you said no, no way, Heather.
It's turned off.
If I text you pictures from my Android to your phone,
if my location services are turned on,
they will land on your device.
If you download pictures from the internet,
you could have coordinates within it.
The issue-- the tools are going to parse these.
Your tools are going to go through that EXIF
and be like, oh, there's a position.
Let me parse it and put it on the map.
Does it mean that device was there?
So if you're looking at this picture,
it looks like a stormy day on the beach.
If you need to put me on that beach and you're looking here,
and you're like, OK, this is a picture from the camera.
It looks like the user took that.
Now, this is where you have to be careful,
because when you save photos to your device,
they often go to the same place where your graphics are stored.
Look at the naming convention of it.
That's a good starting point.
We have a timestamp, 7/2/2021.
What I would do--
look for Wi-Fi and cell towers around that time.
Look for flights.
Did the person travel to this place in Florida at that time?
Did they check into a hotel?
Did they have a digital key?
This is where you have to start wrapping
your mind around the person and say, OK,
how can I put this person in a location?
Are they wearing an Android watch?
All of these things, at the end of this section,
are going to help you tie and say, that was definitely
Heather Mahalik in Sarasota, Florida on July 2
that took that picture, and this is how I know.
That is the goal.
If you're just trusting what your tool is telling you,
it is a giant nightmare.
Be very, very careful because the tool is simply
digging through this data and saying, here you go.
Here's a possible location the person was at.