Untraceableis a 2008 American thriller film starring Diane Lane , Colin Hanks , Billy Burke , and Joseph Cross . It was directed by Gregory Hoblit and distributed by Screen Gems . The film is a social commentary on Internetschadenfreude.

Set in Portland, Oregon , the film involves a serial killer who rigs contraptions that kill his victims based on the number of hits received by a website ("www.killwithme.com") that features a live streaming video of the victim. Millions of people log on, hastening the victims' deaths. Diane Lane plays the protagonist , a cybercop named Jennifer Marsh, who pieces the mystery together at great risk to herself and her family.

Special Agent Jennifer Marsh ( Diane Lane ) is a widowed single parent living in a suburban Portland home with her daughter, Annie Haskins ( Perla Haney-Jardine ). At night, she works in the FBI 's cybercrime division with Griffin Dowd ( Colin Hanks ), fighting identity theft and similar crimes. One night, an anonymous tip leads them to a website called KillWithMe.com. The site features a streaming video of a kitten being tortured and killed. The site cannot be shut down, as whoever created it, knew that someone would try to shut it down, and built into it a fail-safe; every time the server is closed, a mirror server comes immediately up, in its place.

After the kitten's death, KillWithMe.com's webmaster ( Joseph Cross ) "graduates" to human victims and makes their deaths correlate directly with the number of hits the site receives. At a press conference , the public is urged to avoid KillWithMe.com, but as Jennifer feared, this only increases the site's popularity . The videos are recorded in the killer's basement and his various victims include a helicopter pilot (bled to death by injections of anticoagulant ), a newscaster (burnt to death by heat lamps while cemented, up to his mid-thigh, into the floor of the basement), and Griffin Dowd (killed by slowly increasing the concentration of sulfuric acid solution in which he is submerged up to his neck).

At first it seems the victims were randomly chosen, but it is revealed to not be the case. The first two victims were chosen because they were part of filming or presenting the suicide of a junior college teacher. The teacher's unstable, techno-prodigy son, Owen Reilly, broke down and was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. When released, he decided to prove a point, that the public is insatiable for the suffering of others, as well as wreak vengeance on those he felt had exploited his father's tragedy. Griffin was killed because he came close to the truth of who the murderer was. Marsh, who figures this out, is soon targeted as well.

Captured by Owen, Jennifer escapes her death by rotary tiller by swinging out of the way while dangling from the ceiling. She ends up breaking free and pinning down the murderer, and just as the other police officers show up, Jennifer fatally shoots Owen on his own website. As the film ends, Jennifer displays her FBI badge and the scene closes with a shot of the dwindling chatter in the website's chat room , and showing statements being made in the chatroom such as "a genius died today," as well as showing some users saying that they are glad the killer is dead, and a final comment, asking whether the video could be downloaded.