Technology Guru Help Needed

Was this email sent by someone who you think knows you, or was it just random junk? It is very, very common for viruses to infect someone's computer and then go through that person's email address book sending messages from one person in the book to another. What the virus is trying to do is to get you to open an attachment that will put the virus on your computer because you trust the sender, and thereby spread the virus to another computer.

If that's the case then tracking down the computer that sent the email doesn't do you any good, because all you'll find out is which of your friends has a virus-infected computer.

The person with a virus could be you. It's always a good idea to have anti-virus software on your computer and make sure it's up to date.

However, if someone is really pretending to be you it's a slightly different story, but I'm not sure the outcome is going to be much different. Yes, it is theoretically possible to find out what computer a message originated on. But doing so requires the cooperation of your and their Internet service providers, and they won't cooperate without a court order.  And unless the person was dumb as dirt they probably sent the message from a public hotspot in a library or coffee shop and the trail goes cold there.

Caller ID spoofing is completely separate from email spoofing. You can sign up for it over the Internet, it's very easy.  To get anywhere digging into it you would probably have to supoena the phone company, which means you would have to show that laws had been broken or you had been harmed. Caller ID spoofing by itself is perfectly legal. The actual service is offered by marginal phone providers. After supoenaing a chain of phone companies you might very well find the company at the end of the chain keeps no records and can't help you. 

PM me if you want to discuss further.