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Forensic Analysis Reveals Al-Qaeda's Image Doctoring
WerewolfOfVulcan writes "Wired reports that researcher Neal Krawetz revealed some very interesting things about the Al-Qaeda images broadcast in the mass media. Analysis shows that they're heavily manipulated, a discussion meant to illustrate a new technique that can spot forgery in digital media. 'Krawetz was ... able to determine that the writing on the banner behind al-Zawahiri's head was added to the image afterward. In the second picture above showing the results of the error level analysis, the light clusters on the image indicate areas of the image that were added or changed. The subtitles and logos in the upper right and lower left corners ... were all added at the same time, while the banner writing was added at a different time, likely around the same time that al-Zawahiri was added, Krawetz says.'"
at least there is someone else as bad as me at Photoshop!
I can tell from some of the pixels and having seen quite a few shops in my time.
-==-
Evil Bert had to be photoshopped OUT of the various Al Quaeda videos 'cause he kept jumping into the frame and mugging for the camera
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_is_Evil
I already hold an FFL (Federal Firearms License), but I don't look forward to applying for an FPL (Federal Photoshop License).
I think it has been pretty well documented in the blogging community that many of the images that the main stream media picks up and propogates are heavily altered, faked, or come from completely different events than what they claim to depict. This is not just with al-quaeda, but governments and any group that has an agenda and is media savvy - foreign or domestic.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
There was a report several years ago that the US had used the rock outcroppings behind Osama in one of his videos to attempt to locate him. I wonder if some of these modifications are made to make locating them more difficult?
Throw the bums out!
Best fun ever is to paste a URL to a photo among a whole load of self-professed photoshop experts, and get them to identify which bit has been changed.
Hours of fun.
Dustin Hoffman unavailable for comments...
In some states, digital images are not allowed in a court of law as evidence. And many critics of the news media and digital photography in general are against digital because of the ease of altering images compared to wet (analog) photography. Hopefully, software like this will make digital a bit more acceptable. The only thing I'm a little worried about is how accurate it is.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
who do you think has been using Photoshop? The US Gov has given so many lies and cover-ups over this damn war on terror, I would not be surprised if all lies started with image and video editing.
The logical fallacy is "Al qaeda edited these videos" ... perhaps it should be stated as "Al qaeda videos have been edited" ... you have no idea WHO actually edited them.
Not that I'm pointing fingers or anything. ahem (wag the dog)
meh
Seriously...wtf? Both are so badly done it's laughable. Hell the first image had it's background done in some 3D application. I almost shit myself laughing at the canon & light behind him. On the second one the guy isn't even lighted even close to the same as the backdrop. I highly doubt they are trying to fool anyone (use the background to figure out where they are otherwise) because if they are I've done better in my High School AV class on an AVID so many years ago.
I don't want to read subs, can't we just dub it like in Germany/France/Italy/Spain or better yet, do a classic Hollywood remake?
So if it's comparing the compression used to the Exif data, couldn't one use a tool to wipe out the Exif data, thus obscuring the manipulation? Error level analysis seems more art than science, at least from the corrections in TFA.
A Human Right
I always wondered why there wasn't some video showing Bin Laden (and all of the big shots with Al Qaeda) eating bacon while jerking off to Barbie Dolls and getting it up the ass.
I guarantee you it's out there.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The tricky part is knowing if it's been doctored.
/.ism: In Soviet Russia, propaganda pictures manipulate YOU!
:(.
OB
Oh wait, that was the whole point
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Who needs Al-Qaeda when we already have Reuters and the New York Times??
So this program does what now? If I look at the images in the article, I'd interpret them as showing the dude's *beard* was added afterwards. That's some serious pixar-render-farm shit that I doubt they're doing in a cave in Pakistan.
circa75.com
Are we supposed to be shocked? The less 'real' information that is in the video, the less 'real' information that we can gather about them. Because now we're having to figure out which information is real and which information is fake. What about when the fake information isn't caught, and then taken as being real? We go on a wild goose chase wasting time and resources while they laugh at us. If they could CGI the whole thing and air it and it look realistic, they'd do it in a second. Next thing you know the CIA is looking for an imaginary mountain that only exists in the land of make believe.
It is the entire goal of the terrorists to wear us down to the point where we can no longer maintain ourselves. That's all this game is about now. Just like how communism was defeated in the 80s. We wore down their resources till they couldn't keep up. They are using cheap and easy methods of doing things that costs us ALOT more money just to stay 1/2 a step ahead. Because we are a country and are bound by the ethics of war and Geneva conventions, we are totally screwed. The terrorists are an invisible enemy where they aren't accountable by any ethics. Can you really hold an invisible person accountable for their actions?
Until the terrorists screw up BIGTIME(ie, nuclear bomb or VERY SIGNIFICANT DISASTER) this is gonna keep going. If the terrorists dropped a nuclear bomb or even a dirty bomb, the world would begin to unite against them alot more. At least, if the elected officials wanted to stay in office they'd have to take a proactive stance against this 'force' that just used a nuclear weapon. The public outcry from it alone would force this effect out of many countries.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
"There was a report several years ago that the US had used the rock outcroppings behind Osama in one of his videos to attempt to locate him. I wonder if some of these modifications are made to make locating them more difficult?"
He could have been taken when the CIA met with Bin Landin at the American Hospital two months before 9/11 or when the FBI met with Bin Landin in California in 1986.
was: Re:Done for their safety?
davecb5620@gmail.com
http://img39.picoodle.com/img/img39/9/7/31/f_Bergm annsevm_236763e.png
After reading TFA I didn't see any mention of any steganographic analysis. To me, that's the juicy stuff. This may be off topic, but, has anyone (publically) been doing stego analysis on these videos?
So he doesn't have those subtitles in real life? Crap, that means the whole strategy to finding him will have to be changed once again!
... that this "global terrorist organisation" that George Bush and Tony Blair have imagined after watching too many James Bond movies is nothing more than a loosely connected rabble of disaffected extremists who've picked a brand name to make themselves seem bigger and more scary?
Far from some Spielberg-like ILM production house operating in Dr. Evil's secret volcano (see, err, heck I've forgotten which Bond movie, the one with Little Nellie), actually the videos are knocked up by a couple of spotty radicalised teenagers in the backroom of an internet cafe in downtown Kabul. Who in return get to hang out with a bunch of extremists who tell them they are doing vital work, that Western civilisation is about to crumble into the sea as a result, let them fire off a few rounds from a couple of AK47s in the hills and tell them that they are part of the gang now. We just put up with London Underground taking the litter bins out and asking us to take our rubbish home with us.
Forgive the cynicism but after the British authorities declared the country I'm in (the UK) to be on it's "most critical" alert status after a couple of idiots drove a flaming vehicle into a pillar in Glasgow airport, staggered out on fire and promptly got punched out by passers by and off duty coppers, the level of hype is starting to get wearing. We've just finished with 40 years of the IRA blowing up chunks of our country and killing rather a lot of people and nobody felt the need to issue "most critical" warnings then.
Do you feel safer since the war on terror? No? Well, neither did I, especially after discovering that that justified killing an innocent person on the tube. Neither did I when I started reading through, for instance, the RIP Act. Nor was I impressed with the arguments behind the ID card scam, sorry, scheme.
And having cameras follow you everywhere so some technical leech can tap into that and monitor any citizen isn't healthy either because it has been proven by a Dutch Uni survey that such a camera does NOT reduce the crime rate and only marginally the % of cases solved.
But none of the above would have had a chance if the Sun faithful weren't kept scared of their own shadow..
Yeah, I'm cynical. I didn't stop thinking, which is probably by now a criminal offense in itself..
During a video with Adam Gadahn I almost bust a gut laughing as a Microsoft Outlook email notification box popped up in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. I mean come on guys, you expect me to take you seriously but you use Outlook? Down with America, but we love the products their mega-corporations produce!
Monstar L
But if you can't trust the terrorists, then who can you trust?
Do you get out much? You sound like a nutcase conspiracy theorist who hasn't left his house in years.
While it is true that Al-Qaeda was originally a US invention with little base in reality, many organizations has since adapted the name and the cause, creating a real version of the US invented nightmare. Bin Laden may not have anything to do with these organizations, and the organizations nothing to do with each other, but it is a global movement and cause now.
My thoughts exactly. You can see around the guys turban in the first picture that it looks like a blue-screen equivalent.
Having said that, it did still supposedly pick up on the fact that the text had been added after the banner. So even if the banner was created in a 3D app then the tool can (assuming it is correct) identify what was added later/with different compression ratios.
Osama is actually a grey. On his planet they crash planes into buildings for fun he was just having a party and things got out of hand.
Added Pressly: "Oh, and by the way, milk is nothing but liquid meat."
Unfortunately, this technique only works if the "original" image edited was formed using a lossy image compression algorithm. Although it works for most casual cases of manipulation, people who are really quite clever can circumvent the analysis.
It becomes a little easier if the people who are editing the photographs are the ones that are taking them also - shooting base material in a lossless compression algorithm like RAW or TIF.
My personal opinion is that this is a good "quick and dirty" test for image manipulation, but should not be used as a certification for un-retouched images.
Yep, he really does look 14/f in that picture. I'm sure it's not fake.
technical writing / development
Now before you tinfoil hat rejected-debunker-super-sleuths-know-it-all-yuppie -hipster-techno types say one goddamn thing, read the article.3 0807_reverses_stance.htm
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2007/0
Bin Laden is hiding at the same sound studio where they filmed the Apollo Moon Landings!
Cue the Alex Jones crowd in 5... 4... 3...
You are attempting to read sigs. Cancel or Allow?
I bet he would need 10 years to investigate all the tampering they have done in the last 6 months to "news" images.
Well, I'd guess there's also a bit of a case of Hanlon's Razor: "Don't attribute to malice, that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
There was this whine a long time ago on The Register, by an (ex) professional media photograph. Apparently his job was about to go the way of the dodo, because more and more newspapers were trying to cut costs by just buying images for almost nothing from either amateurs on the web, or from agencies selling thousands of photos for pennies. (And don't think those send photographers all over the globe to take photos after each and every event, because that would cost a lot more.)
In other words: it's becoming little more than clip art. If you're writing an article about Baghdad, you find the cheapest picture claiming to be from Baghdad, and put it on the page. If you're writing about Al Qaeda, you do the same with a pic claiming to have anything to do with Al Qaeda. Etc.
'Course, especially with pictures selected off Photocommunity and the like, for a couple of bucks, you never know what you're _really_ getting. It could be that someone photographed the demolition of an old mall in Elbonia and is hawking it as the aftermath of the tsunami in East Bumfuckistan. How would you know? (And probably a better question is: would they even care, if they knew?)
Briefly, it doesn't have to be manipulation. Or if it is, it doesn't have to be by the newspaper. If a joker posted that image as proof of his l33t photoshop skills, or if such a photos-by-the-dozen agency took a shortcut and photoshopped a photo just so they could sell something about an event... well, chances are the newspaper staff wouldn't even know.
I guess it's just what this general craze to reduce costs leads to. A lot of time the obvious way to reduce costs is to reduce quality. In this case, also add total lack of quality control, since they don't actually have someone there who could check if things are like in the photo. You can expect a lot of junk to go through undetected.
And, btw, if you thought only the photos were fake, you'd be surprised how many of the _articles_ are bogus stuff written by a PR agency and disguised as news.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
What is the feasibility of an encryption partnership between camera, flash memory and photo-editing companies?
The basic idea would be to provide public-key encryption imbedded in the original image. Photos submitted for publication could then provide the original encryption key from either the camera or memory to verify authenticity. Altered photos would no longer match the encryption key.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
These weren't still images... the "images" in question were videos.
I don't think the CIA would have to be psychic to know what was about to go down. Google "Tim Osman" if you want to learn more about bin Laden's CIA-linked activities.
Electric Monkey Pants
Dude, that was dumb. What the hell are you talking about?
I love it when the propoganda video is broadcast and the guy speaking talks about something that happened three to six months ago. The news cite these bits as proof that it is recent video. Seriously, my local news channel can take live video; add all the fancy graphics and send it out to the world in real time. Of course they are using this medium to transmit covert messages to operatives globally. It's more effective than buying a classified in the Washington Post.
Al-Qaeda lies. Wow, that's news.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
And you sound like a typical ad-hominem slinging ignoramus.
I suggest you check out the BBC's excellent "The Power of Nightmares", which "argues that the threat of radical Islamism as a massive, sinister organised force of destruction, specifically in the form of al-Qaeda, is in fact a myth perpetrated by politicians in many countries -- and particularly American Neo-Conservatives -- in an attempt to unite and inspire their people following the failure of earlier, more utopian ideologies."
Google Video: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
Here is a summary of the film's main arguments.
Created so that you hate Emmanuel Goldstein.
,your bridges collapse under your feet and your cities drown - and your phone is tapped.
They are the product of western "intelligence agencies" - which invented Al-CIAda for their own purposes, out of their own semi-retired ant-soviet "assets" in the late 90's.
War on terror? Keep on paying for that war against yourself! Meanwhile
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Now that Al-Qaeda knows photoshop, does this mean instead of doctored pictures of topless celebs going around the internet that we are now going to be seeing doctored photos of celebs completely covered?
I respect your assertion but I'd ask for facts as to the statement. Who knows this to be the case? I'm asking for
REAL documented facts here and I'm not being a "slashdotter" on this. From all I've seen it would be hard
to even prove that "Al-Qaeda" is even a real movement at all. There does exist a huge resentment for
U.S. foreign policy among the Middle East crowd, but who could blame them at this point? Hell
the U.S. still can't back up that 9-11 was done by the so called hijackers. Stolen passports, dancing
Israeli's filming it. The whole thing and cause for these wars is suspect.
While you start with a reasonably insightful comment that's been true for decades, it's the second and third paragraphs that are very disturbing.
It is the entire goal of the terrorists...
Without straying too much off topic, you have clearly been drinking too much of the U.S. Government's punch. The U.S. Government historically doctors/spins media to meet their end goal. Every government does.
I urge you to examine the historical foreign policy record on the issue. It is hard to avoid coming up with a non-specific conclusion where this is a consequence of decades of U.S. foreign policy.
It's a hell of a lot less spooky and evil than you and the unfortunate individuals modding you insightful have been lead to believe.
Got Trader Joe's? friendwich.com RSS feeds work now!
Parent of this post has it exactly right: this "forensic analysis" is bull.
The article's pretty clear on what the "analysis" does: it adds a little bit of noise ("static") to a JPEG, re-compresses it, then takes the difference between the original photo and the noisy version. JPEG tends to smooth out slight variations in large blocks of color and concentrate on accurately representing sharp edges and transitions, so the largest differences will be in high-contrast "edgy" areas: text, bookshelves, beards, and the edges of tables, lampshades, etc.
And you see that, manipulation or no, that's exactly what the analysis technique is picking up. The "researcher" has gone a long way to invent the high-pass filter. Congratulations.
Al-Qaeda has Weapons of Mass Media!
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
But after conducting his error analysis Krawetz was able to determine that al-Zawahiri's image was superimposed in front of the background -- and was most likely videotaped in front of a black sheet."
I could tell this just by looking at it; who couldn't?
After weeks of analysis and consulting with experts I've found that all images of Osama bin Laden have been digitally altered to hide his identity. Here is what he really looks like.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
How the heck does this important revelation improve the chances of catching any of these guys? So what if they use photo editing software to add captions before they release their videos/photos. Will it make it easier to capture them knowing that they edit their messages before sending them off to Al Jazeera?
Seems to me that some tax money was completely wasted analyzing these videos/images. Doesn't surprise me, though.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
LOLJIHADIS?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
... they lifted his image from video of his stint guest hosting The View.
Have gnu, will travel.
It won't work. If just having the means to prove something were actually enough to convince the faithful... well, how do you explain the southern USA?
It's not just a jab at the fine bible-thumping guys and gals down there, though. It happens the same everywhere. Europe had its own counter-enlightenment movement, waaaay back. As in, a couple of centuries back. That's really what happens when you assault someone's beliefs hard enough: he'll just switch to block-head mode.
If it's truly a believer you don't just have to push hard enough until his defenses crumble and he goes, "omg, I've been blind for so long, I've seen the light now." It's more like the Dune shields: the harder you push, the more resistance you get. And if you're doing an all out fast assault, expect to meet a (mental) immovable wall. And more than a good dose of hostility. It'll get nowhere.
You have to go slowly and nicely if you want to get anywhere.
(The same applies to culture, to some extent, btw. If you try to change a culture at gun point, expect a lot of resistance, and when it changes it will be in the direction you don't expect. It's a bit like trying to twist a gyroscope.)
Plus, humans generally can act... well, like small children. If they like you, they'll believe every word you say, and if they dislike you, they'll try to spite you and contradict you.
The rise of fundamentalist islamism can be traced mostly to the above two factors. The middle east has been shafted _hard_ by the western powers and partially by Israel. So a lot of people rallied around those waving a "fuck the West!" banner. Add to that a lot of (perceived) sneering and outright hostility to their religion, and they'll just rally harder to defend it.
It's just human nature, and the west did the same in similar situations.
And the lack of dialog sure doesn't help either. Each time someone there actually tries to say what _is_ their problem, the west goes "la la la, I'm not hearing anything" or "they're probably rambling about their false god or something." It's the perfect recipe to keep the hostility going.
At any rate, IMHO just adding more force to that already disastrous recipe won't do any good. You may think that just giving them more proof that you're right and they're wrong is just what's needed to finally make their mental defenses crumble, but see what I've said before: it's IMHO already at the point where increasing the pressure just increases the resistance.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Edit the vid, then record it again to eliminate the doctoring "footprints"?
I just got a new batch of real amateur porn. I really want to check this pics and my entire collection for fakes but I don't want to ruin the thrill.
I am typing this with one hand. Sorry for any typos
This sounds too cool to be true. I'd love to test this program for myself but unfortunately my compile-foo is very weak. Since the source code for the program is attached to the article can anyone post a short how-to to compile a working example of this program?
Read the description of how the "error rate" was measured. It's bullshit.
Most people think of the propaganda aspects of altered photographs first. It goes show what we are worried the most about in this country, an army of mindless angry sheeple marching full speed in the wrong direction. We are actually projecting our fears about ourselves onto them. People intuitively know that even a well coordinated Al-Qaeda is a minor threat compared to the damage angry/scared/misguided US voters can do.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
Perhaps Al Quaeda actually wanted to achieve the look of the Kane FMV sequences in Command & Conquer.
It doesn't even take aviation fuel to soften/melt steel: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/ 04/29/BAGVOPHQU46.DTL
Apparently this guy doesn't understand how DCT compression works. Or he's hoping that no one else does, and that they'll think he's a genius.
Not only is what he proposes to do impossible (unless he has access to the uncompressed video master, he cannot distinguish source quantization from final video quantization), but what his "custom software" is doing is simply increasing the brightness in areas with high DCT coefficients for high frequencies (which happen wherever there is high contrast, fine detail or pixel noise).
In other words, he's basically written an "edge detect" filter that operates on the DCT tables. It's what compression experts describe as "DUH!"
As someone wrote as a comment on the blog, "al-Zawahiri's beard also shows up as "altered". Perhaps secret messages of terror are secluded within the beard. Pogonophobes everywhere should remain vigilant!"
BTW, the first image in this article is a chroma-key. You don't need any "custom software" to figure that out; just look at the blue spill on his beard. The entire background is fake. It was probably taped in some cave, with a blue background, and then they decided to put him in a "library" to make him look more intellectual. They used a cheap chroma filter, so there's no spill removal.
The fact that the "custom software" shows only the high-detail parts of the background as "altered" proves that it is nothing but a high-DCT-frequency detector.
don't you think if they were really CGI'ing in the background they would have CGI'd the oval office in by now? I mean come on, the current administration would spend weeks trying to find them in the whitehouse.
Neal Krawetz may know about image compression, but clearly doesn't know much about shooting video. "most likely videotaped in front of a black sheet"? No way.
When you shoot chroma key pieces like this video, the video editing software (Avid, Final Cut, whatever) wants to distinguish your blank background from your foreground, so you use a colour that doesn't appear in your forgeground -- usually intense chroma key blue or green, given think most foregrounds include pinkish faces. A black sheet would be a complete non-starter, especially for a guy wearing so much black.
Once you have done the cutout, decent software will turn any remaining fringes of blue or green into black (or whetever colour you like) so the final result is more pleasing. Look at the very top of Al-Z's turban, and you can see a classic fringe line -- that would have been blue or green before, but the software has made it black. I suggest Mr. Krawetz visit any normal post-production house for a thirty minute intro to shooting chroma key before making more statements of this kind.
(BTW, interesting though the image compression stuff is, it's not necessary with the al-Zawahiri video -- at a glance, this video has obviously been shot against blue screen or green screen. You can see that the perspective on the background (camera tilted down slightly) is different from that on al-Z (camera tilted up slightly); also Al-z is ever so slightly soft, while the background is completely crisp.)
If the title was "Forensic Analysis Reveals Al-Qaeda's use of bluescreen to composite video", it wouldn't be quite so shocking. I thought we were going to see fake photo's of george bush eating children or something. I mean, wow, Al Qaeda has access to a laptop with Adobe Premier.
Video is still kind of difficult to alter like these photos were, but it's certainly possible for someone with the resources of a government of international organization behind them.
Although I totally agree with you, I must point out government-level resources are not required to reasonably fake video. Remember the movie Kung Pow? Amazing work done in that film placing modern actors in an old kung-fu flick. The budget was only around $10 million USD, and that was for a complete movie. Imagine how little it would cost to get the same effects for a clip only a few minutes long? A professional studio is all you need to make something convincing enough to fool anyone other than video experts, probably any news studio could do it. Scary, really.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Mod Parent Up, this is true. You really CAN'T trust any imagery or audio or any other information these days. The fact that we base nearly all of our judgements on foreign policy on the NEWS reports, and given the fact that it's so easy to manufacture information, it is an absolute FACT that it is POSSIBLE our entire lives are a fragile but very real illusion perpetuated by another party. Humans are experts at spinning facts, and politicians are literally raised FROM BIRTH to do it. Why wouldn't they spin this? Duh.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
If you watch the news you will see presenters, reporters and guests 'cut and pasted' against a backdrop such as the city skyline or the newsroom. This is not a new technique, it is a craft that has been attempted in every television studio, usually to get best results on those occasions when the people in front of the camera are not wearing whatever colour the back-drop is. Blue works best for skin tones, however green is a common choice as this does not conflict with jeans, blue shirts and other commonly worn items. Sometimes excess light can be picked up by other colours to make them blue/green, i.e. to be 'keyed out'. Normally a blue-screen engineer will work with the lighting 'spark' to get best results. The person presented as 'Mr Al-Q*eda' is wearing clothes that are easy to key, and with the camera correctly 'racked' there need not be any colour cast, and with a good engineer the 'fine hair detail' can be kept in, making the end results natural in appearance.
Regarding the back-ground, this always has to be a forgery of sorts. Small artistic decisions are needed to frame the subject. Skyline landmarks can be re-jigged to fit the frame and not conflict with the foreground. Because there is a foreground, i.e. the 'talent', interviewee or supposed propagandist, it is not necessary to have a complete background - why paint the floor if it is not going to be seen?
If the blue-screen route has been taken, then why spend too much time on a 'real' background? If you had to include ornate script in the background, would you paint it for real or just tweak a stolen image in Photoshop?
The point is that this promotional material for 'al-qaeda-ology' is no different to mainstream news in that the foreground is pasted against a background - standard production techniques.
Personally I don't find the photoshop quantisation error stuff particularly convincing. I have my own eyes and I can see the studio lights glaring on the forehead of the subject. These would have been necessary to light the subject if using Bluescreen, potentially using up to 10K watts of tungsten power, if properly key-lighting, back-lighting and fill-lighting the subject. With 'pretty' subjects a make-up artist can apply powder to control the shine of the hot lights on the forehead. The subject could have been shot against black, but he is wearing black, so blue/green would be easier, and likely to produce quicker results.
What happens to all of this light? We can all remember physics and how 'light gets darker' the further away you are from it. In the background scene there appears to be a desk, however not very much light has fallen on it. It is lit differently to the foreground, and therefore could not have been in the same space at the same time. Of course this could have been an al-qaeda ruse, maybe they wanted to out-wit the intelligence experts by using a telephoto lens and an odd angle on the subject that somehow keeps the backdrop verticals exactly parallel (not diverging).
The logo in the corner could have been forged by 'al-qaeda' however they could have also used standard production techniques. The 'bug' has an alpha channel and simply gets 'keyed' over, normally by a dedicated box, or just with an extra layer with 'Avid' editing tools.
If the person that spent so much time and effort on this study with normal news footage studio shots then something might be learned - the pictures are regular TV. As it is there is no 'control' presented and only guesses can be hazarded as to what is supposed to be 'proved'.
There you have it - almost. The noise levels of the image components will be different in composited images. The background is a computer manipulated still image (or stream of moving images). This might have no noise if it is crudely rendered in CG or altered significantly in Photoshop. Meanwhile, the foreground - from a normal studio camera - will have artifacts of noise introduced by the CCD and any tape medium used to store the pictures until the editing suite is reached. If using an analog studio - as is common -
And video is composed of a sequence of...?
Why bother.
One more reason to use and support F/OSS. Doctoring photographs is so much more difficult with The GIMP.
You claimed progressive collapse would take 46 seconds. How do you defend that stupid claim?
For all we know, Al-Qaeda doesn't even exist, and the US government has filmed a bunch of gumbies in front of a green screen to put out the new terror video to remind you that you're supposed to be scared, and that the next new law that takes away your freedoms is really needed...
Please... given the possible motives behind 9/11, the amount of dodgy claims that defy the laws of physics, etc... I'd be taking any news about terrorism fed to you with a big serving of salt.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
It still amazes me that Slashdotters in general still seem to support the "official 9/11 story".
WTC7 fell straight down with remarkable symmetry at near free fall speeds. This is completely consistent with a controlled demolition hypothesis, and completely inconsistent with asymmetric fire and debris damage.
Anyone who can't admit that after reviewing the observational evidence is an idiot, or in a state of psychological denial.
I think it's clear he has - at a minimum - "left the reservation", don't you think?
Look, I see the CIA link and yes, it appears to be true. So be it. The CIA funds all kinds of bad people at various times. Always has, always will. But, if you are suggesting that the CIA is still actively encouraging Bin Laden and his ilk, then I think you are a nut.
Is that what you are suggesting? If so, it really doesn't pass the smell test and probably falls in the "kooky conspiracy" category. But if not, then my apologies. I jumped the gun. Please explain.
So, this implies one could determine the SOURCE of any digital picture (taken by a camera) in the world. Even when recompressed with JPG?
That is incredible. Why isn't THAT the story here.
Ok, I can see some of you are missing it. Put this ability together with our old story about printers and all of a sudden, one more tactic to anonymously publish is gone. This cuts both ways.
I are serious Islamic fundamentalist. This is serious thread.
We r plotting to take back mah bukket.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
I guess we do have 4chan to take it's place...
How the fuck did this blatant troll get modded +5 Insightful?
Why dont you come on down south and I`ll show you "block-head mode".
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Not that I'm pointing fingers or anything. ahem (wag the dog) OMG!!! You found the evil conspiracy! Before Al-Jazera gets their hands on the latest juicy tidbits from Al-Qaeda, the CIA magically teleports away the video and edits them. They don't edit the speech... oh no... the CIA is far too shifty for that. They edit the background and then pass it on to Al-Jazera without ANYONE EVER KNOWING. Why you ask??!?!?!?! Because you can't hide the 9/11 truth!!!1!!!!
Either that, or Al-qaeda really does edit their own videos so that a US analyst doesn't see something in the background and decide to see what a few thousand pound bombs or a few army rangers can do to the place. Seeing as how these are propaganda videos that are not exactly going out to the most technologically discriminating of audiences, sprucing up the scene a little and putting it in a location more exciting than a dank basement is not a bad idea. If some world government comes out and points out that it has been doctored, it isn't like the people watching it are going to believe them or care.
I know screaming OMG conspiracy scores karma points on Slashdot, but could we at least mull over the inane conspiracy theories just a little bit before posting them? I am not saying that your conspiracy theory has to be true, but maybe it should at least make a small scrap of sense.
There is absolutely nothing in your WTC7 explanation (or FEMA's, or NIST's, or Pop Mech's "Debunking" crap), that can even begin to explain the SYMMETRY, or CONSTANT ACCELERATION (PDF, 5 pages) observed in WTC7's collapse.
ASYMMETRIC fire and structural damage is completely inconsistent with a SYMMETRIC collapse.
It is however, 100% consistent with a controlled demolition hypothesis, as is the observed constant vertical acceleration.
The number of industry experts willing to go on the record that the official 9/11 story is not scientifically sound grows daily.
Recommended reading: Debunking 9/11 Debunking. Pop Mech's "Debunking 9/11 Myths" is a children's book by comparison.