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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.'"
Exactly, Photoshop has made it impossible to trust anything you see. 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.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
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.
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.
... 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.
Well, and this is just me speculating here, I think the person is shot in front of a plain background for 'security' reasons; the background (the room with the bookshelf is dropped in (rather than just distributing the video with the plain background) for PR.
Having the background gives the impression of a more stable organization than a clearly handi-cammed video in front of a bedsheet would. Also, I don't know what the books are in the background, but there's probably some symbolism in them (and the cannon). It gives the thing an air of legitimacy that you just wouldn't have in front of a plain backdrop.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
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.
The authorties have been alerted that you did not indeed drink the kool-aid. America has always been at war with Saddam and Bin Laden, to suggest that they were ever our allies is unpatriotic. You must hate freedom! Now if we could just find a way to convince the Iraqis to forget that we uhm "didn't" support Saddam then maybe they would be more happy that we got rid of him for them.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
Thats right. Watch video with a stopwatch in hand. You'll see that they don't fall at 9.81 m/s^2.
If they are showing video of them in a fancy office, that implies their movement is doing well.
If in fact they are in a cave somewhere in front of a black sheet, then the message is a big fat lie.
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.
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..."
"Honestly, I find it hard to believe that these guys doctored their Videos. I could believe photos, but video? That's fairly advanced to make it look real. I'd be more inclined to believe Muslim political groups and al jazeera did the doctoring."
It's not realy all that advanced. I was doing stuff like that 5 years ago with a cheap DV camera, a computer, and a $500 copy of AfterFX. Al-Qaeda wouldn't need very significant resources or time to doctor the video in the way the article shows. And, frankly, it'd be in their best interests to do so.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure, but perhaps what the parent was talking about, included the fact that very subtle aspects of the sensors in the camera, can be correlated with the output. So just being able to flip pixels in the output isn't good enough, because if you flip them the wrong way, it becomes provable that they didn't come from the sensor in the camera.
YEs, they either got wise to it or was wise about it all along. It is hard to have the press and a secret in america.
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.
Who would be able to stop them?
A bullet? A jail term?
I fail to see the issue.
"by showing their leaders as so successful that they can sit out in the open, in a living room somewhere, and lead a normal life"
Heh. When was the last time you saw Bush out in the open, leading a normal life? Our own western leaders are cowering in their versions of hideouts and bunkers, sometimes not even from an external enemy, but from their own population. Some will end up without any ability to ever travel outside the borders of their own country, in fear of running afoul of foreign warcrimes legislation.
I enjoyed Frank Herberts idea from God Emperor of Dune, where the historical myth was that the emperor had to walk unprotected through an unchecked and unsearched crowd every year. If he survived he was a good ruler. Of course, that was faked and propaganda in the book as well, but the idea is alluring, although less useful in reality (as there unfortunately exist a whole bunch of other random reasons someone might off a person in power).
Unfortunately, we're all lead by cowardly stooges. But even in the cases where the members of warring organizations realize that, they're reluctant to do anything about it. Even US generals appear afraid of denouncing their leadership until they're retired, and they dont have more than a job on the line, so why would you expect someone likely to get executed for dissent to point out such flaws?
But these particular images appear to be doctored to enhance the message or provide a visually appealing background. They're probably doctored by the source. Therefore the doctored versions are what the original creators intended to express. So there's no reason for us to ignore these videos.
But you do need to identify the source.
I don't understand why people find it easier to believe that the all-powerful Al-Qaeda videos are doctored by Osama and his crew than the videos are made by foreign agents who are fabricating the needed vindication for the decision to go to war and justification for continuing it.
Possibly because the whole Al-Qaeda as some global terrorist conspiracy is easier for them to accept than the idea that "Western" governments might contain a sizable quantity of power mad dishonest crooks.
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.