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.'"

Comments

Done for their safety?

[jsight]

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?

Just keeping up with the US press...

[will_die]

Who needs Al-Qaeda when we already have Reuters and the New York Times??

Re:Just keeping up with the US press...

[ScentCone]

Your explanation is pure fantasy.

Compared to, say, a mass murder plot that would involve hundreds of people at least, and the knowledge of thousands in a government that can't even keep its foreign surveilance programs secret? Compared to a large structure, running 24 hours a day, with an army of building engineers and maintenance people, none of whom noticed people crawling around it placing explosives?

The overall structure is weakened, but some points more than others.

NO piece of that structure could stand for a moment without the whole structure being solid. I suppose that bridge in Minnesota, which only took seconds to fall, was also professionally destroyed by men in black working for Dick Cheney?

The overall structure is weakened, but some points more than others.

So what? NONE of the structure, minus the substantial parts weakend by heat and stress, are capable of supporting the mass above it. Not even close. I can hold up a 20 pound iron skillet in my kitchen using drinking straws, too. But if one or two buckle, the whole thing comes down. Inertia and gravity have a lot to do with how that plays out, and when you're dealing with colossal masses, and no lateral forces being exerted, down is where things go.

It encounters resistance if the lower structure is still in place, and that resistance would cause the weight of the upper floors to tumble in other directions, just like a rock rolls down a mountain.

Other than the fact that this is nothing at all, whatsoever, like that terrible analogy. A rock is a tiny fraction of the mass of the mountain it's rolling down. The mountain isn't made of thin vertical supports, and doesn't have something like the top third of it sitting on top of those thin supports as they buckle. The WTC tower didn't have some solid-rock RAMP (like the side of a mountain) sitting inside them to deflect huges masses from above. The inside of the tower is mostly air. The vertical beams were never designed to hold up accelerating, shock-pounding masses collapsing from above - they were desiged to bear static weight, with the entire structure present to do the job, and to flex ever so subtly in high winds. The mass of the tower above the first sections to buckle were stil holding together (laterally). That makes the "rock" on your "mountain" the same size as your mountain.

Twice.

Mysterious! Astounding! It's almost as if... they were built the same way, and suffered pretty much identical damage. And almost as if the tremendous energy involved in the collapse did things like displace big pieces of metal that went crashing across the way into:

Then WTC7 collapsed for no apparent reason ("fire" my ass).

Where vertical supports were devasted by lateral-moving wreckage from the tower next door, and little things like generator fuel tanks got nicely peppered by red-hot debris, sparking electrical equipment (including huge battery backups in data facilities in the building). Again: that buidling wasn't designed to stand with important pieces of its central supporting structure weakened. Of COURSE if fell in on itself. What would be amazing would be if it fell any other way.

So, again: what's your actual agenda, that you're so anxious to cling to this little bit of nonsense? Is it REALLY worth perpetuating that kind of crap just so that your preferred politicians don't have to actually face up to the idealogies that drive the people that actually flew the planes into those structures? How are you on the moon landing, by the way? Loch Ness? Area 51's fleet of alien ships? So much ground to cover! I don't know how you get any sleep.

Uh... "Forensic Analysis" my foot

[blackdefiance]

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.

Re:Uh... "Forensic Analysis" my foot

[SpinyNorman]

I gotta say that it looks like it's just highlighting the areas of high spatial frequency (i.e. sharp lines), which is where you'd expect the differences to be if you save at a lower quality JPEG level and compare to the original (which is what the article says it's doing). The way JPEG compression works is by throwing away high frequency information away - the lower quality you choose the more is thrown away.

Hi beard is showing up because it's a mass of fine lines (high freq. info), ditto the text.

I don't think so ..

[rs232]

"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?

Re:msm

[truthsearch]

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.

If these were altered in a way that seemed to drastically change the message then it would be a different story.

Re:Proves what we already suspected?

[Paladin144]

But, but... but... what if some ignorant American calls you a "conspiracy theorist" for being able to see through the lies? How will you sleep at night?!

For anybody who doesn't know what fantomas is alluding to in the post above, I urge you to download and watch the excellent BBC program The Power of Nightmares. It turns out that if you actually look closely at al Qaeda the whole thing unravels. OBL and Zawahiri are a bunch of losers, complete phonies and probably employed by the CIA and/or MI6.

Everybody knows Bin Laden worked for the CIA (through the Pakistani ISI proxy) during the 80's during the fight against the Soviets. Nobody seems to know when he stopped working for them. .... IF he stopped working for them.

Re:msm

[Applekid]

Even over the last 10 years video alterations have been getting more and more sophisticated. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAFp4CaeDqU

While the video is clearly tongue-in-cheek and advertising driven, it's slightly disturbing the novices who cut their teeth on this stuff and evolve their skills in the advertising world could go out and "find" video of just about anything they wanted to engineer in the media. Who would be able to stop them?

Re:msm

[plover]

There are many reasons for doctoring photos. The point of these isn't to "confuse the enemy", but to "boost morale of the troops", 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 in the face of the insignificant U.S. forces. While in reality, they're cowering in bunkers or caves, or perhaps hiding in Pakistan or Iran.

Unfortunately, detecting the fakes isn't enough. The CIA could say "Hey, look, these are faked, you're following cowards" but that'd be dismissed simply due to the source. What really needs to happen is these forgery-detection tools need to get in the hands of the "faithful" so they can convince themselves that they're being led by cowardly stooges. (Not that they would, as the leaders would probably dismiss such tools as lies from the Great Satan.)

Imbedded image encryption

[testpoint]

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

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:msm

[jamstar7]

Honestly, I find it hard to believe that these guys doctored their Videos. I could believe photos, but video?

Right. People who can't seem to get their hands on anything more current than a Russian VHS camcorder from 1985, are also doing video edits?

I don't know what I find harder to believe, that these people can't go to a marketplace and pick up a basic consumer mini-dv, or that they have the resources to edit full motion video and yet they produce such really horrible quality output.

Or, grabbing my tinfoil hat, say, certain governments cranking out some propaganda video, 'shopping the hell out of it, and dumping it through cut-outs to the 'enemy' news service so that they play it, to help bolster the certain government's position. Say, justification for a questionable war...

It's getting to the point where the question isn't 'Are you paranoid?' but rather 'Are you paranoid enough?'

Re:But Al-Qaeda doesn't exist...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:msm

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"If they are showing video of them in a fancy office, that implies their movement is doing well."

Slightly OT here, but it was probably also done to make them harder to track down. I remember a lot of hoohaw over a Bin Laden tape where there were distinct rocks in the background. One of the major news outlets was making a big deal about how the Gov't could tell where in the world that film was shot just by the geological features. My guess is the group got wise to it and doesn't shoot without a fake background anymore.

(This isn't a rebuttal to what you're saying, just another reason they'd do it.)

Re:But Al-Qaeda doesn't exist...

[starman71taylor]

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.

Re:msm

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that so many reporters are dim bulbs, I wouldn't be surprised if he thought that was part of the power plant behind him. Either way, he was trying to make the story sensational as opposed to factual.

Re:msm

[MrNaz]

I can't believe your view is the minority here. 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.

What is this, the Fox news forums?

Re:All the Images are Disinfo / PsyOps

[Deskpoet]

As I write this, your post has been modded down to -1, Troll. There is something SERIOUSLY wrong with moderation here on Slashdot. It's becoming almost worthless....

All of which is to say: you're absolutely right. Photoshop has been around and available to just about anyone for nearly 20 years. Beyond the fallacy of the image, why anyone would look at a print of any kind, regardless of source, and proclaim it to be "real" is beyond me. Here, the underlying premise is those Evil Arabs are doing it--while airbrushed photo ops here are glorious, real exchanges of meaning without a hint of "evil" to be seen. Yes, it's flag-waving at its finest, but worse, it shows how gullible people are today. And that you were modded so far down for recognizing this just shows how *angry* those gullible people are when their precious illusions are called into question.....

Re:Surprise!

[Anonymous Coward]

"You can bet if someone invaded America in 50 years time and America no longer had the military power to fight "the right way" *ahem* then they would use the exact same tactics and skills."

Define "the right way".

If you mean the direct application of a large military force against another, well, we've been unable to do that before.

If you mean limiting our targets to those with military value, while restricting the amount of damage we inflict on illegal (non-military, non-infrastructure) targets, well, then, you don;t understand the least thing about guerilla warfare.

It is VERY easy to implement a geurilla-based fight where you limit yourself to militarily appropriate targets.

In the ongoing thing we call terrorism today, the geurilla-based fighters ignore the Law of Armed Conflict, and very specifically target illegal, non-military targets for the purpose of creating fear amongst the civilian populace fo the opposing side.

The reason terrorists are criminals is NOT that they oppose other sitting governments, it is that they ignore the Law of Armed Conflict. That distinction is the reason it is possible for us to have American Soliders/Sailors/Marines/Airmen legally prosecuting a fight that can be determined to have begun illegally. The grunts "in the trenches" are not legally liable for choosing to fight when and where ordered, they are legally liable for HOW they fight.

If a US Marine is told to secure a building, and there is no military resistance, he should clear the building of non-combatants as quickly as possible, and then prevent them for re-entering. This presents minimal damage to the civilians who are present. Terrorists don't secure buildings, they blow portions of them up, while the non-combatants are going about their lives inside.

If you don't understand that difference, well, I don't think I'm going to be able to provide enough education in this environment.

Re:Forensic analysis my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, exactly.

Look what's happened to slashdot that the posters didn't all come to the obvious conclusion immediately.

I bet the slashdot crowd of five years ago was more technically aware...

Someone tell me, what site do the real geeks go to these days?