Meet the Font Detectives Who Ferret Out Fakery (wired.com)

New submitter rgh02 writes: Earlier this year, the former prime minister of Pakistan and his family came under scrutiny thanks to revelations in the Panama Papers. The smoking gun in the case of a forged document was none other than a font -- Calibri, which, as it turned out, wasn't even available until after the document had allegedly been signed and dated. This is not the first or the last time typography helped crack a case, and often with help from experts appropriately referred to as the 'font detectives.' At Backchannel, Glenn Fleishman dives into the adventures of the experts ferreting out fakery with their knowledge of fonts and the high-profile cases they've found themselves involved in.

Comments

Let's not forget "Memogate" 2004

[halivar]

Credulously accepting Times New Roman in MS Word as a typewriter font is what got Dan Rather into trouble.

Re:Let's not forget "Memogate" 2004

[halivar]

The "fake, but true" narrative. The memo was fabricated whole cloth. The guy admitted it was a fake.

Re:Let's not forget "Memogate" 2004

[halivar]

Without the memo, there is no such "fact." That was the smoking gun. Everything else speculation.

Re:Let's not forget "Memogate" 2004

[will_die]

No you don't. The rathermemos claimed that Bush had not fulfilled his obligations and that pressure had been put on the officials to cover it up. Both of those claims are false. Bush did fulfill his obligations under the laws that were in place and there was no pressure put on people to cover up something that did not happen.
Maybe you should stop listen into those alt-left noise machines and learn some of the real world facts.

Re: fixedsys to avoid date conflicts

[that this is not und]

I try to use my manual Smith-Corona. There is something nostalgic about having to use a lower case 'l' for the numeral 'one' because your keyboard doesn't have a key for 'one.'

The memos were fake

[rsilvergun]

Bush Jr's b.s. "service" was real. It was painfully obvious he landed a cushy position with the Airforce he had no business or qualifications for and that his father's connections got him that (and kept him out of war zones). What's more, his opponent Kerry actually went to 'Nam and somehow managed to get branded a coward.

The whole thing stinks. Like it was cooked up to shut down talk about why it was Bush Jr ended up with such a desirable position in the first place. During the latest election there were several incidents of phony docs critical of Trump floating around too. Tax documents, stuff that "proved" the Russian connection, etc, etc. IIRC Sam Bee got one (she mighta just reported on one).