Seeking a Ghost via Web Cam

dogberto writes "It seems that people are using a web cam for everything these days. Starting with a web cam to watch the daily lives of people in their rooms. Now, it seems that the folks at The Evansville Courier & Press have decided to install a video camera in the 114 year old Willard Library to give internet viewers a chance to spot the legendary ghost (a.k.a., the "Lady in Grey") via this Ghost Cam. CNN was the first I saw running an article. The Willard Library link gives some more background on the ghost. "

Comments

Rename!

[gad_zuki!]

Motion to rename article:

The great JPEG Blur search of Halloween '99

BTW, I've already submitted my faked ghost sighting, I put my slashdot username on the picture and recommend any /.'ers with some time to waste to do the same. Damn it, we want verifiable ghost cams!

Checking photos for genuine status

[Speare]

There are a lot of ways to post a photo that you have created but not stored, and still tell whether it was unmodified when you get a copy back from an untrusted reporter.

Off the top of my head,

• Use a nonlossy compression method (GIF, etc), so you can embed authentication data IN the image.
• Choose a 32-pixel area, and clear the low-order bit of the blue samples. Overlay a checksum for the rest of the image data into those 32 bits.
• Use the same trick with the low-order bits of the green samples, and red samples (same or different pixels, your choice), using different hashing methods.
• To get really funky, hide a pgp signature in the low-order color bits the same way.

Also, Photoshop has a digital signature filter which works on similar methods. I think it has lots of redundant information so that it won't break down with lossy compression (or even print-then-scan cycles). It was intended to FIND photos, not to DISCARD photos, that may be from a given source, such as porn CD-ROMs stockpiling illegal scans of Playboy (C) artwork.

GA Tech Library

[firewrought]

why the hell are they always in academic institutions?!?!?! I suppose the buildings are old and thus chock full of explanations for the presences

Georgia Tech's Library is the perfect setting for a ghost story. When one first walks into the place, they feel a sense of age without glory, as if the building is in the process of dying. It is heightened by the creaky wood staircases, the cramped little restrooms set in odd places, and the sealed-off stairwell with water-corroded paint that can only be seen by looking out the right windows in another stairwell.

The bare flourescent light tubes are covered by parallel, flat plates in the shape of a half-arc that stick down like small guillotines. The large atrium formed by floors 1 and 2 of the West wing is duplicated on floors 3 and 4 (like the old identical-room-switcharoo trick). The building incorporates at least 6 different architectural styles among its operative stairwells: one of them is straight, small, narrow, and creaky; another is constructed like a huge, tomato-green spiraled tube that secretly snakes down towards the basement.

The East wing is two or three floors taller than the West wing, and from here one may peer down on the oldest of campus buildings. The light behaves differently on these floors... the sunlight traces shadows through ancient, hazed-over glass. Even when I stand there, beholding it with my own eyes, the scene appears impossibly faded, like one of grandma's wedding pictures (or maybe some JPEG compression artifacts).

The building has many secret places. Most striking are the many locked rooms that appear randomly scattered throughout the floor plans... their practical purposes forgotten. In this one particular room, statues and busts can be seen through the darkened glass. If I remember correctly, the entire top floor of the East Wing is closed to the public, accessible only to invisible research librarians.

Finally, the building stands at the highest geographical point on campus. "The Hill" was of strategic significance during the civil war battle that this region of Atlanta saw.

Funny, though... Nobody here is creative enough to make up any stories about it. That's Tech for you...

Stephen Bennett

Of course Slashdot readers aren't critical

[Plasmic]

This page has pictures that people have submitted who claim to have spotted the ghost. Having made every effort to try not to be overly cynical, I must say that those pictures combined with their comments make for the dumbest reading ever. This would likely be more interesting to an individual with vision impairment than it is to me, because I can clearly see that there isn't a ghost.. they'd have to squint or take the ignorant folks' words for it. People appear to be seeing ghosts in the graphic compression algorithm (blocky images in certain places), not to mention some outright hallucination.

At first glance it seems as though this is some public service to people who are ghost-seeking folks. But, then you scroll down and see ad banners and (at least to me) it all clicks. They want tons of people to spend their entire day sitting on their web site looking at the "ghost cam" as it refreshes every 30 seconds, building up tons of impressions. Okay, don't think I'm pretending that 90% of Slashdot readers didn't realize this.. but for those of you who are too skeptical to even go look at the Ghost Cam (or when everyone wakes up in the morning in the US and the site dies), I think my explanation is pretty valid.

Another thing that's interesting is that all of the "comments" on the proof page seem strikingly similar. Without knowing anything else I'd say that most of them were fabricated. Who knows? I think I have an extreme aversion to anything on the Net with a central theme of "ghosts". Except maybe GhostView.

Nothing new

[Bryan_Crowl]

Ghost cams have been around for quite a while now, some other interesting ones are @
GhostWatch
Ghostwatcher

I believe there is even a Loch-ness monster cam @
"Offical Lochness Site