Edited images: the proof

Questions, speculations & updates on the techniques and nature of media fakery
burningame
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Re: Edited images: Any proof at all?

Unread post by burningame »

Wow! Is that really called for here? Sorry if I might have seemed a bit impatient, but I am simply trying to establish if these tests I’ve been talking about would be important aids for trying to prove media fakery – that’s all. My (uneducated) guess is that more of this kind of forensic analysis would add an extra depth to the research; but as I mentioned I don’t know enough about photography to say one way or the other.
fred
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Re: Edited images: Any proof at all?

Unread post by fred »

Edited for clarity. Elipsis added
Burningame wrote: I would conclude that nobody on this forum knows anything [...]


I doubt [...]

You'll forgive me [...]

Scientific method is not a 'flavour' or a ‘taste’ that you add on; that attitude is more reminiscent of Hollywood and the MSM.
You schtick is pretty transparent, as is the mock outrage, the "dick move", followed by the fake apology. If you're so enamored with these tools of the trade that you don't understand, why not educate yourself in these matters instead of relying on experts?

We're all too familiar with the "whinging little bitch concern troll script" you're running here wittingly or unwittingly.

But in all seriousness, I want to know how you arrived at your conclusion above. It sounded so impressive a few posts earlier that to find out you're talking out of your ass is kind of a let-down. I was really interested in how the Blur Detection the Gradient Map and the Color Algorithm was going to teach us that sim-Breivik actually murdered all those fake little teen politicians on Slaughter Island and set up all those nifty tombstone rocks and altars and made Moon Frogs hop across the Lunar Desert. You know, all scientific-like, too.

Tools and skills are nifty. You ought-ta get you some. Yeah!

You know what, Burningame? If you are sincere and I've misjudged your intentions then I'm truly sorry. But I've seen this same script so many times that you might as well just open with "I'm here to call into question the research on this forum and announce that the methods are unscientific and offer no proof at all." Which is pretty much the point of your "Any proof at all?" question is it not? And now your own answer is that you don't know enough to conclude anything one way or the other.

So... you want us to use tools that you don't understand and can't comment on anyway? To what purpose? Why? Suppose I tell you that the Blur Detection tells me that the whole thing is fake? Then what?

You'd want us to use Discriminant Analysis and Perturbation Theory on the residuals?

HAL and Deep Blue and Watson say the video's fake, Man. There you go. Mission accomplished.
Jonathan
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Re: Edited images: Any proof at all?

Unread post by Jonathan »

reel.deal wrote:http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... HANY+FARID
cream of the crop, but 'dark side'...
;)
Very interesting stuff in there.
Just watching the 4-th in that list - did not know where to begin so I just choose that.
Around 00:20 minutes it gets to interesting technical details and their implications.
at 0:28:10 is a gem ;) - one of many
Thanks!
Last edited by Jonathan on Mon Sep 12, 2011 11:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
brianv
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Re: Edited images: Any proof at all?

Unread post by brianv »

First nobody examined "the skies or walls", the software did that, across the whole image! Those were the areas picked up by the scan!

Unfortunately nobody here can use LS DYNA which would not only prove that the images are false but that the Physics of flying an airplane into a giant steel tower, as shown, is totally false! I asked Purdue to publish their inputs into LS-DYNA for their simulation, you know where aluminium sheet cuts through giant steel columns and acres of concrete, which they haven't done, and they won't because it's a case of shit-in/shit-out!

I do have errorlevel analysis software, and I have been to http://errorlevelanalysis.com/ several times. Interpretation of the results can be quite tricky. Another thing, most of the techniques you describe are still in development stages, you can't expect members here to have a PhD disciplines that haven't reached the shelves yet but some of us are actually trying instead of bitching!

Image

Here is one frame from the "Michael Hezarkhani" "video" under copymove/clone detection...for what it's worth!
burningame
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Re: Edited images: Any proof at all?

Unread post by burningame »

Fred - thanks for the personal attack, mate.

You seem to be ridiculing the whole idea of scientific analysis – are you really trying to tell me that digital forensics tools are not something that we could use to expose media fakery?

I understand the premium on doing your own research here, but if you read my posts, I am simply trying to get a handle on these forensic tests – I did not think it would be such a big deal to ask the forum about them. But I think the posts on this thread have indirectly answered the important part for me – that the tests I mentioned, from Krawetz’s site, are quite new and probably not generally available, so maybe people don’t know too much about them at all.

Just to stick up for myself:
you might as well just open with "I'm here to call into question the research on this forum and announce that the methods are unscientific and offer no proof at all." Which is pretty much the point of your "Any proof at all?" question is it not?
My post was moved by nonhocapito to this thread started by anon1911. It is not my question. If you have read my posts, especially the first one, I make it crystal clear that I’m talking about using these tests as further, additional proof beyond naked eye/commonsense judgement, which has been known to be inexact when interpreting images.
If you're so enamored with these tools of the trade that you don't understand, why not educate yourself in these matters instead of relying on experts?
I would have thought that ‘relying on experts’ is the very nature of learning – how else does one learn – from non-experts? I am asking questions about photo analysis tools on a website dedicated to exposing media fakery. I, perhaps erroneously, assumed there would be quite a few people here on this forum who would have more than a passing acquaintance with these tests, and would able to answer my questions, without derision and ridicule.
you want us to use tools that you don't understand and can't comment on anyway? To what purpose? Why?
The whole idea of these tests is to aid the naked eye, probably helpful because sometimes the naked eye may not be enough to always prove fakery. This is exactly what Farid says, as well (here):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVOYInKgy8k
fred
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Re: Edited images: Any proof at all?

Unread post by fred »

Burningame, since we have no personal relationship I have no interest in personally attacking you. I'm still interested in your "conclusion" that nobody on this forum knows anything about tools you mention. It's a smear that might as well have been written by Willy Ustad in an MSM hit piece. In fact, the way he worded the same line (according to the translation) was that the "level of knowledge on the forum was astonishingly low."

So why are you here doing the same thing as our enemies? Your conclusion seems to be based on nothing at all except ill will and bad faith.
burningame
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Re: Edited images: Any proof at all?

Unread post by burningame »

Fred, I think you are over-reacting. But then, I haven’t had to deal with shills for years like you guys. That post of mine has caused so much trouble with you, believe me, if I could retract or reword it, God knows I would!

I implore you to re-read the thread from the start; I think you’ll see my post in question was written out of exasperation that no-one (who posted) was mentioning that they’d even heard of those tests. That was arrogant of me - I confess.

After doing a bit more reading, and watching the videos by Hany Farid, I have just realised that these tests seem to be much more cutting-edge than I thought: very new, specialized, not in the mainstream at all. And there are many, many tests one could perform, that are not yet standardized. Maybe the gradient map test, ELA and the Copy-Move test are just the first ones coming to the general public now.

So I was probably technically right when I said nobody here knows about them; nobody anywhere knows much about them, except the computer scientists! That is not a smear, is it?
reel.deal
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Re: Edited images: Any proof at all?

Unread post by reel.deal »

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Last edited by reel.deal on Mon Oct 01, 2012 10:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
SmokingGunII
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Re: Edited images: Any proof at all?

Unread post by SmokingGunII »

Heiwa wrote:Image
That above picture is edited is quite easy to see. The picture, snapped just when a WTC tower is destroyed and before the photographer is blinded by the dust, consists of three parts.
In the foreground is an old building at the tip of Manhattan and some trees. Behind the building is a lot of smoke and dust because one of the WTC towers has just been destroyed and is becoming rubble. And in the upper right corner we see a glimpse of a big undamaged top, outer wall section just below the roof of the WTC tower that is still falling down from 400 meters height … with smoke (??) still escaping from its undamaged front (so there must be undamaged floors, offices behind the wall). However, it is quite clear that the wall section is just copy/paste from the movie of the tower being intact/burning with smoke excaping from the wall, etc. So the picture is edited. You wonder why. To show that an intact top part crushed the stronger bottom part?


Burningame - please note, that you don't need any scientific analysis software to see that the above image posted by Heiwa is fake. There are cloned smoke swirls and the trees are also cloned and added with a "stamp" tool. I would also, unscientifically, question why smoke emanating from the broken windows of a building falling downwards at almost freefall speed is travelling sideways? :blink:
anon1911
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Re: Edited images: Any proof at all?

Unread post by anon1911 »

reel.deal wrote:THE ELA works good...
Could you please explain us what you see in this ELA and what your conclusion about this picture is, and why.
Burningame - please note, that you don't need any scientific analysis software to see that the above image posted by Heiwa is fake. There are cloned smoke swirls and the trees are also cloned and added with a "stamp" tool. I would also, unscientifically, question why smoke emanating from the broken windows of a building falling downwards at almost freefall speed is travelling sideways?
Of course we can see that this image has been altered in many ways. But this thread is how to see image manipulation that isn't that obvious and how credible these detection tools are.
Last edited by anon1911 on Wed Sep 14, 2011 2:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Heiwa
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Re: Edited images: Any proof at all?

Unread post by Heiwa »

@reel.deal 2.20 pm
Does it mean photos are real ... or fake?
Anyway, plenty of stars are seen behind mother Earth in the dark. I thought that was not possible according NASA.
reel.deal
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Re: Edited images: Any proof at all?

Unread post by reel.deal »

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Last edited by reel.deal on Mon Oct 01, 2012 10:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
reel.deal
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Re: Digital Forensics: Any use so far ?

Unread post by reel.deal »

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Last edited by reel.deal on Mon Oct 01, 2012 10:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
brianv
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Re: Edited images: Any proof at all?

Unread post by brianv »

Image#

Three identical smoke-clouds heading W by NW. Mound, triangle and dots. No forgery detection tools required!

Oh feck it, here! The software found them! Image
fred
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Re: Edited images: Any proof at all?

Unread post by fred »

Nice find, BrianV.

These tools are certainly useful. As for the more exotic tests that are available, I could probably take an X-Ray of my chest but I'm not going to be able to interpret the results as well as someone who specializes in reading chest X-rays every day.

The dramatic collapse photo above is a pretty clear case of faked 9/11 imagery, and the software algorithm BrianV ran is basically backing up our main position that a bunch of the 9/11 imagery being published as "real" is actually demonstrably fake.

I don't see any case to be made for arguing that the Photosloppery is innocent. Would this scene have not been "dramatic enough" had someone not engaged in copy-move forgery? If it were a real image, it would have been exciting enough without having that section of smoke cloned a few times. So I think we can rule out innocent "aesthetic" reasons for the fraud.

Once we've proven that something is fake (as I think we can argue BrianV has done with the above image) we don't really need more tests to tell us that it's fake. Anything else that the more exotic tests reveal is basically a "bonus". We've got them dead to rights using fake imagery. There's no scientific principle that requires us to go to ever greater lengths to prove what has already been proven. Suppose the gradient maps are perfect. Would that make the fake image real? Of course not. It's fake. There's nothing unscientific about using your own eyes and brain.
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