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Forensic Analysis Reveals Al-Qaeda's Image Doctoring
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Aug 03, 2007 08:31 AM
from the they-really-like-their-macs-too dept.
from the they-really-like-their-macs-too dept.
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.'"
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so... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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 air
This looks shopped... (Score:5, Funny)
Osama bin Laden has been shopping his pic (Score:3, Funny)
msm (Score:5, Informative)
Re:msm (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:msm (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, Final Cut Studio and Photoshop make it even easier, but the news has always been more about entertainment than information.
Parent
Re:msm (Score:5, Informative)
This is very common. My dad worked for a power company and one of the local news organizations did a story on pollution. So after my dad talked about their scrubbers and other emissions controls (which he was very instrumental in putting in) the reporter decided that it wasn't sensationalist enough so he pulled a dirty trick. One of their power plants was right next to a steel mill so instead of the reporter doing his monologue with the power plant in the background, he and his camera man simply turned around and put the steel mill right next door in the background then proceeded to open up with "I'm here at .. generating station."
He didn't technically lie; after all he was on the property of the generating station. But the images didn't reflect the nearly nonexistant exhaust of the powerplant (a little NOx which shows up brown on certain days) but instead reflected the constant fires and smoke billowing out of the steel mill. No photoshop required.
Parent
Re:msm (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Parent
photoshopping vs videoshopping (Score:3, Informative)
Although I totally agree with you, I must point out government-level resources are not required to reasonably fake video. Remember the movie Kung Pow [imdb.com]? Amazing work done in that film placing modern actors in an old kung-fu flick. The budget was only around $10 million USD, and that was for a complete movie. Imagine how little
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If these were altered in a way that seemed to drastically change the message then it would be a different story.
Re:msm (Score:5, Insightful)
If in fact they are in a cave somewhere in front of a black sheet, then the message is a big fat lie.
Parent
Re:msm (Score:4, Interesting)
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.)
Parent
Re:msm (Score:5, Interesting)
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.)
Parent
Won't work (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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 legislat
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If they shot in front of a fixed color backdrop there are automated tools to overlay images (weather guy on the local news anyone?)
Even if they didn't all a video is, is a series of still images shown in rapid succession.
Sure it takes a while, but it is *very* doable.
-nB
Re:msm (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But you do need to identify the source.
Hanlon's Razor (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Done for their safety? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Done for their safety? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Parent
Re:Done for their safety? (Score:5, Funny)
Come on, you can't be all 'kill-the-infidels' ALL the time?!
Parent
Re:Done for their safety? (Score:5, Funny)
Or maybe he did. Your google-fu is weak.
Parent
Logical Fallacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Not that I'm pointing fingers or anything. ahem (wag the dog)
Re:Logical Fallacy (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A doctored picture is worth a thousand lies (Score:4, Funny)
OB
Oh wait, that was the whole point
Just keeping up with the US press... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Steel doesn't melt (~2700 degrees F) at temperatures reached by puddles of burning petroleum fuel (~1200 degrees F)
You should be aware specifically that while it takes a great deal of heat to melt steel, it takes a lot less to soften it a lot. After all, without that particular feature there wouldn't have been blacksmiths producing steel going back thousands of years (or did you think that the Roman legionaries' gladius was made by casting molten steel?) and hence the fact that a jet-fuel fire softened the steel enough in a high-stress application to cause catastrophic failure is not especially surprising. This sort of
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Uh... "Forensic Analysis" my foot (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Uh... "Forensic Analysis" my foot (Score:4, Informative)
Take off your tin-foil hats long enough to ask how accurate this "forensic analysis" is. Has it been independently verified? Tested with known manipulated videos? The outputs of the forensic analysis don't even look reasonable for these segments.
There has been some real (peer reviewed) research on detecting digital forgeries by Dr. Hany Farid and his lab at Dartmouth:
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~farid/research/tampe
Parent
Re:Uh... "Forensic Analysis" my foot (Score:4, Interesting)
Hi beard is showing up because it's a mass of fine lines (high freq. info), ditto the text.
Parent
Surprise! (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Surprise! (Score:5, Insightful)
America never went to war with communism, it never beat communism, it went to war with Russia, communism much like terror isn't a real thing made of matter, you cannot shoot an ideal, only people who use that ideal to represent themselves (be it true or false).
I'm sorry to say but you seem to act like these people are pure unrefined evil and just want to destroy America. They aren't some inhuman savage monster, they are people with ideals (no matter how corrupt YOU or I may see them) and they are standing up to America in the only way they can. 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. Not to mention it was America who taught these groups to fight in the first place. They used these people and then dropped them like a bad habit, they aren't raving madmen as you portray them, but nor are they heroic freedom fighters either, they are people living their lives how they see best. Judge them how you wish, but don't forget they are human beings just like we are.
Parent
Re:Surprise! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's an appropriately lefty, liberal way to look at it, but I take issue with this point.
Look at the Taliban in Afghanistan. That wasn't about fighting back at America. That was about seizing power over an entire population. Yes, you could say that it was in the name of "ideals," but the truth is that people who seek power do it because they want the power, not the ideal.
You see the same thing in Iraq right now, with the civil war. For a lot of the so-called insurgents, job #1 is not striking back at America. It's gaining control of Iraq. Will they go after the West after that? Probably. But to say that everything Arab extremists do in the Middle East is an understandable response to Western aggression is just silly.
These are power games at work. The average citizens of Iraq are the ones caught in the middle. Yes, the U.S. has shamed itself in the region. But the Islamic agitators are no better.
Parent
Damn subtitles! (Score:5, Funny)
They also use outlook for email.... (Score:4, Funny)
what's next? (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Software - Good thing. (Score:5, Informative)
The SLRs I shoot are Canons and they provide the option of "Add Original Decision Data" in their settings. Combined with Canon's data verification kit any of the images I shoot can be demonstrated to be originals, with minimal in camera image processing.
And anyone who thinks image alteration in the film world is too hard to undertake to swing a court case can't be taken seriously.
Parent
Re:Software - Good thing. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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 [bbc.co.uk]. 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.
Everybod
Re:Stego (Score:5, Funny)
They found the hidden subtext: 'BUY MORE OVALTINE'
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
http://isis.poly.edu/~forensics/pubs/icme2007.pdf [poly.edu]
http://www.ws.binghamton.edu/fridrich/Research/Luk FriSPIE06_v9.pdf [binghamton.edu]
http://www.ws.binghamton.edu/fridrich/Research/dou ble.pdf [binghamton.edu]
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/10206/32570/101109 TIFS2006873602.pdf?arnumber=101109TIFS2006873602 [ieee.org]
The actual signatures can be retrieved from signal processing methods. I wouldn't have believed that each
camera has its own unique signature (although I have noticed that one or two pixels will be fixed to a particular co
Re:Great (Score:5, Funny)
Parent