Jul 15 2008
Obama “Forged COLB” Myth Busted (Again)
This time I don’t have to do all the heavy work, a document specialist has done the work for us. In fact, he used the same tools Techdude is using for his forthcoming report – so this should be interesting!
I am currently getting 1-2 requests per week about analyzing this image. Sometimes people want me to prove it is fake, other want me to prove it is real. However, many people have already investigated and analyzed the picture…
My colleague, Chris ‘Xenon’ Hanson, did an excellent job debunking the manipulation theory. My own analysis supports Xenon’s findings. However, Xenon analyzed a smaller version of the birth certificate, while I analyzed the large one found at DailyKos. The net result?
- Luminance Gradient. Digital cameras and scanners add noise into the image. The main things to look for are noise and straight edges. In this case, there is a realistic noise pattern across the entire image. Although the letters look straight, they all have distinct anti-aliasing patterns, making every letter unique. If this were computer generated, then I would not expect the noise pattern, and many letters should look identical.
- Principal Component Analysis (PCA). There are three principal components. PC1 identifies jpeg artifacts from resaves. (Technically, I compute distance from a line normal to PC1 that passes through the center of mass, but nobody like math-talk.) If the image is manipulated or spliced, then different areas will have different artifact qualities. However, this picture seems consistent. The remaining two PC’s (PC2 and PC3) can identify if colors come from alternate color spaces (common when splicing images). In this case, nothing stands out beyond the center of the black text letters (a good, high-quality scanner can turn black into real black when it detects it). PC3 also brings out the folds in the paper (look at the top, near the seal, for the horizontal line). This sure looks like a scanned piece of paper.
- Color Density. This algorithm clusters colors by similarity. Computer graphics will usually appear as uniform coloring. However, real life images will have blotches of different colors. The background shows good blotches; it looks real.
Unfortunately, there is not much I can say to the people who believe this image has been manipulated, except “you’re wrong.” There is no indication of image manipulation.
Well, it seems this myth will not die because people refuse to believe the facts. Â So be it, all us technical types can do is show how this is all a farce.
Detecting forgeries:
Here’s Polarik telling us how he covered up text in a COLB
http://polarik.blogtownhall.com/2008/07/07/the_two_minute,_mspaint__obama_hawaiian_birth_certificate.thtml
And here is his image again but with a contrast gain and a colour change
http://s355.photobucket.com/albums/r478/RayAus/?action=view¤t=Polarikcoveredtext.jpg
The second image is showing us that the colour of the light green background on the COLB that Polarik used was darker on the left side (more towards the top) so when he took blank “covering-up” rectangles from the right side and pasted them over the text on the left side, the difference in colour is obvious when viewed with a lot more contrast.
Now if the alleged KOS forgery had this sort of anomaly (sudden and abnormal shifts in colour) then there would be a case for tampering with the original to alter Obama’s birth details, but that is not the case at all. The KOS image has a relatively consistent colour variation.
Detecting forgeries – (Example 2)
Polarik’s quick attempt at “forging” a blank COLB shows what sort of errors can be seen when a document is closely inspected.
The COS version of Obama’s COLB doesn’t have flaws that show tampering like this.
http://s355.photobucket.com/albums/r478/RayAus/?action=view¤t=Polarikbadforgeattempt.jpg
Oh goody now we are going to be told how manipulation causes changes.
But all along we are told these docs are real deal unchanged docs.
So no matter what the paper or the background pattern why does with the same resolution , dpi and jpeg compression do pixels change color in one real deal doc but don’t in another.
Selective earthworm effects?
If both are real there should be a similar amount of background color pixels between the letters as surrounding them.
If pixels in between are washed out they have to be due to alterations of some kind.
MerlinOS2 wrote:
“Oh goody now we are going to be told how manipulation causes changes.
But all along we are told these docs are real deal unchanged docs.
So no matter what the paper or the background pattern why does with the same resolution , dpi and jpeg compression do pixels change color in one real deal doc but don’t in another.
Selective earthworm effects?”
If both are real there should be a similar amount of background color pixels between the letters as surrounding them.
If pixels in between are washed out they have to be due to alterations of some kind.”
=============
Here’s something that will be easier to follow:
All of the light green pixels in the original document are not the same colour. They all LOOK light green, but there are actually thousands of different shades of light green in the COLB.
Ok – got that? Thousands of different shades, which vary from VERY,VERY,VERY, VERY, LIGHT GREEN to VERY,VERY, VERY, DARK LIGHT GREEN which we can give numbers from say “Shade 1” to “Shade 10,000”
Now in the upper left corner quadrant of the COLB there are many, many more “Shade 10,000″ light green” pixels, and there are heaps of “Shade 9999” light green pixels, and there are oodles of “Shade 9998” light green pixels, so that makes the image darker in that quadrant.
Got that- darker in the upper left quadrant?
Now when a forger copies a rectangle of green background from the right side of the document and pastes it on the left side to cover up the text, there are NO (or very few) “Shade 10,000” pixels, and there are very few “Shade 9999” pixels.
The forger thinks s/he is being very smart – just because Photoshop is being used and the green LOOKS the same, but s/he may as well be using a different colour altogether, because a careful analysis (whether it’s via an increase in contrast or the analysis of the actual “light-green-colour-numbers”) will reveal the anomalies.
What I did with the example I posted was to make the darker pixels darker – and the lighter pixels lighter, and anyone without severe brain damage should be able to see the disturbed pattern.
Now if anyone thinks that patterns like that are merely there by chance or from a wild imagination, they will get a rude shock when if it is demonstrated to them repeatedly that the method does indeed show where alterations were made. Even the most hardy trolls could be convinced of this via demonstrations if they still had any remaining friends with Photoshop or other image analysis programs.
But it doesn’t matter if that photo was photoshopped or not. It doesn’t matter if it was altered or not. That document that showed up on the Internet was never claimed by Obama to be a document he used to register for any ballot. That picture floating around the internet doesn’t amount to a pinch of owl poop if it is or if it is not real. As far as I know, Barrack Obama never released the picture to anyone claiming it to be an image of his birth certificate … it just showed up on the internet. It doesn’t matter, you are wasting your time worrying about it. It doesn’t prove anything one way or the other. Once you have your hands on a real document, issued by Obama claiming to be his birth certificate, then I will listen to opinions. In the meantime, I am not interested in how many green spots will fit on the head of a pin.
It is a big waste of time and effort to even worry about it because if it is 100% proven to be fake, it doesn’t matter. If it is 100% proven to be real, it doesn’t matter … THAT PHOTO DOESNT MATTER one way or the other. You can’t get on a ballot with a photo of a birth cert.
crosspatch wrote:
[Crosspatch]: But it doesn’t matter if that photo was photoshopped or not. It doesn’t matter if it was altered or not. That document that showed up on the Internet was never claimed by Obama to be a document he used to register for any ballot.
[Ray]: What’s the red herring for? No one is talking about usimg any document for any ballot.
[Crosspatch]: That picture floating around the internet doesn’t amount to a pinch of owl poop if it is or if it is not real.
[Ray]: It’s what a lot of ordinary people and trolls wanted to see – and Obama care about both.
[Crosspatch]: As far as I know, Barrack Obama never released the picture to anyone claiming it to be an image of his birth
certificate … it just showed up on the internet.
[Ray]: No, that’s wrong – he DID release it, and two spokespeople have confirmed it.
[Crosspatch]: It doesn’t matter, you are wasting your time worrying about it. It doesn’t prove anything one way or the other. Once you have your hands on a real document, issued by Obama claiming to be his birth certificate, then I will listen to opinions. In the meantime, I am not interested in how many green spots will fit on the head of a pin.
[Ray]: I have ways of making you listen to reason.
[Crosspatch]: It is a big waste of time and effort to even worry about it because if it is 100% proven to be fake, it doesn’t matter.
[Ray]: If it’s fake and contains significant misrepresentation – Obama goes to jail for fraud. If it’s not fake, then the trolls will need to dream up something new to troll about.
[Crosspatch]: If it is 100% proven to be real, it doesn’t matter …
THAT PHOTO DOESNT MATTER one way or the other. You can’t get on a ballot with a photo of a birth cert.
[Ray]: I’ve just started a campaign for the original NOT to be
released – just to get even with all the trolls. I don’t care if people find out that Obama was really born on Gilligan’s Island during episode 17. It’s sort of on American soil.
Ray
“If it’s fake and contains significant misrepresentation – Obama goes to jail for fraud. If it’s not fake, then the trolls will need to dream up something new to troll about.”
No, he doesn’t. HE never said the photo circulating on the Internet was the real thing. Someone produced it and SAID it was his birth certificate. The photo didn’t come from Obama.
[BREAKING NEWS
“The Case of the Missing Space”
__________________________
From Texasdarlin Blog:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ QUOTE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
texasdarlin // July 16, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Polarik deleted the paragaraph about date spacing after re-examining the new COLB.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~[END QUOTE ~~~~~~~~~~
Now we have a new line of inquiry to follow. Did Polarik inadvertently omit the paragraph about the missing space?
crosspatch wrote:
[RAY]: If it’s fake and contains significant misrepresentation – Obama goes to jail for fraud. If it’s not fake, then the trolls will need to dream up something new to troll about.â€
[crosspatch ]: No, he doesn’t. HE never said the photo circulating on the Internet was the real thing. Someone produced it and SAID it was his birth certificate. The photo didn’t come from Obama.”
No, you’ve been misled by trolls. That image on KOS’s blog and the (Obama “Smears” blog) is actually an image of Obama’s official birth record. Obama has obviously approved of it’s display on the internet and two of his representatives have attested to the authenticity of the image.
Trolls are being water-boarded on blogs as we speak. Some have already abandoned their trolling-posts; others are back pedalling furiously and dumping previously held (make believe) beliefs, and quite a few are trying to blend in with the rest of the humans. Texas darlin is now distancing her/it self) from Polarik and is even alerting readers to his omission of the “missing space” in his new rant
Incoming reports from a usually reliable source indicate that “Techdude” has resigned from all things technical and is now just a plain Dude.
Ray, it STILL doesn’t matter. I don’t care if he did release the image, the IMAGE wasn’t used to qualify for the ballot. He had to produce an ACTUAL DOCUMENT to qualify for the ballot and he obviously did. It doesn’t matter what any pictures floating around on the internet do or do not show. It is a waste of time to spend even a minute of your time thinking about it.
What you should be doing, if you are interested, is to contact the officials in the jurisdictions where he appeared on the primary ballots and ask them what documentation was provided. I am positive it wouldn’t be an internet photo.
The photo floating around on the internet doesn’t mean anything at all either way. I don’t care if he did “authorize” it … it isn’t an “official” document.
crosspatch wrote:
[crosspatch ]: Ray, it STILL doesn’t matter. I don’t care if he did release the image, the IMAGE wasn’t used to qualify for the ballot. He had to produce an ACTUAL DOCUMENT to qualify for the ballot and he obviously did. It doesn’t matter what any pictures floating around on the internet do or do not show. It is a waste of time to spend even a minute of your time thinking about it.
========
It matters a lot if donors have given money to the Obama campaign AFTER they saw his birth record on the net. If Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii and people donated money that they otherwise would not have, because they BELIEVED he was actually born there and NOT in Kenya or Arabia or Gilligan’s Island, then they would have been defrauded and criminal charges can be laid by any police officer (in the jurisdiction in which the alleged fraud took place) who has evidence to that effect — so it is very, very important.
[crosspatch ]: What you should be doing, if you are interested, is to contact the officials in the jurisdictions where he appeared on the primary ballots and ask them what documentation was provided. I am positive it wouldn’t be an internet photo.
[Ray]: Hardly anyone IS interested. It’s only a few trolls who are complaining. They think the BLOG world is really humming with the “forgery” story but it’s not. I get virtually everything there is from the blogoshere on this topic and it’s only a miniscule fraction of what a REAL issue is.
[…] would show up easily (for example where the ID number was blocked out). A real expert in this field did the analysis on the BHO image and concluded they were reasonably untouched (minus the known […]
[…] a forgery. Â But before he could find these telltales of a forgery, another true image analyst did the work using these methods and discovered there were no signs of manipulation. These are standard methods to detect […]
The question I haven’t heard an answer to is the double registration issue. The White House has acknowledged the Certification of Live Birth is accurate, though they have not explained why that form of registration was not recognized as proof of birth in Hawaii until their law was changed last summer. They also claim a long form birth registration was done (conventional Birth Certificate) without explaining why both forms of birth registration could exist, contrary to Hawaiian law. I know of no jurisdiction where any birth can be registered more than once, or where mutually exclusive documents can represent the same birth. Either the birth was recorded through a Certification of Live Birth or through a standard Birth Certificate. If the White House acknowledges the Certification of Live Birth then a standard Birth Certificate cannot exist, not under the law in 1961 or the law as amended last summer. Why is no one pointing this out in the media?