forgery

[dory36]

Had to play with this.

I got fed up with all the speculation. *

I took one of the .pdf memos off the CBS website and selected a phrase with both kerning and superscripts.

Using Word 2003, with Times Roman 12pt font, I typed out the phrase and printed the phrase to a .pdf document.

I then used Adobe Photoshop to open both documents, and created a single document with my Word version in a separate layer with a transparent background. I had to rotate my version about a degree to match the rotation of the CBS document.

Finally, I overlaid the corresponding text. *Below is an animated .gif file I created to illustrate the degree of match between the supposed 1972 document and a Sept 10 2004 version. The last part of the loop has several iterations of the overlay turned visible and invisible, and I trimmed everything down to make the file small enough to email.



Judge for yourself.

Dory36

[wabmester]

Now all we need is for somebody to try the same thing on a circa-1970 IBM Selectric....

The Times Roman font has been around since the 30's. I assume that every rendering of it is going to be pretty much identical, isn't it?

[malakito]

If the font is Times New Roman, I believe it should be the same "shape" in every instance, although of course there are different weights (i.e., bold), and italics, and font sizes.

The thing that is interesting to me is the superscript. When I was in typing class in the mid 1980's, the method for doing superscripts was to manually roll the platen back about 1/2 a line with your left hand and type the characters (in this case "th") with your right.

There were two consequences of this approach. First, the letters didn't really line up vertically very well, because after each letter was typed the platen would shift left and the resulting movement would also usually cause a slight vertical motion. Second, and more noticeably, the size of the superscripted letters was always the same, they were just shifted vertically on the page.

With the advent of word processing programs and laser printers, the letters are now aligned with each other and are also automatically printed in a smaller font size, like you see in the present example.

malakito.

[wabmester]

Here's the typewriter you probably want, an IBM Executive Model D (1966):



It was purchased in quanity by our government, had proportional spacing, just about any font you wanted, including Times Roman, and superscript-th available.

I bet a bunch of them will be showing up on eBay soon

[Whakamole]

There's also the fact that Staudt retired in 1972, and the letter mentioning him is dated 1973...

[charlie]

Some Dem will probably claim that Karl Rove has one
of Wab's typewriters in his office.

Cheers,

Charlie

(picture deleted, too inflammatory--JB)

Here's another forgery of the decisive leader. His order was required to shoot down any civilian planes. 7 minutes in a time of attack -- plenty of time.

Bush is strong, decisive leader and a man of 'values' (who's ready to send others to fight the fued in Iraq, and as a young man, was for the VIetnam war, and used powerful family connections to avoid combat.) He's honest, caring, conservative, liberal, and compassionate. He did everything he could have done to protect the country from terrorism. Anyone challening his view must be crazy (Paul O'Neil, Richard Clark).

The pre-911 memo entitled 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside the United States' contained no 'actionable intelligence'.

No matter whats happening in the economy, the best remedy is to 'cut taxes'.

We should keep governent small by diverting taxpayers money directly to private corporations (many of which have close ties with the Bush administration.)

Let's have the power plant companies decide how best to protect the environment!

Let's claim that Christians are being slaughtered by Arabs in Sudan (when it's really black Africans, the majority of which are Moslem).

Any evidence that assessments are inaccurate must be a forgery or just plain crazy!


War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength.

'The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible' -- George Orwell

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Quote:

There's also the fact that Staudt retired in 1972, and the letter mentioning him is dated 1973...

I cant say whether the document is good or not. I was around when word processing systems were invented and I know there was an awful lot of different sorts of technology around, especially in government. I also do know that a lot of care has been spent in making fonts stay 'true to their original roots'.

I *AM* wrinkling my nose at the suggestion that a retired high ranking officer couldnt influence something after his retirement, which is the current assertion. I'm quite sure he was and still is friendly with plenty of active duty officers. I could easily get someone hired or fired at my old company, or at least make their lives substantially happier or more difficult and I've been gone over 3 years...

I'd be more inclined to believe a statement that says "I wouldnt have and I didnt" rather than "I couldnt have". However Staudt is "not returning calls for comment". Which always seems fishy to me.

I still remain amazed at the marketing and public relations plan for this election. Instead of the candidates and what they believe in or will do as our president, we're talking almost exclusively about who did what in association with a war that happened 35 years ago. My hats off to the republicans who have created this misdirection. While I dont really care a lot for Bush and am sincerely mortified by a couple of his lieutenants, the fact that Kerry and his squad got sucked into this and cant seem to escape it make me feel he and his crew are not suitable for any public office if they're so easily led astray.

What indisputably happened is that one guy went to war, shot at people and got shot at. One got national guard duty and got to take time off from that to play with an election. My non wealthy, non political family affilliated uncle didnt get either choice and after living through a grenade being tossed into his barracks with severe injuries is now an alcoholic with no sight in one eye and 20% in the other.

However, one could argue that ones ability to use their resources to avoid risking life and limb vs ones heroism in engaging in a war that may or may not have helped end the cold war doesnt weigh much either way on whether one is a good leader and able to make and implement effective policy.

Further, I'm disappointed by the efforts to keep Nader off the ballots. Not because I care a whit about Nader, but because I thought we lived in a democracy. Instead we get two relatively similar parties who pick two relatively similar guys that we get to choose from.

Thats why I liked the california recall election. Porn stars. Midgets. Bad actors. Body builders. Newspaper columnists. Political commentators. We got to pick from a wide variety of people. Alas in the end we elected the well known likeable guy with a lot of money who got all the tv time.

Which I guess goes to show we as a people may not deserve a real choice.

As mentioned before, I'm neither a republican nor a democrat. I like the democratic party's ideals but realize the government is a poor and expensive administrator of social policy. I dont care as much for the republican ideals, but you do have to admire their execution.

What I cant admire about the current administration is the unwillingness to way "we were wrong about xyz", saying things were or werent said that are on video tape being said or denied, and the futzing around with irrelevant issues. A lot of times after watching a news show where they string together clips of one of these tools saying they never said something, followed by the clip of them saying it with authority, I want to go take a shower.

But thats hardly new news with regards to politics. :P

Hey TH, I agree with you that Kerry's response to lies and personal attacks has been weak. I couldn't believe it when I heard them saying that Bush should condemn the SBVT ads.

The Libertarian party also struggles with ballot access (although they don't seem to get as much press as Nader.) They are off in Ohio and fighting in court to get on the ballot. They are also off in NH where I'd expect that they'd have support.

Having reached my advanced age, I now will
disengage from any turmoil, tumult and invective
and morph into a kinder gentler version of my former self. Think of a pint-sized Tony Soprano, or better yet,
Bobby Knight. Just kidding folks, but I will not be drawn iinto this one, except to say that it hurt to see George
Orwell (one of my heroes) quoted in a post with a
bunch of liberal crap. Oops, my reformation
didn't take. I'll keep trying

John Galt

Quote:

Any evidence that assessments are inaccurate must be a forgery or just plain crazy!

Or 'liberal crap'

[haha]

Quote:

I could easily get someone hired or fired at my old company, or at least make their lives substantially happier or more difficult and I've been gone over 3 years...

My, what a powerful man you are! How do you resist?

Hey Mikey, I expect TH regrets posting that remark.
That was over the top even for me. CHP??

John Galt

Quote:

quoted in a post with a bunch of liberal crap. Oops, my reformation didn't take.

Yeah, well the Chrisitan Right tries to shove most of their crap down all our throats. What kind of crap is that?

The last 4 years have been the worst I've seen in my lifetime. Unless of course you are a Al Quida fan!

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Not at all. I'm sorry that sounds 'over the top' but I have dozens and dozens of very close personal friends who are senior managers there, just like the colonel or whatever he was still very likely has still in the service. To say that the year after his retirement, that he no longer had any influence...well..thats foolish. But then again there are a lot of foolish people who bite on stuff like this all the time. People want an easy answer.

Theres nothing especially 'powerful' about it nor do I feel that way. And I cant imagine the cirumstances where I would use that influence that way, or that someone would agree to be influenced, unless I found that someone was doing something covertly to damage a mutual friend or the company unfairly.

You know, like trying to create problems for the George Bush's kid...?

[charlie]

Did anyone but me notice all the fuss is over a
"th" superscript? Now where have I seen that handle
before?

Cheers,

Charlie

[MooreBonds]

Quote:

Some Dem will probably claim that Karl Rove has one of Wab's typewriters in his office. *

Nah...my prediction is that it will somehow all relate to a White House aide suddenly discovering an IBM selectric in the White House Map Room. The former owner of said typewriter? Vince Foster.

Ok....I'll take 3,203,921:1 odds. Anyone want to take my bet?

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Check out these expert analyses from a technical perspective:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1644869,00.asp
and
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/10/34914/1603

In short, the typface, the 'th' superscript, and the proportional spacing capability all existed in two IBM selectric models, both of which are standard and were sold to the US government. Further, both were capable of producing an exact duplicate of the document provided as typed by hand in their default configurations as sold.

The icing on the cake is that the documents, when compared with computer generated ones, in their original resolution as opposed to the reduced resolution used by document experts shows the fonts, spacing and document characteristics to be markedly different between the original and the printed "duplicate" and the original in fact to be consistent with those produced by a typewriter, not a computer printer. When the documents resolution was lowered, many distinguishing characteristics of the fonts and so forth were lost.

Dory - if you took your examples as printed output and microscopically examined them at 1000-2000dpi rather than the 300-400dpi your monitor is capable of rendering, you would have seen the differences.

Which is not to say the documents arent forgeries, or that they tell any sort of truth or lie. Its just a case of sometimes things are or arent as they seem.

And its yet another example of why I roll my eyes regularly with regards to our upcoming election.

We're mired in whether a document that involves 35 year old events is accurate or not, rather than who will be the best candidate for president going forward starting in 2005.

[Hyperborea]

Quote:

Dory - if you took your examples as printed output and microscopically examined them at 1000-2000dpi rather than the 300-400dpi your monitor is capable of rendering, you would have seen the differences.

It's not too likely that his monitor is any better than maybe 150 dpi (very high resolution and small monitor) and probably more like 100 dpi. With 300 to 400 dpi (low end laser printer) the differences might be visible.

It just doesn't matter. No matter how many experts testify that the documents are valid, there will always be other experts to question their validity. Do we really need such proof that he got some help along the way? Questioning the documents is a brilliant move -- the issue is a tie.