Blogger shows Obama birth certificate artifacts caused by Xerox machine: no joy in Birtherville

I know that Internet blogger and radio host Reality Check has been busy with real life, and it’s great to see that he has been able to carve out enough time to get a few articles posted covering his testing of a sample birth certificate on a Xerox WorkCentre.

The articles so far are:

I hope my readers will take the time to look at these detailed articles, but I noticed one thing so amazing in the most recent article that I just had to highlight it here.

RC scanned a facsimile birth certificate using a Xerox WorkCentre 7535 to demonstrate how the machine’s MRC compression generates artifacts such as those seen in the President’s long-form birth certificate. The facsimile consisted of the Associated Press photograph by Scott Applewhite of the birth certificate, printed on real security paper such as is used by the State of Hawaii. The White House PDF was not used to make the sample.

One of the curious artifacts in the White House PDF version of the birth certificate is the way the certificate number is divided into different layers. Here’s the certificate number as it appears in the White House PDF:

image

Examination of the layers in the White House PDF file reveals that the number is split into two parts, and stored in two separate layers of the file. Doesn’t that almost make you think that there is something fishy, that the certificate number was manually assembled from parts? Birthers think that it proves the whole document is a forgery, but it turns out that when a paper birth certificate is scanned with a Xerox WorkCentre 7535, we see the very same thing! Below are the certificate numbers as they appear in separate PDF layers, the White House PDF on the left and Reality Check’s scan to PDF from a Xerox machine on the right:

WHv7535 1

WHv7535 2

Isn’t that remarkable? What are the chances that a forger would divide the number in exactly the same way and put the parts in exactly the same layers that an office machine automatically does? Pretty darned small, I think.

Oh, somewhere in this favoured land the sun is shining bright,
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout,
But there is no joy in Birtherville—mighty Zullo has struck out.

— With apology to Ernest Lawrence Thayer

About Dr. Conspiracy

I'm not a real doctor, but I have a master's degree.
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500 Responses to Blogger shows Obama birth certificate artifacts caused by Xerox machine: no joy in Birtherville

  1. Suranis says:

    Wow, that firmware update was goooood.

  2. john says:

    I sent the PDF document of Obama’s Long Form Birth Certificate to Xerox Research and Innovation: Here is my letter to them:
    —–

    Thank you so much for responding. Yes, I posses a document and I would like Xerox to verify it if that is possible. The document in question is highly sensitive and highly contraversal. That being said, I do not want to involve Xerox into the contraversy or issue. I am only concerned with one question and one question alone – Was the document scanned and produced using Xerox technology specifically with a Xerox WorkCenter machine.

    The document in question is President’s Barack Obama’s Long Form Birth Certificate from Hawaii that was released on April 27, 2011. The document is attached and can be found at this link:

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/birth-certificate-long-form.pdf

    There has been much controversy surrounding the validity of this document. Many believe that it is a forgery and not real. Again, I am not interested in involving Xerox into that issue.

    However, some have reason to believe this PDF was SCANNED and PRODUCED using a Xerox WorkCenter Machine. The metadata in the file indicates that it was viewed in MAC Preview under the Mac OS X 10.6.7 Quartz PDFContext standard before it was uploaded to the White House Server for public access. However, many believe it was originally constructed or SCANNED using a Xerox WorkCenter machine.

    This is question I am asking of Xerox – Was President Obama’s Long Form Birth Certificate PDF file originally SCANNED and PRODUCED on a Xerox WorkCenter machine. Can Xerox determine the answer to this question by examining or researching possible forensic markers, signatures or unique characteristics that may be found in PDFs produced by Xerox WorkCenter machines.

    I thought this would an interesting case for Xerox Innovation and Research since they are important part of the advances of Xerox Technology.

    I thank you for your time in this matter and hope you can honor my request. I know this is a highly unusual request but I have compelling reason to know if the birth certificate PDF was originally scanned and produced on a Xerox WorkCenter machine.
    ——–

    I have also sent the document to Xerox Technical Support but havn’t heard any back yet. Anyone want to know the response I got from Xerox Research and Innovation. The answer is quite ironic.

  3. john says:

    Here’s is Xerox’s Research and Innovation Department response about Obama’s PDF Birth CErtificate:

    “Upon reviewing your request, Xerox is unable to provide you with the level of detail that you are seeking. My recommendation is for you to engage either a law enforcement resource or an accredited forensic document examiner for further assistance.”

    Sheriff Arpaio…Reed Hayes…

  4. john says:

    RD(urr RC) didn’t mention the YcBr Comment.

  5. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    Get your ass in here, John! I wanna rub your nose in it until the bubbles stop!

  6. john says:

    RC couldn’t change the race of “African” to Negro or Kenyan. Recall that the immigration department reported Obama Sr’s race as “Kenyan” (Kenya…They meant Kenyan) when he applied at the University of Hawaii. Further, I yet to see any Hawaii birth certificate or COLB that lists a race by continent. All races have shown to be designated by 1 or 3 ways. – By a known race like White, by country like Chinese or by region like Caucasian. Some have shown a race of American but that again is race designated by country or region not continent.

  7. Yoda says:

    But I thought that Gallups declared it “forensically debunked”. How could it possibly be true?

  8. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    This should be spread viral, so that all residents of Birtherstan can simultaneously wail and gnash their teeth at this. 🙂

  9. CarlOrcas says:

    Yoda:
    But I thought that Gallups declared it “forensically debunked”.How could it possibly be true?

    Zullo is on to bigger things. Just ask Carl Gallups…..he’ll explain it.

  10. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    CarlOrcas: Zullo is on to bigger things. Just ask Carl Gallups…..he’ll explain it.

    Of course, in this instance “explain it” means “make something up”, which isn’t exactly a new trick for Gallups.

  11. CarlOrcas says:

    Andrew Vrba, PmG: Of course, in this instance “explain it” means “make something up”, which isn’t exactly a new trick for Gallups.

    Pretty soon it will be so big…..SO BIG…..that they won’t be able to tell anyone…..EVER!!!

  12. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    Hey RC, unless I’m mistaken, you did this all without donations, did you not?

  13. Doc paid for the green security paper stock if that counts. Otherwise no.

    Andrew Vrba, PmG:
    Hey RC, unless I’m mistaken, you did this all without donations, did you not?

  14. CarlOrcas says:

    Reality Check:
    Doc paid for the green security paper stock if that counts. Otherwise no.

    Great job!!

  15. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    Well there you have it, aside from a benefactor going “Here’s the right paper to do the test on!” You did it out of your own pocket and got the results to end all result!
    The CCCP, on the other hand, is still taking in donations, and haven’t produced a thing, save for a very lengthy bout of “Any day now”-itis. LOL!

  16. Bonsall Obot says:

    My God! They got to Xerox! How diabolical.

  17. justlw says:

    Big Toner has always been in the tank for Obama.

  18. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    The laws of physics and reality are also in bed with the Obama administration! How can birthers possibly compete with such a corrupt universe?! 😉

  19. Curious George says:

    Well there you have it John. In the cartoon business, which it could be argued the CCCP is part of with their Klown Kar antics, I leave you with the following words of wisdom……..

    “Yubbidy, yubbidy, yubbidy. That’s all folks!”

    Drop curtain. Open exit doors.

    Great job RC, NBC and Dr. C!

  20. alg says:

    It is of no concern..

  21. This was Carl Gallup’s latest gem from Fact Free Friday last week:

    All the talk about the Xerox machine and reproducing certain anomalies found on the White House birth certificate has now been completely, forensically, and in 100% evidentiary fashion – debunked. The entire Obot minutia portfolio has been completely eviscerated. Their smokescreen has been obliterated. To all of those who have had deep concerns about the matter of the authenticity of the birth certificate – you have been vindicated. You were right! This will eventually come to light. Be patient.

  22. Daniel says:

    And don’t forget to keep hitting that paypal button.

  23. john says:

    Mike Zullo should tell his findings to Terry Lakin. He is the most to be vindicated and I’m sure he could trust Lakin to keep quiet until the crucial time.

  24. Jim says:

    Reality Check:
    Doc paid for the green security paper stock if that counts. Otherwise no.

    Just my 2 cents, this has long ago been completely debunked because of the lack of practical knowledge by the CCP, what RC is doing is called “over-kill”. But, like the Black Knight on Monty Python and the Holy Grail, they just never realize they’re defeated and keep up the tough talk.

    There’s my 2 cents donation, can I write that off RC? 😆

  25. Monkey Boy says:

    Any attempt to get birther scoundrels to quit the field by presenting evidence is bound to fail, because they already know that birtherism is a lie.

    They know (and knew, at the time) that the the COLB presented by the Obama campaign in 2008 is genuine, but choose to megaphone the lie that “it’s a forgery” in the hope of convincing some other dopes. When a few other scoundrels picked up the chant and re-transmited it, they were convinced that their efforts are successful. In their echo chamber, they are unable (or perhaps, unwilling) to understand that their gospel is accepted only by the already converted–those already suffering from ODS.

    I was nurtured on the “fire and brimstone” of Southern Baptism believed in the absolute literalism of the Bible. These beliefs defined who I was. When, later in life, I was challenged on many of these beliefs by logic, I initially rejected the logical evidence because I could not accept it and maintain my belief system.

    Similarly, bitherism is a belief of necessity. The idea that Obama could be President (for whatever reason), is so repugnant to some people that they must find a reason to reject it; either by declaring him ineligible, or, in some cases, claiming that he didn’t really win two elections–i.e., he is the beneficiary of fraud.

  26. Slartibartfast says:

    Monkey Boy,

    I think you’re right on target with this. If I may ask, what was the catalyst that allowed you to accept the logic that contradicted your worldview?

    RC,

    Well done. The only disappointing aspect of this is that the birthers lack the intelligence and self-awareness to understand just how completely you’ve rebutted their assertions.

    Monkey Boy:
    Any attempt to get birther scoundrels to quit the field by presenting evidence is bound to fail, because they already know that birtherism is a lie.

    They know (and knew, at the time) that the the COLB presented by the Obama campaign in 2008 is genuine, but choose to megaphone the lie that “it’s a forgery” in the hope of convincing some other dopes.When a few other scoundrels picked up the chant and re-transmited it, they were convinced that their efforts are successful. In their echo chamber, they are unable (or perhaps, unwilling) to understand that their gospel is accepted only by the already converted–those already suffering from ODS.

    I was nurtured on the “fire and brimstone” of Southern Baptism believed in the absolute literalism of the Bible.These beliefs defined who I was.When, later in life, I was challenged on many of these beliefs by logic, I initially rejected the logical evidence because I could not accept it and maintain my belief system.

    Similarly, bitherism is a belief of necessity.The idea that Obama could be President (for whatever reason), is so repugnant to some people that they must find a reason to reject it; either by declaring him ineligible, or, in some cases, claiming that he didn’t really win two elections–i.e., he is the beneficiary of fraud.

  27. roxy7655 says:

    justlw:
    Big Toner has always been in the tank for Obama.

    Now, now. I have always tried to be impartial. But this is complicated by the fact that reality has a way of being biased toward the President. Haha.

  28. “Asian” is a pretty standard racial designation. Sorry Charlie.

    john: I yet to see any Hawaii birth certificate or COLB that lists a race by continent. All races have shown to be designated by 1 or 3 ways. – By a known race like White, by country like Chinese or by region like Caucasian. Some have shown a race of American but that again is race designated by country or region not continent.

  29. Which is kinder, calling some a “liar” or an “idiot?” I ask because I want to portray the birthers in the best possible light.

    Monkey Boy: They know (and knew, at the time) that the the COLB presented by the Obama campaign in 2008 is genuine, but choose to megaphone the lie that “it’s a forgery” in the hope of convincing some other dopes.

  30. Yoda says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    Which is kinder, calling some a “liar” or an “idiot?” I ask because I want to portray the birthers in the best possible light.

    I usually give them the choice. After explaining, in the nicest possible way, that what they said is wrong or impossible and that there are only two possibilities, either they are lying or stupid, then I ask if which they are. I find that very helpful.

  31. Yoda says:

    Is there ever joy in birtherville?

  32. Punchmaster via mobile says:

    John’s bitter tears are so delicious, that I won’t have any left to sell at this rate.
    So John, now that you’ve been once again owned, where is the next stop in your “Deny Reality ’13” tour?

  33. Arthur says:

    john: Mike Zullo should tell his findings to Terry Lakin. He is the most to be vindicated and I’m sure he could trust Lakin to keep quiet until the crucial time.

    I doubt that Terry Lakin wants anything to do with Zullo. As you may recall, prior to his court martial, Lakin fired his birther lawyer, Paul Jensen, when he realized that Jensen had misled him. Birthers encouraged Lakin to disobey orders and flush an honorable military career down the toilet. Thanks to birtherism, Lakin lost his pension and his ability to practice medicine. Lakin is naive, but I don’t think he’s stupid enough to get caught up in Zullo’s mendacity.

  34. That should be “YCbCr.” YCbCr is a method of specifying chroma values in the YUV color space. Y stands for luminance and Cb is for blue chrominance and Cr is for red chrominance (green can be computed from the other three).

    john: RD(urr RC) didn’t mention the YcBr Comment.

  35. Jim says:

    john:
    Mike Zullo should tell his findings to Terry Lakin.He is the most to be vindicated and I’m sure he could trust Lakin to keep quiet until the crucial time.

    Maybe Zullo should share his findings with the Xerox software development team, I’m sure they’d be amused to no end at the stupidity of Zullo’s so-called “findings”.

  36. Arthur says:

    Yoda:
    Is there ever joy in birtherville?

    All the time. Of course, birther joy isn’t fueled by normal factors (love, happiness, friendship, or achievement), but by obscene rage and blistering anger.

  37. It is there. I will cover that in the next article. It is in every color scan I have done on the WorkCentre 7535. (It is YCbCr BTW).

    john:
    RD(urr RC) didn’t mention the YcBr Comment.

  38. Rickey says:

    john:
    Here’s is Xerox’s Research and Innovation Department response about Obama’s PDF Birth CErtificate:

    “Upon reviewing your request, Xerox is unable to provide you with the level of detail that you are seeking.My recommendation is for you to engage either a law enforcement resource or an accredited forensic document examiner for further assistance.”

    That’s their way of telling you that they have better things to do with their time than indulge your fantasies and paranoia.

  39. Rickey says:

    john:
    Mike Zullo should tell his findings to Terry Lakin.He is the most to be vindicated and I’m sure he could trust Lakin to keep quiet until the crucial time.

    Lakin vindicated? Surely you jest. Even if you could prove that Obama was born on Mars it wouldn’t change the fact that Lakin was Guilty, Guilty, Guilty.

    And when do you expect “the crucial time” to roll around? 2017?

    Mike Zullo last January: “The evidence that we have acquired — new-found evidence that we have never made public at any point in time, and we are not going to make public until we have the right opportunity — will convince even the greatest skeptic that this document is 100 percent a forgery.”

  40. nbc says:

    john: Sheriff Arpaio…Reed Hayes…

    ROTFL… We have seen where that got us…

  41. nbc says:

    john: Mike Zullo should tell his findings to Terry Lakin. He is the most to be vindicated and I’m sure he could trust Lakin to keep quiet until the crucial time.

    Lakin has no hope for vindication, he disobeyed orders, admitted to such an suffered the consequences of his foolish actions

  42. nbc says:

    Reality Check: It is there. I will cover that in the next article. It is in every color scan I have done on the WorkCentre 7535. (It is YCbCr BTW).

    Yeah, what about the 8 bit alignment? I can do the calculations 🙂

  43. I will email you some files.

    nbc: Yeah, what about the 8 bit alignment? I can do the calculations

  44. gorefan says:

    john:
    Mike Zullo should tell his findings to Terry Lakin.He is the most to be vindicated and I’m sure he could trust Lakin to keep quiet until the crucial time.

    What is the crucial time? November 6th, 2012? November 8th, 2016 or January 20th, 2017?

    Anyway you look at it , time is not on your side.

  45. The evidence seems not to support this idea.

    Arthur: Lakin is naive, but I don’t think he’s stupid enough to get caught up in Zullo’s mendacity.

  46. Arthur says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: The evidence seems not to support this idea.

    Really? I haven’t read about Lakin being drawn into Zullo’s shenanigans. What have I missed?

  47. Monkey Boy says:

    Dr. Conspiracy November 11, 2013 at 5:58 pm (Quote) #
    The evidence seems not to support this idea.

    Arthur: Lakin is naive, but I don’t think he’s stupid enough to get caught up in Zullo’s mendacity.

    I agree. Lakin is stupid and bigoted, but regardless, he is now fully invested in birtherism. He blew a very lucrative retirement on a lark, so now he is astride the birther tiger and doesn’t dare dismount.

  48. Carl Gallups Freedom Friday Show 7/12/2013

    Lakin: I truly appreciate your listeners and I appreciate everything that you and Mike Zullo and Sheriff Arpaio are doing. It’s incredible.

    Arthur: Really? I haven’t read about Lakin being drawn into Zullo’s shenanigans. What have I missed?

  49. john says:

    The laying effect (meaning the white imprint) is far more profound in the WH PDF than on RC’s scan. RC’s also forgets to use a rubber stamp for the date. I believe Pappit did do this at one point. Anyway, the data stamp is “Not Real” and is computer generated whereas in the CCP’s findings the date stamp was “real”. The Onaka signature stamp doesn’t come up completely on RC’s scan and the Dunham’s signature is not a composite layer.

    A lot replicated but not enough.

  50. john says:

    The White Noise (Meaning the whiteness) in the security paper of WH PDF seems inconstistent and is absent in RC’s scan. Rc’s scan is also missing some of those marks that hidden by clipping mask and shown when it is released.

  51. CarlOrcas says:

    john: Sheriff Arpaio…Reed Hayes…

    You’re living “Groundhog Day”, john.

  52. Dr Kenneth Noisewater says:

    john:
    The laying effect (meaning the white imprint) is far more profound in the WH PDF than on RC’s scan.RC’s also forgets to use a rubber stamp for the date.I believe Pappit did do this at one point.Anyway, the data stamp is “Not Real” and is computer generated whereas in the CCP’s findings the date stamp was “real”.The Onaka signature stamp doesn’t come up completely on RC’s scan and the Dunham’s signature is not a composite layer.

    A lot replicated but not enough.

    You forget that Mike Zullo claimed none of those effects could be made any other way but forgery when that’s not the case.

  53. Until you’re willing to demonstrate your honesty, I don’t see the value in discussing this with you.

    You would demonstrate your honesty by detailing all of the things the Cold Case Posse claimed that have been disproven already by RC’s experiment.

    john: The laying effect (meaning the white imprint) is far more profound in the WH PDF than on RC’s scan. RC’s also forgets to use a rubber stamp for the date. I believe Pappit did do this at one point. Anyway, the data stamp is “Not Real” and is computer generated whereas in the CCP’s findings the date stamp was “real”. The Onaka signature stamp doesn’t come up completely on RC’s scan and the Dunham’s signature is not a composite layer.

    A lot replicated but not enough.

  54. nbc says:

    john: The White Noise (Meaning the whiteness) in the security paper of WH PDF seems inconstistent and is absent in RC’s scan. Rc’s scan is also missing some of those marks that hidden by clipping mask and shown when it is released.

    John is now quibbling about minor details while ignoring the big picture. Fascinating what facts do to the ‘mind’ of a birther like John

  55. nbc says:

    Dr Kenneth Noisewater: You forget that Mike Zullo claimed none of those effects could be made any other way but forgery when that’s not the case.

    John is moving the goalposts now that he has realized that the CCP messed up once again…

  56. Confirmation bias is easy to understand in theory, but it is really amazing to see powerful it is in practice.

    nbc: John is now quibbling about minor details while ignoring the big picture. Fascinating what facts do to the ‘mind’ of a birther like John

  57. CarlOrcas says:

    nbc: John is now quibbling about minor details while ignoring the big picture. Fascinating what facts do to the ‘mind’ of a birther like John

    If you want to see what happens to the “mind” of a birther check out the latest from FALCON on The Birther Report.

    Doc has got the propeller on FALCON’s beanie spinning at supersonic speeds:

    http://www.birtherreport.com/2013/11/sold-car-dealer-plans-to-put-back-up-obama-sign.html

  58. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    john:
    The White Noise (Meaning the whiteness) in the security paper of WH PDF seems inconstistent and is absent in RC’s scan.Rc’s scan is also missing some of those marks that hidden by clipping mask and shown when it is released.

    Isn’t “whiteness” being “absent” the entire reason this birther thing got started?
    I’m asking because you’re a cowardly little bigot, and would therefore actually be a credible expert in the matter.
    So, at what point did you discover that you hate black people?

  59. richCares says:

    john is locked into that “African” race thing, While attending U of H in the 60’s, I got to know most of the African exchange students, to them the terrn Negro was an insult, everyone that I met said their race was African. jonn should visit Hawaii and check out the current crop of Africans at the student union, it would help with his ignorance.

  60. Slartibartfast says:

    A person is not responsible for being an idiot—that comes from their upbringing and genetics, a person is, however, responsible if they choose to lie (or misspeak due to willful ignorance). Just my $0.02.

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    Which is kinder, calling some a “liar” or an “idiot?” I ask because I want to portray the birthers in the best possible light.

  61. nbc says:

    CarlOrcas: Doc has got the propeller on FALCON’s beanie spinning at supersonic speeds:

    http://www.birtherreport.com/2013/11/sold-car-dealer-plans-to-put-back-up-obama-sign.html

    Falcon is such a loser and he does not even seem to care how his irrationality and rudeness reflects on him and his ’cause’.

    In other words, the perfect birther and a perfect fool. No wonder he has bought the Zullo story hook line and sinker, they are so gullible and manipulable.

  62. nbc says:

    I checked:

    8 bit alignments – Check
    YCbCr – Check
    Quantization Matrix – Check
    Scaling – 24 and 48% check (150 and 300 dpi)

    Well done RC

  63. nbc says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: Confirmation bias is easy to understand in theory, but it is really amazing to see powerful it is in practice.

    John and Hermitian are two excellent examples…

  64. JPotter says:

    john: A lot replicated but not enough.

    Do what John? Do what John?
    Come again do what?
    Do what John? Do what John?
    Do what? Do what? Do what?
    Do where John? Do where John?
    Wiv what, wiv whom and when?
    Trific; realy trific.
    Pardon; come again.

    Have you ever tried to be surprising? Your precise reaction to this demonstration was predicted more than two years in advance.

  65. Oh, I suspect there was dancing in the streets the day of Arpaio and Zullo’s first press conference.

    Yoda: Is there ever joy in birtherville?

  66. JPotter says:

    nbc:
    I checked:

    8 bit alignments – Check
    YCbCr – Check
    Quantization Matrix – Check
    Scaling – 24 and 48% check (150 and 300 dpi)

    Well done RC

    Do y’ever wonder whether those self-afflicted with PDF Madness can understand why children from the same parents aren’t all identical?

  67. gorefan says:

    john:
    The White Noise (Meaning the whiteness) in the security paper of WH PDF seems inconstistent and is absent in RC’s scan.Rc’s scan is also missing some of those marks that hidden by clipping mask and shown when it is released.

    You don’t understand, according to Zullo those marks are pencil marks. RC didn’t put pencil marks along the edge so that’s why they are not there. But both the LFBC PDF’s and RC’s PDF’s clipping mask covered up the green security background so if RC’s had pencil marks they would have been covered also.

  68. Crustacean says:

    CarlOrcas: Doc has got the propeller on FALCON’s beanie spinning at supersonic speeds:

    No doubt about it. I wonder if FALCON (aka chicken—t) would be willing to put his money where his mouth is.

    I’d love to see Doc offer a $10,000 wager to chicken—t ($10k being a “Romney,” Earth’s equivalent to the quatloo) on some clearly definable outcome; for example, will Doc be indicted for felonious fakery or not. Or will Obama be frog-marched out of the White House by some agreed-upon date… or some other event that chicken—t is so sure will happen.

    Of course, chicken—t would not agree to that wager in this lifetime because, even if he sold his entire collection of G. Gordon Liddy action figures, it wouldn’t be enough to pay off the bet.

    Plus, he’s a, well, you know…

  69. CarlOrcas says:

    nbc: Falcon is such a loser and he does not even seem to care how his irrationality and rudeness reflects on him and his ’cause’.

    In other words, the perfect birther and a perfect fool. No wonder he has bought the Zullo story hook line and sinker, they are so gullible and manipulable.

    Frankly I don’t mind the birther nonsense, as pathetic as it is. In his case it’s the vile personal attacks that put him in a category of his own.

  70. CarlOrcas says:

    Crustacean: Plus, he’s a, well, you know…

    Having already given up his credibility I doubt he would wager a dime.

  71. Thanks NBC. I don’t have the same PDF analysis tools you have so that helps.

    For John … If he wants pencil marks or smudges I can add them and the Preview added clipping mask will cover them up. I might try that this week.

    nbc:
    I checked:

    8 bit alignments – Check
    YCbCr – Check
    Quantization Matrix – Check
    Scaling – 24 and 48% check (150 and 300 dpi)

    Well done RC

  72. Keith says:

    john:
    Mike Zullo should tell his findings to Terry Lakin.He is the most to be vindicated and I’m sure he could trust Lakin to keep quiet until the crucial time.

    Why are you telling this to us? tell it to someone who can do something about it. Tell it to Zullo.

    Or don’t you have quite the access you claimed. Is your only way to communicate with him through the anti-birther sites he reads?

  73. nbc says:

    gorefan: You don’t understand, according to Zullo those marks are pencil marks.

    Poor john, he still has no clue about the mask…

  74. Keith says:

    nbc: Poor john, he still has no clue about the mask…

    I thought that was Zorro that had the mask. Huh. Live and learn.

  75. And then they’re going to complain about it not having a seal, right, john?

    Too bad we don’t know anyone with access to a professional seal, such as an engineer’s seal…

    signed,

    W. Kevin Vicklund, P.E.

  76. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    Keith: I thought that was Zorro that had the mask. Huh. Live and learn.

    Nah, It was Stanley Ipkiss!

  77. ZixiOfIx says:

    Arthur: …Lakin fired his birther lawyer, Paul Jensen, when he realized that Jensen had misled him.

    Presumably true.

    Birthers encouraged Lakin to disobey orders and flush an honorable military career down the toilet.

    Sadly true.

    Thanks to birtherism, Lakin lost his pension

    True.

    and his ability to practice medicine.

    Not so. He still practices medicine. I will not link to his details, since doxing isn’t nice.

    Lakin is naive, but I don’t think he’s stupid enough to get caught up in Zullo’s mendacity.

    Hmmmm…

  78. The Magic M says:

    john: RC couldn’t change the race of “African” to Negro or Kenyan.

    Who called the Goalpost Movers? I certainly didn’t.

    john: Some have shown a race of American but that again is race designated by country or region not continent.

    “America” is neither a country (that would be the United States) nor a “region” when talking about race. However, it’s a designation of the amalgamation of the North American and South American continent.

    john: A lot replicated but not enough.

    It seems we’ve forced you almost all the way to the claim that Obots would have to reproduce *every single pixel* on the WH PDF to “convince” you it’s not a forgery. Keep living in your la-la land.

    Birtherism was interesting when you peeps were looking for a way to sow doubts in enough people to tip the 2012 elections. Even the most deluded of you knew that Vattelism wouldn’t sit well with most people because nobody wants to wade through intricacies of Constitutional law while believing in some vast conspiracy of all legal scholars on the planet.
    So you tried to find stuff on the BC that would convince somebody similar to a sleight-of-hand trick – something that looked fishy on first sight and would only be refuted by in-depth analysis, so it would find enough people willing to believe it (like Irey’s “different font sizes”).
    Now it seems you’re again reduced to arguments that no significant number of people will buy into, namely “it’s a forgery until somebody reproduces a pixel-perfect identical copy using a scanner”. Yes, john, sorry, you won’t convince any Congressman or judge with that type of “reasoning”, not even some redneck yokel in a hut in TX who never heard the word “Xerox” in his life.

  79. Curious George says:

    Now, having read parts I, II, and III, of RC’s report, I find the reports very compelling. Here we see RC and nbc along with the help of Doc C. totally devastating the claims of “forgery” as presented by Zullo, Arpaio and Corsi at their March 1, 2012 press conference. The fact that these reports were done at minimal expense with no requests for financial donations is also indicative of the possible ulterior motivations of the CCCP. For those who had legitimate questions about the artifacts or apparent anomalies on the LFBC, those questions have been successfully addressed and answered. Once again, Mr. Zullo and his questionable efforts via the CCCP have been exposed and found lacking. Well done!

  80. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    The Magic M: Who called the Goalpost Movers? I certainly didn’t.

    If they’re anything like the Imagination Movers, we’re in for a lot of insufferable music and antics.

  81. Rickey says:

    Arthur: Thanks to birtherism, Lakin lost his pension and his ability to practice medicine.

    That’s not entirely true. Lakin is still licensed to practice medicine in Colorado. Apparently Colorado elected to take no action against him (assuming that they know about his birther follies and military conviction).

  82. Curious George says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    Carl Gallups Freedom Friday Show 7/12/2013

    Lakin: I truly appreciate your listeners and I appreciate everything that you and Mike Zullo and Sheriff Arpaio are doing. It’s incredible.

    Don’t forget Lakin addressed the Tea Party in AZ by Skype in mid 2013 in support of Zullo and Arpaio’s crazy birther extravaganza. Misery enjoys company.

  83. JimmyJam says:

    How soon John (PRETENDS TO) forget(s).

    “Birther” Army Doctor Terrence Lakin PLEADS GUILTY to Disobeying Orders to Deploy to Afghanistan
    CBS News/December 15, 2010

    FORT MEADE, Md. (CBS/AP) Army doctor and “birther” Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin pleaded guilty in military court Tuesday to a charge that included not meeting with a superior when ordered to do so and not reporting to duty at Fort Campbell, Ky.
    Lakin, who disobeyed orders to deploy to Afghanistan, believes his inaction is justified because as a “birther” he questions whether President Barack Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States.

    Lakin, who serves as a flight surgeon, told the military jury he had gone to a chapel to do some soul-searching and felt he had no choice but to disobey orders.

    “I believe there is a valid question that needs to be asked and answered,” he said, referring to Obama’s eligibility to be president.

    In videos posted on YouTube, Lakin aligns himself with the so-called “birthers” who question whether Obama is a natural-born citizen as the Constitution requires for presidents.

    Officials from Obama’s home state of Hawaii say they have seen and verified Obama’s original 1961 birth certificate which is on record with that state.

    Despite the documented proof, Lakin believes that any rational person would question its authenticity because the certificate does not list the name of the hospital where Obama’s mother gave birth or the physician who delivered him.

    Lakin refused to deploy to Afghanistan for what would have been his second tour of duty.

    Members of the military jury that was asked to hear the case were questioned Tuesday as to whether they had heard of the birther movement and their feelings about individuals who identify with it.

    Several said they had heard of the term, and all but one said they had at least heard of the case of a military doctor refusing to deploy because he questioned the president’s eligibility for office.

    Lakin’s parents and his two brothers along with other supporters audibly scoffed when one of the potential jurors said based on the evidence that Obama was eligible to be president.

    Lakin pleaded not guilty to a second charge of missing a flight he was required to be on, and the court-martial proceeding continued on that count.

    He faces up to 18 months in prison and dismissal from the Army when he’s sentenced on the first charge.
    http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20025740-504083.html

  84. Arthur says:

    Rickey: That’s not entirely true. Lakin is still licensed to practice medicine in Colorado.

    I didn’t know about that–I was only aware that Kansas had refused to give him a medical license.

  85. Curious George says:

    RC for those who may be new to this story, what motivated you to do your own testing?

    Were you paid or instructed to do these tests?

    Are you a Democrat, a Republican, Independent or Other?

    Will you be making a complete video of all the testing and the results available for distribution?

    Thanks.

  86. richCares says:

    Looking at john and other birthers makes me wonder how much more of their lives are locked into a fictitious world of make believe. It must be very difficult for them, they need pity, they lose so much of the rich life that is available in the reality based world. SAD!.

  87. nbc says:

    Curious George: RC for those who may be new to this story, what motivated you to do your own testing?

    Were you paid or instructed to do these tests?

    I doubt that he is paid to do these tests. We ‘obots’ work for free as we take pride and pleasure in exploring facts and solve little mysteries. After I uncovered the telltale signs of the Xerox work centre, RC volunteered copies made on a 7535 WorkCentre, and I used his work to put to rest many of the Cold Case Posse’s foolish claims.

    RC wanted to purse using a real background to see if the process would create the ‘halos’ seen and to deal with some criticisms that the analysis was invalid because no real security papers was used. Pretty meaningless to those who understand the process but it helped birthers hide behind ignorant claims.

    When Dr C bought some security paper, I understand that he sent some to RC for further experiments.

    As is the case with any scientific hypothesis, its value does not depend on motivation, or even on ‘sponsorship’ and is purely based on the ability to repeat the experiment with similar results.

    RC’s contribution is to extend the testing, and providing yet another data point in support of the Xerox WorkCentre hypothesis, showing that it is not that hard to repeat the work I had presented.

    Why birthers have remained unwilling to do the same is quite telling I believe. That they are already moving the goalposts, is just hilarious.

    I do not speak for RC but these are my understandings of the why and how.

    Anyone interested in the ‘controversy’ should repeat the work RC has done, so that they can determine the veracity of his claims for themselves. Anyone who objects to RC’s findings should show that he has repeated the work and the results failed…

    Anything else is just… well… not very scientific.

  88. nbc says:

    Curious George: Once again, Mr. Zullo and his questionable efforts via the CCCP have been exposed and found lacking. Well done!

    It was obvious to me from the start that MRC compression and other scanning artifacts were responsible for most of the claimed ‘evidences’ of ‘forgery’, the moment the CCP released its report. Arguments from ignorance never have impressed me, and in this case, the lucky finds that linked the document to a Xerox workcentre were icing on the cake.

    Even the original report was significantly flawed… The CCP should be ashamed of the quality of their work, and their inability or unwillingness to admit to their follies. One would expect that a real law enforcement effort would be interested in looking at all aspects, and not ignore evidence that contradicts its findings…

    Then again, I am not sure there is any real law enforcement effort happening, now or in the past…

  89. Dr Kenneth Noisewater says:

    The Magic M: Now it seems you’re again reduced to arguments that no significant number of people will buy into, namely “it’s a forgery until somebody reproduces a pixel-perfect identical copy using a scanner”. Yes, john, sorry, you won’t convince any Congressman or judge with that type of “reasoning”, not even some redneck yokel in a hut in TX who never heard the word “Xerox” in his life.

    We both know a pixel-perfect identical copy using a scanner would only result in more birther cries of forgery and accusations of the person running the tests of being the forger.

  90. Curious George says:

    nbc: I doubt that he is paid to do these tests. We ‘obots’ work for free as we take pride and pleasure in exploring facts and solve little mysteries. After I uncovered the telltale signs of the Xerox work centre, RC volunteered copies made on a 7535 WorkCentre, and I used his work to put to rest many of the Cold Case Posse’s foolish claims.

    RC wanted to purse using a real background to see if the process would create the ‘halos’ seen and to deal with some criticisms that the analysis was invalid because no real security papers was used. Pretty meaningless to those who understand the process but it helped birthers hide behind ignorant claims.

    When Dr C bought some security paper, I understand that he sent some to RC for further experiments.

    As is the case with any scientific hypothesis, its value does not depend on motivation, or even on ‘sponsorship’ and is purely based on the ability to repeat the experiment with similar results.

    RC’s contribution is to extend the testing, and providing yet another data point in support of the Xerox WorkCentre hypothesis, showing that it is not that hard to repeat the work I had presented.

    Why birthers have remained unwilling to do the same is quite telling I believe. That they are already moving the goalposts, is just hilarious.

    I do not speak for RC but these are my understandings of the why and how.

    Anyone interested in the ‘controversy’ should repeat the work RC has done, so that they can determine the veracity of his claims for themselves. Anyone who objects to RC’s findings should show that he has repeated the work and the results failed…

    Anything else is just… well… not very scientific.

    nbc….thank you for your reply. The questions that I asked are the questions that I expected Birthers to ask. It was to get it on the record before they attack the messenger instead of the message. I agree that the message and the evidence as presented should be the focus of our attention. I am also appalled that the services of people on this board have not been solicited to help determine the facts regarding this so-called investigation. Obviously, there is bias and a specified outcome being advanced. Would you and RC consider yourself Anti-Birthers, Obots, or simply concerned citizens attempting to expose a flawed and biased investigation? I think that you and RC have done an excellent job exposing what appears to be a politically motivated effort by the CCCP.

  91. I was not paid for any of the testing. I have never hidden the fact that I support the President. The purpose of the current testing was to show how the halos and borders were created from a document on real security paper via a simple workflow.

    The case is now closed on the PDF. The scientific evidence I believe would be accepted by any neutral party with knowledge of the hardware. I have no idea what Reed Hayes said in his report and really do not care. The fact that Zullo will not release it tells you that he knows it is full of holes.

    From a legal perspective the 2007 issued COLB settled beyond any doubt that President Obama was born in Hawaii. I expect Birthers to move the goalposts and cling to nonsense like the typography claptrap that Irey is pushing. You cannot convince True Believers no matter how much evidence you compile.

    Debunking Birthers is a hobby not a vocation for me.

    BTW, I was already considering buying a pack of security paper when Doc kindly saved me the trouble of finding it.

  92. RanTalbott says:

    john: Sheriff Arpaio…Reed Hayes…

    Both of whom were also “unable to provide you with the level of detail that you are seeking”.

    No birther has ever been able to provide a verifiable explanation of how the PDF was made: it’s always “No understand. Must be witchcraft”.

    And all of their “professionals” (remember: Zullo says they shouldn’t be called “experts”) have gone on record saying that the technology in the WorkCentres doesn’t exist. So none of them is going to be able to give you a competent answer.

  93. Curious George says:

    Reality Check:
    I was not paid for any of the testing. I have never hidden the fact that I support the President. The purpose of the current testing was to show how the halos and borders were created from a document on real security paper via a simple workflow.

    The case is now closed on the PDF. The scientific evidence I believe would be accepted by any neutral party with knowledge of the hardware. I have no idea what Reed Hayes said in his report and really do not care. The fact that Zullo will not release it tells you that he knows it is full of holes.

    From a legal perspective the 2007 issued COLB settled beyond any doubt that President Obama was born in Hawaii. I expect Birthers to move the goalposts and cling to nonsense like the typography claptrap that Irey is pushing. You cannot convince True Believers no matter how much evidence you compile.

    Debunking Birthers is a hobby not a vocation for me.

    BTW, I was already considering buying a pack of security paper when Doc kindly saved me the trouble of finding it.

    My thanks to both RC and nbc for their replies. I think that this article published by Dr. C is one of the most important articles that I’ve had the opportunity to read on this site. It totally neutralizes the arguments and “facts” as presented by the Cold Case Posse. For those people who have an open mind, I would encourage them to take the time to thoughtfully review part I, II & III of RC’s reports. The deficiencies in the CCP findings are troubling to say the least when compared to RC’s report. Again, well done!

  94. There is also the fact that aside from the technical Xerox/MRC stuff the two options are

    1. Hawaii issued two different birth certificates. The COLB in 2007 and the LFBC in 2011 and the White House scanned the LFBC on a copier that we know they have in place from independent evidence using a procedure they would have done hundreds of times.

    2. A mysterious forger created on a computer using unknown software in a manner that makes no sense whatsoever. The number of people “in on it” would be huge and include two Hawaii administrations.

    It is Occam’s razor raised to the goggol.

  95. nbc says:

    Curious George: Would you and RC consider yourself Anti-Birthers, Obots, or simply concerned citizens attempting to expose a flawed and biased investigation? I think that you and RC have done an excellent job exposing what appears to be a politically motivated effort by the CCCP.

    I can speak for myself only here. As with RC, it is more of a hobby to look at empty claims and find more reasonable explanations. The many foolish claims by birthers attracted my attention and I have had some fun educating myself about issues of law, copying machines, and much more. I love doing research. I am in support of most of Obama’s policies and goals, I am worried about how birthers so quickly jump to foolish conclusions out of fear and ignorance more than out of a position of being well informed.

    So yes, I too have a risk of being biased by my preconceived notions, which is why I continuously try to challenge them. None of us are perfect so when it comes to birther related issues, I educate myself, formulate hypotheses, defend my position and look for arguments or facts that disprove my position.

  96. nbc says:

    RanTalbott: No birther has ever been able to provide a verifiable explanation of how the PDF was made: it’s always “No understand. Must be witchcraft”.

    Also known as a classical argument from ignorance…

  97. justlw says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    Carl Gallups Freedom Friday Show 7/12/2013

    Lakin: I truly appreciate your listeners and I appreciate everything that you and Mike Zullo and Sheriff Arpaio are doing. It’s incredible.

    Excellent choice of words, Mr. Lakin.

  98. I consider myself to be anti-ignorance, esp. the willful variety.

  99. justlw says:

    nbc: Also known as a classical argument from ignorance…

    “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from usurpin’.”

  100. nbc says:

    Reality Check: I consider myself to be anti-ignorance, esp. the willful variety.

    Hear hear.

  101. Kupuna says:

    john:
    RC couldn’t change the race of “African” to Negro or Kenyan.Recall that the immigration department reported Obama Sr’s race as “Kenyan” (Kenya…They meant Kenyan) when he applied at the University of Hawaii.Further, I yet to see any Hawaii birth certificate or COLB that lists a race by continent.All races have shown to be designated by 1 or 3 ways.– By a known race like White, by country like Chinese or by region like Caucasian.Some have shown a race of American but that again is race designated by country or region not continent.

    Sorry John but, like richCares says further down in these comments, someone from Africa identifies their race &/or ethnicity regularly as African. A case in point is a nurse practitioner student I precepted from Kenya at my clinic. We have students fill out an informational form about themselves that we keep on file, for reports we do for our funders & in case a problem later comes up with a patient. I recently took out that file when I had a new student & saw a form from years ago, from a student from Kenya. On the line asking for her race, she wrote African.

  102. Notorial Dissent says:

    This may well come as a shock to the likes of John and his ilk, but not everyone sees themselves through parochial white bread midwestern, or wherever, ignorant eyes, differences in language, custom, and usage vary greatly from country to country. Just because John insists that you have to use a particular word to describe an ethnic or national background does not mean that anyone else cares or does, particularly people from those worlds. People from Africa generally refer to themselves either by that designation, or by the nationality within Africa, and whether John et al like it or not, they are not going to change just to suit his prejudices and general ignorance. The reason it says African on the LFBC is because that is what Stanly Ann put down when she filled it out, she could just as well have said Martian, and it would have gone in to the official records that way. The registrars do not correct sworn affidavits, they JUST file them. Now when they are coding them for reporting they use whatever guidelines they have to follow at the time, but that doesn’t change or affect what the sworn affidavit says or is recorded.

  103. The Magic M says:

    Notorial Dissent: Just because John insists that you have to use a particular word to describe an ethnic or national background

    Birthers, like all cranks, believe in the power of “magic words” – if you use them, you will win in court (see Orly who incorporated words from opponent’s counsel into her filings after losing to them); if you don’t use them, what you said isn’t really what you said.
    I remember how birthers always claimed “Hawaii never said Obama was an NBC” (and when they finally did, they went “they are not allowed to make that ruling”). Or think of all the verification which “weren’t verifications” because the precise wording that birthers wanted to hear wasn’t used.
    Same here. Had Obama’s BC said “Negro” for his father’s race, they would’ve claimed that proves forgery because “Negro” was only used for American blacks.

  104. Northland10 says:

    Notorial Dissent:
    This may well come as a shock to the likes of John and his ilk, but not everyone sees themselves through parochial white bread midwestern, or wherever, ignorant eyes, differences in language, custom, and usage vary greatly from country to country.

    I don’t believe John is from the Midwest, and I can safely say, there are many of us Midwesterners who are very aware of and value different customs.

  105. Arthur says:

    The Magic M: Birthers, like all cranks, believe in the power of “magic words” – if you use them, you will win in court (see Orly who incorporated words from opponent’s counsel into her filings after losing to them); if you don’t use them, what you said isn’t really what you said.

    Sarah Palin is also one of those who believes in the power of magic words. Did you catch her convoluted answer to Matt Lauer’s question about what the right wing would put in place of ACA:

    “The plan is to allow those things that had been proposed over many years to reform a health care system in America that certainly does need more help so that there’s more competition, there’s less tort reform threat, there’s less trajectory of the cost increases? And those plans have been proposed over and over again. And what thwarts those plans? It’s the far left. It’s President Obama and his supporters who will not allow the Republicans to usher in free market, patient-centered, doctor-patient relationship links to reform health care!”

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/12/1255071/-Sarah-Palin-tries-valiantly-to-answer-a-healthcare-question

    I’m guessing she doesn’t know what “torts” are, or what “tort reform” refers to, and she seems equally clueless about the fact that conservatives have long been in FAVOR of tort reform and view it as a goal, not a threat. Like Orly, Palin probably heard someone say some words in an important-sounding voice, thought they sounded cool, and never bothered to find out what they meant.

  106. John Reilly says:

    While Gov. Palin may be less than eloquent, she did identify two Republican talking points. “Tort reform” means restricting what plaintiffs can get in a malpractice suit and is hardly free competition; rather, it is protectionism. “More competition” is to allow Anthem to sell policies across state lines so that we will have a race to the bottom to see which state has the lowest standards and regulation, or, indeed, none at all.

    I’m confident that if these ideas had any real value that the Republicans would have enacted them sometime between 2001 and 2007.

  107. Kiwiwriter says:

    john:
    Here’s is Xerox’s Research and Innovation Department response about Obama’s PDF Birth CErtificate:

    “Upon reviewing your request, Xerox is unable to provide you with the level of detail that you are seeking.My recommendation is for you to engage either a law enforcement resource or an accredited forensic document examiner for further assistance.”

    Sheriff Arpaio…Reed Hayes…

    John, the only thing I want to know from you is this:
    john October 16, 2013 at 2:08 pm #
    I sent the following letter to the Arlington National Cemetery Administration:
    Dear Administration,
    When the government reopens, I am planning on taking a trip to Washington DC. I plan to visit Arlington National Cemetery. I am an avid treasure hunter and I am asking permission if I can metal detect on the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery. Millions of people visit the cemetery and I want to metal detect around some of the green and the graves. I would promise to fill any holes I made and the administration can even keep an eye on me to be sure I fill in the holes I make at some the graves. I know this is an unusual request by I understand the National Park Service with approval of the President placed barricades in front of the memorials including the WWII Memorial denying Vets access to them. It seems this was OK with National Park Service and President so I don’t see why there be would a problem to allow me to metal detect around the green and the graves of Arlington National Cemetery. Thank you for your time in this matter and I look forward to quick response.

    1. What was the response from Arlington?
    2. How did the dig work out?
    3. What was the point of that little exercise?

  108. Rickey says:

    Arthur: Sarah Palin is also one of those who believes in the power of magic words. Did you catch her convoluted answer to Matt Lauer’s question about what the right wing would put in place of ACA:

    “The plan is to allow those things that had been proposed over many years to reform a health care system in America that certainly does need more help so that there’s more competition, there’s less tort reform threat, there’s less trajectory of the cost increases? And those plans have been proposed over and over again. And what thwarts those plans? It’s the far left. It’s President Obama and his supporters who will not allow the Republicans to usher in free market, patient-centered, doctor-patient relationship links to reform health care!”

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/12/1255071/-Sarah-Palin-tries-valiantly-to-answer-a-healthcare-question

    I’m guessing she doesn’t know what “torts” are, or what “tort reform” refers to, and she seems equally clueless about the fact that conservatives have long been in FAVOR of tort reform and view it as a goal, not a threat. Like Orly, Palin probably heard someone say some words in an important-sounding voice, thought they sounded cool, and never bothered to find out what they meant.

    And further “tort reform” would not have a noticeable effect upon healthcare costs. In 2009 a study by the Congressional Budget Office concluded that instituting more restrictions on medical malpractice lawsuits would at best reduce healthcare costs by only 0.5%.

    http://www.justice.org/cps/rde/justice/hs.xsl/8686.htm

  109. Arthur says:

    Rickey: And further “tort reform” would not have a noticeable effect upon healthcare costs. In 2009 a study by the Congressional Budget Office concluded that instituting more restrictions on medical malpractice lawsuits would at best reduce healthcare costs by only 0.5%.

    Good point. Moreover, if Sarah Palin (and other advocates of tort reform) ever had the misfortune to experience medical malpractice, I’m sure she would hire the very best lawyers she could in order to be fully compensated for her doctor’s mistake.

  110. RanTalbott says:

    The Magic M: see Orly who incorporated words from opponent’s counsel into her filings after losing to them

    This sounds rather like the cannibals who ate portions of especially valiant vanquished enemies in hopes of absorbing some of their power.

    Except, of course, that this superstition is somewhat kinder to the losers 😉

  111. Hermitian says:

    Reality Check:

    Reality Check
    November 11, 2013 at 5:07 pm Reality Check(Quote)
    #

    It is there. I will cover that in the next article. It is in every color scan I have done on the WorkCentre 7535. (It is YCbCr BTW).

    Is that label present before or after you massaged the Xerox 7535 produced PDF in Apple Preview?

  112. Hermitian says:

    Reality Check: Reality Check
    November 11, 2013 at 12:57 pm Reality Check(Quote)
    #

    Doc paid for the green security paper stock if that counts. Otherwise no.

    Was that Simpson 24lb weight Design Secure Safety Paper?

    [Yes. Doc]

  113. JPotter says:

    Hermitian: Is that label present before or after you massaged the Xerox 7535 produced PDF in Apple Preview?

    “Massage”! I think you’re on to something. Preview always leaves me smiling.

    The tag is found in Xerox Workcentre-created MRC PDFs that have never been subjected to Preview. Go back to sleep, Herms.

  114. Henry just can’t resist making unfounded accusations of trickery against people who show he is full of it like all the Birther “experts”. It got him placed into moderation at NBC’s blog.

    Hermitian: Is that label present before or after you massaged the Xerox 7535 produced PDF in Apple Preview?

  115. Hermitian: Is that label present before or after you massaged the Xerox 7535 produced PDF in Apple Preview?

    Both. Provided, of course, you properly extract the JPEG-encoded image. Preview simplifies the extraction by removing a level of encoding.

  116. nbc says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Both. Provided, of course, you properly extract the JPEG-encoded image. Preview simplifies the extraction by removing a level of encoding.

    Poor Hermitian is still clueless. Just because he cannot properly extract the label… Not much of an expert… His ‘arguments’ have been totally demolished and he has been totally unable to rebut anything related to the PDF artifacts.

    Keep up the good work H. without you, this would not have been possible. I knew that eventually you too would become an ‘obot’… The truth has set you free…

    Again, thousand thanks for your collaboration efforts…

  117. nbc says:

    Reality Check: It got him placed into moderation at NBC’s blog.

    He was totally unable to rebut any of the evidence and insisted on accusing people left and right. Not much of a researcher if you ask me… He barely has shown any familiarity with the scientific method or the ability to do proper experiments wrt the PDF.

    But he served his purpose quite well… And he now hates himself for it. I understand that Kevin gave him an intellectual ‘beating’ at amazon? Bad bad kevin taking candy from babies…

  118. Slartibartfast says:

    Come on, you’re being unfair—if he was familiar with the scientific method and had the ability to do proper experiments, then he wouldn’t be a birther.

    nbc: He was totally unable to rebut any of the evidence and insisted on accusing people left and right. Not much of a researcher if you ask me… He barely has shown any familiarity with the scientific method or the ability to do proper experiments wrt the PDF.

  119. nbc says:

    Slartibartfast: Come on, you’re being unfair—if he was familiar with the scientific method and had the ability to do proper experiments, then he wouldn’t be a birther.

    Excellent point. Poor Hermitian has shown himself to be guided by principles which are opposite to the scientific method.
    And because of that he has exposed himself as a funny guy wanting to be an ‘expert’ in court…
    He is lucky that his affidavit is going to be ignored. But I would love to see him under cross…. Poor guy..

  120. Slartibartfast says:

    I’d pay good money to see any birther “expert” be given a Daubert hearing.

    nbc: Excellent point. Poor Hermitian has shown himself to be guided by principles which are opposite to the scientific method.
    And because of that he has exposed himself as a funny guy wanting to be an ‘expert’ in court…
    He is lucky that his affidavit is going to be ignored. But I would love to see him under cross…. Poor guy..

  121. Bovril says:

    “Mr Zullo….”

    “Thats Viscomte, Grand Sultan, Generalissmo Zullo thank you !!”

    “Yeeeeeeeeees….Mr Zullo…Before you bring your ‘expert’ testimony to the courts attention, we need to elucidate that which makes you an expert in the subject matter at hand”

    “Well, I’m an expert, I have eleventy hundred years experience as the lead chief forensics CSI detective for the Demerest PD and I have a computer and I reads stuff on the Internet and he’s icky and black and a Democratic and a Commie, Lieberal, Nazi….What more do you need..?

    “Well….Mr Zullo….Have you ever been accepted by another court as an expert in any area…..?”

    “…silence…”

    “OK, do you have professional standing and membership in any nationally or internationally recognised certification authority in the areas of your ‘expertyness’..?”

    “…silence…”

    In that case what about authorship of papers, dissertations, discussion documents, or other scholastic work in peer reviewed publications in this or ANY area..?”

    “…silence…”

    “Membership in the Junior Justice League of America, the Batman club, ownership of a Dick Tracy decoder ring and Li’l Detective play kit…..”

    “…silence…yabbut…..Jerome said…..the shurrif tole me…….err….YOUR MEANIES !!!!!!!!!! An I’ll set Big Carl on you and he’ll tell all 7 of his listeners and and and TRAITORS!!!!!”

    “Bailiff, could you escort Mr Zullo to somewhere more to his liking, I believe the Suprise Tea Party are having a bit of a get together at Denny’s, early bird specials on offer”

    “Let me FEEEEEEEEENISH !!!!!!!”

  122. Or you can just see it using a text editor on the PDF file.

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Both. Provided, of course, you properly extract the JPEG-encoded image. Preview simplifies the extraction by removing a level of encoding.

  123. Dr Kenneth Noisewater says:

    nbc: Excellent point. Poor Hermitian has shown himself to be guided by principles which are opposite to the scientific method.And because of that he has exposed himself as a funny guy wanting to be an ‘expert’ in court…He is lucky that his affidavit is going to be ignored. But I would love to see him under cross…. Poor guy..

    No not even that NBC. Remember previously he emailed Paul Irey that he did not want to be called as a witness in court as he would get destroyed in the cross.

  124. JD Reed says:

    Speaking of Zullo, did he in his infamous Alabama affidavit repeat the laughable, easily-proven-false claim that Obama on Day 1 in the White House order his personal records sealed? I know Zullo made that claim in aNov. 9, 2012 affidavit, and I believe in a January 2013 affidavit. I don’t feel up to slogging through the May 2013 affidavit, but if anybody knows off the top of their head …

  125. justlw says:

    JD Reed:
    Speaking of Zullo, did he in his infamous Alabama affidavit repeat the laughable, easily-proven-false claim that Obama on Day 1 in the White House order his personal records sealed? I know Zullo made that claim in aNov. 9, 2012 affidavit, and I believe in a January 2013 affidavit. I don’t feel up to slogging throughthe May 2013 affidavit, but if anybody knows off the top of their head …

    I just looked through it. No, he seems to have dropped that one. It does, however, say

    “Fraudulent Birth certificates created in Washing DC”

    Because that’s just the kind of “details” guy Zullo is.

  126. W. Kevin Vicklund says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    Or you can just see it using a text editor on the PDF file.

    For the post-Preview file, yes. If you look at the file before running it through Preview, you have to unzip it first (from gzip format). Hermie never was able to understand that part.

  127. Hermitian says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Hermitian: Is that label present before or after you massaged the Xerox 7535 produced PDF in Apple Preview?

    Both. Provided, of course, you properly extract the JPEG-encoded image. Preview simplifies the extraction by removing a level of encoding.

    Two compressions were applied to the background layer of the Xerox 7535 LFCOLB scan to PDF. These were FlateDecode and DCTDecode filters. Thus in order for Preview to display the image, two decode filters would had to have been applied rather than one. And then Preview would had to have re-compressed the image using DCT compression. This would then be a case of double JPEG compression.

    Double compression of the background image and single compressions of snippets of image placed onto the background is recognized as an indicator of forgery.

    Research on doubly compressed JPEG images with the goal of detecting forged documents is available.

  128. Hermitian says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: Or you can just see it using a text editor on the PDF file.

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Both. Provided, of course, you properly extract the JPEG-encoded image. Preview simplifies the extraction by removing a level of encoding.

    Wrong !!! The YCbCr label is only detectable after the PDF file has been massaged by Preview.

    The YCbCr label is not detectable via text editor in the Xerox 7535 raw PDF image file.

    However, the YCbCr label is detectable in the WH LFCOLB PDF image.

    The METADATA from the archive copy of the WH LFCOLB indicates the creation of PNG and TIFF formatted files. There is no evidence of a JPEG in the METADATA.

    Zatkovich was the first to discover this fact.

    Maybe if you Obots hadn’t cherry picked his report, then you wouldn’t be chasing rainbows.

  129. Hermitian says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Dr. Conspiracy:
    Or you can just see it using a text editor on the PDF file.

    For the post-Preview file, yes. If you look at the file before running it through Preview, you have to unzip it first (from gzip format). Hermie never was able to understand that part.

    Wrong again ! You must apply two decode filters —- not just one to view the image.

    NBC always dodged my question as to the order of the Flate and DCT compressions applied by the Xerox WC. My opinion is Flate first and DCT second.

    Therefore if Preview applied the DCTDecode filter, then the image would still be Flate compressed.

  130. nbc says:

    Hermitian: NBC always dodged my question as to the order of the Flate and DCT compressions applied by the Xerox WC. My opinion is Flate first and DCT second.

    Nope, I explained it to you in much detail. Your opinion, is, as it is so often, wrong. DCT is applied first then Flate. In other words, first the data are encrypted in a lossy fashion and then ‘zipped’, the other way would make no sense, as would be obvious to anyone familiar with the technology, logic and the PDF standards.

    Clueless as usual…

  131. nbc says:

    Hermitian: Wrong !!! The YCbCr label is only detectable after the PDF file has been massaged by Preview.

    Nope, it is also detectable by the simple steps of extracting the double encoded object and then applying a deflate operation. I provided you with all the tools but you seemed to be either not interested or just clueless.

    Sigh… After all the effort you are still not understanding these basic concepts.

  132. nbc says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Hermie never was able to understand that part.

    Yes, but that was just one of the many areas where attempts to educate him failed. That’s what happens when you rely on high level tools such as Adobe while not being familiar with the PDF standards and the raw data.

  133. nbc says:

    Hermitian: The METADATA from the archive copy of the WH LFCOLB indicates the creation of PNG and TIFF formatted files. There is no evidence of a JPEG in the METADATA.

    Still clueless… DTCDecode is jpeg encoded TIFF, are you really that slow? It’s trivial to show this. No evidence of PNG though… But poor Hermitian has no understanding of what the filters actually do…

  134. nbc says:

    Hermitian: And then Preview would had to have re-compressed the image using DCT compression. This would then be a case of double JPEG compression.

    Still not understanding… You do not reapply JPEG as this would lead to more loss. What you do is when saving, is to save the original DCTdecode data.

    Duh… Again, trivial to show that this is how Preview works. But our friend probably never bothered to do so.

    His familiarity with these graphic manipulation tools appears to be quite limited.

    This is why Hermitian makes for such a good example.

  135. nbc says:

    Hermitian: Double compression of the background image and single compressions of snippets of image placed onto the background is recognized as an indicator of forgery.

    But there is no evidence of double compression and as you showed yourself, it can be explained by a simple workflow. So why is it evidence of a forgery ?…

    Come on Hermitian, you should at least make an effort.

  136. Hermitian says:

    nbc: Hermitian: Double compression of the background image and single compressions of snippets of image placed onto the background is recognized as an indicator of forgery.
    But there is no evidence of double compression and as you showed yourself, it can be explained by a simple workflow. So why is it evidence of a forgery ?…
    Come on Hermitian, you should at least make an effort.

    Wrong!

    0 name FlateDecode
    1 name DCTDecode

    See: wh-lfbc-scanned-xerox-7535-wc copy.pdf

  137. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    Hermitian actually had the stones to show up? I’m impressed.
    Well, not that impressed, he’s as clueless and detached from reality as ever. He does serve as a perfect example of the birther condition. Here is the factual evidence, and yet he’s hoping that by throwing up imaginary nitpicks, he can negate it’s validity.

    You’re pathetic, Hermitian.

  138. Hermitian says:

    You Obots are clueless !!!

    Application of DCTDecode filter to your PDF file “wh-lfbc-scanned-xerox-7535-wc copy.pdf” does not yield a JPEG file.

    That’s also the case for RC’s PDF “lfbc-xerox-7535-hiresprint.pdf”

    By the way these two files are totally different and both were created on a Xerox 7535.

  139. nbc says:

    Andrew Vrba, PmG: You’re pathetic, Hermitian.

    But he is and has been very useful and instrumental in debunking the birthers. He deserves our recognition for his excellent work in that area.

  140. Hermitian says:

    Andrew Vrba, PmG:

    Andrew Vrba, PmG
    November 14, 2013 at 4:42 pm Andrew Vrba, PmG(Quote)
    #

    Hermitian actually had the stones to show up? I’m impressed.
    Well, not that impressed, he’s as clueless and detached from reality as ever. He does serve as a perfect example of the birther condition. Here is the factual evidence, and yet he’s hoping that by throwing up imaginary nitpicks, he can negate it’s validity.

    Facts are as hard as diamonds.

    But then Obots don’t deal in facts.

    By the way — what makes you an expert ?

  141. nbc says:

    Hermitian: 0 name FlateDecode
    1 name DCTDecode

    See: wh-lfbc-scanned-xerox-7535-wc copy.pdf

    Yes, we have gone through this before… Still clueless I notice..

  142. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    Hermitian: By the way — what makes you an expert ?

    What makes you? You’re the one claiming that RC’s research is bunk. Yet he has Evidence to support his claims. Where is yours?
    Oh, right you don’t HAVE any!
    All you can do is sob at your keyboard going “NUH UH!!!”.
    What else you got in your sad little bag of tricks? Aside from more denial.

  143. Daniel says:

    Hermitian: Facts are as hard as diamonds.

    But then Obots don’t deal in facts.

    Any chance you’ll be taking your “facts” to an AG, or Police station, or FBI office. or Congress?

    Let us know how that works out for you Hermi…

  144. Daniel says:

    Hermitian:
    You Obots are clueless !!!

    Application of DCTDecode filter to your PDF file“wh-lfbc-scanned-xerox-7535-wc copy.pdf” does not yield a JPEG file.

    That’s also the case for RC’s PDF “lfbc-xerox-7535-hiresprint.pdf”

    By the way these two files are totally different and both were created on a Xerox 7535.

    We’re not the ones arguing that a PDF of a document matters at all. We’re just playing with you birthers by showing how even within your own delusions you’re still wrong.

    When it all comes down to it, the PDF is irrelevant…. which is why it’s so hilarious that fools like you keep pursuing it.

  145. Hermitian says:

    nbc: Hermitian: And then Preview would had to have re-compressed the image using DCT compression. This would then be a case of double JPEG compression.
    Still not understanding… You do not reapply JPEG as this would lead to more loss. What you do is when saving, is to save the original DCTdecode data.
    Duh… Again, trivial to show that this is how Preview works. But our friend probably never bothered to do so.
    His familiarity with these graphic manipulation tools appears to be quite limited.
    This is why Hermitian makes for such a good example.

    Still just making stuff up are we NBC ?

    So you are claiming that the doubly compressed Xerox scan to PDF is saved “as is” out of Preview.

    But you see that’s impossible because Preview saves the image displayed on the MAC OS computer screen when print to PDF is invoked. And the only way that the image can be displayed is if it is first completely decoded. And then there’s the issue of additional loss of quality when the displayed image is rotated 180 degrees before it is re-saved.

  146. nbc says:

    Hermitian: Facts are as hard as diamonds.

    But then Obots don’t deal in facts.

    By the way — what makes you an expert ?

    So you are an obot by your own statement?… After all, we have fully exposed the lack of facts in many of your ill informed claims…

    But contrary to your claims, Obots love facts because they invariably show the ignorance of birthers.

    If you can call yourself an expert Hermie, all bets are off… 😉

  147. Hermitian says:

    nbc: (Quote)
    #

    Hermitian: 0 name FlateDecode
    1 name DCTDecode
    See: wh-lfbc-scanned-xerox-7535-wc copy.pdf

    Yes, we have gone through this before… Still clueless I notice..

    I’ll break it down for you NBC. This will be the second time.

    Either

    1. Flate compression is applied first and DCT compression is applied second

    or

    2. DCT compression is applied first and Flate compression is applied second

    to the raw Xerox scanned image of the background layer.

    Then

    3. DCTDecode filter is applied first and FlateDecode filter is applied second

    or

    4. Flate Decode filter is applied first and DCTDecode filter is applied second.

    So which is it NBC ???

    1. + 3.

    or

    2. + 4.

    Consider this to be an open book test…

  148. nbc says:

    Hermitian: Application of DCTDecode filter to your PDF file “wh-lfbc-scanned-xerox-7535-wc copy.pdf” does not yield a JPEG file.

    Duh, of course not, a DCTDecode object IS a JPEG. Geez my friend… You have no clue now do you? Claiming that Preview would have to encode the jpeg twice… Just hilarious…

    Come on Hermitian, entertain us some more… This is just too much fun

  149. nbc says:

    Daniel: which is why it’s so hilarious that fools like you keep pursuing it.

    Or Reality Check, or me… Yeah right… That works.. 😉

  150. nbc says:

    Daniel: Any chance you’ll be taking your “facts” to an AG, or Police station, or FBI office. or Congress?

    He did ‘present’ his ‘facts’ in an affidavit to a court, but he is probably relieved that he won’t be taken seriously or exposed to a Daubert hearing and cross… Vicklund managed to demolish most of his claims.

  151. nbc says:

    So let’s walk through this S L O W L Y, just so that Hermitian may understand…

    When the PDF was created the background object was encoded as a JPEG and then compressed using deflate, so DCTDecode first, Flate second. To decode it, you go the other way, decompress using deflate and then parse the JPEG and display it. When resaving, preview does not reencode the data as JPEG but merely dumps the DCTDecode object.

    S L O W enough for you?

  152. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    Nah, it uses way too many ten dollar words. Hermi will just get confused and angered by them.

  153. Keith says:

    Arthur: [quoting Sarah Palin] “The plan is to allow those things that had been proposed over many years to reform a health care system in America that certainly does need more help so that there’s more competition, there’s less tort reform threat, there’s less trajectory of the cost increases? And those plans have been proposed over and over again. And what thwarts those plans? It’s the far left. It’s President Obama and his supporters who will not allow the Republicans to usher in free market, patient-centered, doctor-patient relationship links to reform health care!”

    War is Peace
    Freedom is Slavery
    Ignorance is Strength

    – Emmanuel Goldstein

  154. Hermitian says:

    nbc: So let’s walk through this S L O W L Y, just so that Hermitian may understand…
    When the PDF was created the background object was encoded as a JPEG and then compressed using deflate, so DCTDecode first, Flate second. To decode it, you go the other way, decompress using deflate and then parse the JPEG and display it. When resaving, preview does not reencode the data as JPEG but merely dumps the DCTDecode object.
    S L O W enough for you?

    So now there is double compression and then Preview does a double decompression to get an degraded JPEG image to display in Preview?

    And you now claim that Preview saves a copy of the Xerox DCT compressed JPEG which it writes as a compressed image to the new Preview PDF?

    So prove it !

    [RC’s 4th article in the series is supposed to cover the operation of Preview. But it is silly for you to demand that someone prove something that you could test for yourself. Doc]

    And while you are working on that maybe you should know that application of FlateDecode to the doubly compressed PDF image does not yield a DCT compressed JPEG.

    And then maybe you should study the METADATA from the archive copy of the WH LFCOLB Pdf file.

    File Info

    File Name: birth-certificate-long-form WayBack Machine 04-27-2011-17-11-11.pdf
    Created: 4/27/2011,8:09:24 AM
    Modified: 4/27/2011,8:09:24 AM
    File Size: 385,354 bytes (376.32 KB)
    Document Info
    Title:
    Author:
    Subject:
    Keywords:
    PDF Producer: Mac OS X 10.6.7 Quartz PDFContext
    Application: Preview
    PDF Version: 1.3
    Pages Count: 1
    PDF Viewer:

    Additional Metadata…

    xap:CreateDate:2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    xap:ModifyDate: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    xap:CreatorTool: Preview
    xap:Description (seq)
    [1]: (null)
    xap:Format: application/pdf
    xap:Title (seq)
    [1]: (null

    pdf:Producer: Mac OS X 10.6.7 Quartz PDFContext
    pdf:CreationDate: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    pdf:Creator: Preview
    pdf:ModDate: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    pdf: Subject:
    pdf:Title:

    dc:format: application/pdf
    dc:description (seq)
    [1]: (null)
    dc;title (seq)
    [1]: (nulL)

    photoshop:Caption:
    photoshop:Title:

    png:CreationTime: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    png: Description:
    png;ModificationTime:2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    png:Software: Preview
    png:Title:

    tiff:DateTime: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    tiff:ImageDescription (seq)
    [1]: (null)
    tiff:Software: Preview

    Notice the creation dates for the PNG and TIFF images ?

  155. Hermitian says:

    Oops the editor ate some lines…

    Re-Post of the WH LFCOLB METADATA with missing lines added back.

    File Info
    File Name: birth-certificate-long-form WayBack Machine 04-27-2011JJ-:
    Created: 4/27/2011,8:09:24 AM
    Modified: 4/27/2011,8:09:24 AM
    File Size: 385,354 bytes (376.32 KB)
    Document Info
    Title:
    Author:
    Subject:
    Keywords:
    PDF Producer: Mac OS X 10.6.7 Quartz PDFContext
    Application: Preview
    PDF Version: 1.3
    Pages Count: 1
    PDF Viewer: Unknown

    Additional Metadata…

    http://ns.adobe.eom/xap/1.0/
    xap:CreateDate:2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    xap:ModifyDate: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    xap:CreatorTool: Preview
    xap:Description (seq)
    [1]: (null)
    xap:Format: application/pdf
    xap:Title (seq)
    [1]: (null

    http://ns.adobe.eom/pdf/1.3/
    pdf:Producer: Mac OS X 10.6.7 Quartz PDFContext
    pdf:CreationDate: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    pdf:Creator: Preview
    pdf:ModDate: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    pdf: Subject:
    pdf:Title:

    http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.l/
    dc:format: application/pdf
    dc:description (seq)
    [1]: (null)
    dc;title (seq)
    [1]: (nulL)

    http://ns.adobe.eom/photoshop1.0/
    photoshop:Caption:
    photoshop:Title:

    http://ns.adobe.com/png/1.0/
    png:CreationTime: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    png: Description:
    png;ModificationTime:2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    png:Software: Preview
    png:Title:

    http://ns.adobe.com/tiff/1.0/
    tiff:DateTime: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    tiff:ImageDescription (seq)
    [1]: (null)
    tiff:Software: Preview

  156. Slartibartfast says:

    Hermie,

    Your comments only show your own ignorance. We are not talking about some sort of argument to authority—which requires an appeal to a credible authority or relevant expertise (like referring to Wong Kim Ark or the Constitution). Instead, the arguments here have been empirical, which means they stand or fail on their merits rather than the expertise of their proponents. In other words, assuming they are using a sound scientific methodology (which they are), it doesn’t matter what their credentials are so long as their experiments can be repeated.

    If brithers had any understanding of how the scientific method works they would realize this. Of course, if birthers had any understanding of how the scientific method works they wouldn’t be birthers in the first place.

    Hermitian: Facts are as hard as diamonds.

    But then Obots don’t deal in facts.

    By the way — what makes you an expert ?

  157. Crustacean says:

    Sarah Palin must’ve been misquoted there. I think this is what she really said:

    “I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to understand our health care system because, uh, some, uh, people out there in our nation don’t have tort reforms to threaten and, uh, I believe that our doctor-patient relationship links like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our free market over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future [for our children].”

    Vote Palin 2016!!!

  158. nbc says:

    Hermitian: So now there is double compression and then Preview does a double decompression to get an degraded JPEG image to display in Preview?

    Still not understanding… Flate is a lossless compression, and Preview or any other viewer follows the PDF standard and does a double decompression. The ‘degraded’ JPEG is the result of a simple MRC compression.

    You are clueless…

  159. nbc says:

    Hermitian: And you now claim that Preview saves a copy of the Xerox DCT compressed JPEG which it writes as a compressed image to the new Preview PDF?

    I have done so already when I showed you the DCTdecode object from the Xerox file and compared it to the Preview version.

    You have no idea what you are talking about, right? And even though I have tried to educate you on this, you are still totally clueless. So why should anyone consider you as an expert here? You have not done the experiments, do not understand PDF standards, and lack the basic abilities to do research, unless we hold your hands. Worse, you are totally unfamiliar with what people have done…

    It’s as always a pleasure to have you around Hermitian. You do help the cause 😉

  160. nbc says:

    Hermitian: And while you are working on that maybe you should know that application of FlateDecode to the doubly compressed PDF image does not yield a DCT compressed JPEG.

    There is no doubly compressed PDF image. Are you that slow?… For goodness sake, you have no concept of what is going on here, now do you? Even though I and others have tried to explain this to you.

    If you decompress the Object using deflate, you get a DCTDecoded object which is basically a JPEG encoded TIFF. Take the data, name it image.jpg and it displays perfectly. It has all the requirements… But you are still struggling with simple concepts such as what DCD encoding really is all about and how it relates to JPEG and to TIFF.

    You are hilarious my friend… A bit slow but you do make for a good example of what happens when a person, unfamiliar with the facts, the methods and the tools, tries to make an argument. For that educational contribution, I once again thank you.

  161. nbc says:

    And for those who actually appreciate the facts and can understand the simple steps involved, I suggest you read the following article which shows how to extract the image from the raw xerox PDF. I even gave Hermie the python script to do it himself, but I doubt he has figured out what python is and how to properly install and run on his computer which is why I even provided the extracted jpg. Sadly enough, Hermie still does not get it.

    Come on Hermie, you too can do it, I am sure… Geez… the amount of effort I have put in to educate you has been enormous and still I see no significant progress. Don’t disappoint me…

  162. Slartibartfast says:

    You’re giving people Python scripts? I like Python scripts!

    Seriously, that sounds useful—could you send it to me too? You can either send it to me on the Fogbow or PM me there and I’ll give you my email.

    Thanks!

    p.s. You guys have done a great job deconstructing the dead horse that Hermie and his ilk have been beating to confirm that yes, in fact, it is utterly and completely dead. I only wish that they understood what you’ve done well enough to realize just how thoroughly you have destroyed their argument.

    nbc:
    And for those who actually appreciate the facts and can understand the simple steps involved, I suggest you read the following article which shows how to extract the image from the raw xerox PDF. I even gave Hermie the python script to do it himself, but I doubt he has figured out what python is and how to properly install and run on his computer which is why I even provided the extracted jpg. Sadly enough, Hermie still does not get it.

    Come on Hermie, you too can do it, I am sure… Geez… the amount of effort I have put in to educate you has been enormous and still I see no significant progress. Don’t disappoint me…

  163. nbc says:

    Check the link I provided 🙂 The script is on the page… It’s a trivial script to apply zlib to an input file and save it to an output file.

  164. nbc says:

    Slartibartfast: p.s. You guys have done a great job deconstructing the dead horse that Hermie and his ilk have been beating to confirm that yes, in fact, it is utterly and completely dead. I only wish that they understood what you’ve done well enough to realize just how thoroughly you have destroyed their argument.

    I doubt that Hermie will ever be able to accept let alone understand that he has been beaten. But these exercises are not done for his benefit. He just happens to play a useful role.

  165. Slartibartfast says:

    Something I learned in a probability course in graduate school: when the teacher asks a question, it is often much more useful, pedagogically, to get an incorrect answer. When someone is wrong, the teacher then has a hook to explain why they were wrong (and you can bet that a bunch of other students had the same misconceptions). The right answer isn’t nearly as useful. I’m sure Hermie is just another example of this phenomenon, although he never actually pays attention to the explanation of why he’s wrong… (or he doesn’t understand it).

    nbc: I doubt that Hermie will ever be able to accept let alone understand that he has been beaten. But these exercises are not done for his benefit. He just happens to play a useful role.

  166. Slartibartfast says:

    Thanks!

    nbc:
    Check the link I provided The script is on the page… It’s a trivial script to apply zlib to an input file and save it to an output file.

  167. nbc says:

    Slartibartfast: The right answer isn’t nearly as useful. I’m sure Hermie is just another example of this phenomenon, although he never actually pays attention to the explanation of why he’s wrong… (or he doesn’t understand it).

    You are too smart… What do you learn from the right answer 🙂 It’s explaining why something is wrong that should help you remember. So I consider myself fortunate to have found a willing subject who is often quite wrong.

  168. nbc says:

    And the best of it all is that when Hermie tries to rebut, he invariably ends up embarrassing himself.
    He is somewhat slow realizing this though, which makes for such a great time. Not unlike the emperor without any clothes.

  169. Hermitian:
    You Obots are clueless !!!

    Application of DCTDecode filter to your PDF file“wh-lfbc-scanned-xerox-7535-wc copy.pdf” does not yield a JPEG file.

    That’s also the case for RC’s PDF “lfbc-xerox-7535-hiresprint.pdf”

    By the way these two files are totally different and both were created on a Xerox 7535.

    You applied it to the whole file?! And you used DCTDecode rather than DeFlate?!

    What an incompetent moron!

    You only apply it to the portion of the file that is double encoded. In wh-lfbc-scanned-xerox-7535-wc.pdf, for example, you will find the following:

    <>stream
    xœìwTS_×.

    üÿœûûûùÿÅ)w
    endstream

    (Note that I have deleted most of the data between “stream” and “endstream” as indicated by ellipses – also, the values may display differently for different text readers and operating systems)

    What you need to do is DeFlate the data between (but not including) the “stream” and “endstream”. This can be done using 010 Editor, which you have, and a DeFlating program, such as the Python script NBC wrote.

    Here’s the steps to follow.

    1. Make a copy of the original file so you don’t accidentally destroy the original.

    2. Open the copy in 010 Editor

    3. Find offset 077Fh (if your 010 Editor displays 16 bytes per line, it’s the last byte in the 0770h: line)

    4. Highlight from that byte to offset 38ED8h (8th byte in line 3:8ED0h)

    5. Copy

    6. Create a New file

    7. Paste

    8. Save the file

    9. Run the file through the DeFlate program

    10. Save the extracted file with a .jpg extension

    11a. Open in a graphics program that can read JPEGs to see the image

    11b. Look at the data with a text reader and search for the YCbCr comment

  170. John Reilly says:

    Hermie: why don’t you try answering this question. The State of Hawaii says Obama was born there. Why isn’t that enough? It was enough for the Chief Justice and every member of Congress. Why isn’t it enough for you? Are they all in on it? Is this conspiracy bigger than Capricorn One or anything the X-Files dreamed up.

    How about it Hermie. Stop with the XyZYbb stuff. If the State of Hawaii says he was born there, why isn’t that enough?

  171. The Magic M says:

    John Reilly: The State of Hawaii says Obama was born there. Why isn’t that enough?

    Besides, no other state ever officially confirmed any other President was born there.

    Hermie, where is the official confirmation by the SOS of Connecticut that GWB was born there? Why were you never concerned about that?

  172. Monkey Boy says:

    Oh, by the way, Hermie.

    You implied that President Obama is an illegitimate president since “…no one has seen his birth certificate.”

    I now have trouble discerning, from those standards, exactly which presidents were legitimate. Which presidents’ birth certificates have you viewed?

    I await you reply with baited(sic) breath. I would like to, for once, go to sleep with the knowledge of which presidents were actually president.

  173. Monkey Boy says:

    Arthur: Sarah Palin is also one of those who believes in the power of magic words. Did you catch her convoluted answer to Matt Lauer’s question about what the right wing would put in place of ACA:

    “The plan is to allow those things that had been proposed over many years to reform a health care system in America that certainly does need more help so that there’s more competition, there’s less tort reform threat, there’s less trajectory of the cost increases? And those plans have been proposed over and over again. And what thwarts those plans? It’s the far left. It’s President Obama and his supporters who will not allow the Republicans to usher in free market, patient-centered, doctor-patient relationship links to reform health care!”

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/12/1255071/-Sarah-Palin-tries-valiantly-to-answer-a-healthcare-question

    I’m guessing she doesn’t know what “torts” are, or what “tort reform” refers to, and she seems equally clueless about the fact that conservatives have long been in FAVOR of tort reform and view it as a goal, not a threat. Like Orly, Palin probably heard someone say some words in an important-sounding voice, thought they sounded cool, and never bothered to find out what they meant.

    The Grizzly Mama appears to suffer from a common delusion. I get into a similar arguments with people who think that professional athletes make too much money which prices them out of buying tickets

    It is difficult, indeed, to get most people to understand that the cost of production for goods or services bears little relationship to prices for same. Why? Because every good (capitalist) businessman always charges what the traffic will bear, regardless of the cost of production.

    And, if the margin of profit falls below an acceptable level, he will simply move on to another activity.

  174. Hermitian says:

    nbc: There is no doubly compressed PDF image. Are you that slow?… For goodness sake, you have no concept of what is going on here, now do you? Even though I and others have tried to explain this to you.

    No doubly compressed image for Layer 1. Are you serious ?

    My codes say different…

    Extracted from “wh-lfbc-scanned-xerox-7535-wc copy.pdf”

    Key Type Value

    DATA

    BitsPerComp… number 8
    ColorSpace name DeviceRGB
    DecodeParms array –
    Filter array –
    Height number 1280
    Length number 231258
    Subtype name Image
    Type name XObject
    Width number 1664

    Key Type Value

    DecodeParms array

    0 null null
    1 dict link obj: 25 gen:0

    Key Type Value

    Filter array

    0 name FlateDecode
    1 name DCTDecode

    When you extract a JPEG from the Xerox PDF you have already pre-supposed that the original file was JPEG. My code doesn’t pre-suppose anything. Rather the code decides which decode filter to apply and in which order the filters are applied.

    Your extraction of a JPEG is totally irrelevant to the workflow that you have assumed. The extraction is a separate action that you have imposed which is not in your workflow.

    Said differently, the manual extraction of a JPEG is not an action taken by the Xerox or by MAC OS Preview. However, it is an action that the forger might impose to pre-determine the outcome.

    The application of the DCTDecode filter is not proof that the layer 1 image is JPEG because this filter is also used to compress other types of bitmap image formats. As I have constantly reminded you, the JPEG standard is a compression standard rather than a file format standard. The file format standard is JFIF. You have never produced an extracted bitmap file with JFIF in the header.

    But obviously, you consider the standards to be irrelevant.

  175. JPotter says:

    Slartibartfast: I’m sure Hermie is just another example of this phenomenon, although he never actually pays attention to the explanation of why he’s wrong… (or he doesn’t understand it).

    His purpose isn’t to be right, or wrong, and he definitely isn’t interested in learning. His only end is to attempt to obfuscate and confuse. To keep saying ‘no’, no matter how ridiculous doing so becomes. He’s been running this schtick, on the same subject, for years!

    Monkey Boy: Which presidents’ birth certificates have you viewed?

    Nixon’s is on public display. Of course, it was placed on display long after his Presidency. I wonder if that did anything to assuage any birfer-y anxieties re: Nixon? 😉 I haven’t heard any fraudulent fantasizing in regards to it. Why no doubts concerning Nixon’s BC?

    I trust all 2016 wannabe’s will be holding their BCs on high the moment theyu announce their candidacy. I’m sure all the Red hopefuls will have them in their back pockets while traipsing about Iowa 😀

  176. Dr Kenneth Noisewater says:

    JPotter: His purpose isn’t to be right, or wrong, and he definitely isn’t interested in learning. His only end is to attempt to obfuscate and confuse. To keep saying ‘no’, no matter how ridiculous doing so becomes. He’s been running this schtick, on the same subject, for years!

    Nixon’s is on public display. Of course, it was placed on display long after his Presidency. I wonder if that did anything to assuage any birfer-y anxieties re: Nixon? I haven’t heard any fraudulent fantasizing in regards to it. Why no doubts concerning Nixon’s BC?

    I trust all 2016 wannabe’s will be holding their BCs on high the moment theyu announce their candidacy. I’m sure all the Red hopefuls will have them in their back pockets while traipsing about Iowa

    I actually have a copy of it… Well a scan of it. Nixon’s though wasn’t created until 30 years after he was born and was done through a court order… If I was a birther I’d think this sounded fishy. Also the date stamp looks like 2069 on it. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0133f2d3f5d2970b-pi

  177. The Magic M says:

    Dr Kenneth Noisewater: Also the date stamp looks like 2069 on it.

    I “see” it, too. Also, channeling my inner Douglas Vogt, I wonder why the “a” in “California” is below the baseline yet it’s on the baseline in “March”. “It’s impossible for a typewriter to do this! Forgery, I say!!!1!!1!!eleven!!!”

    JPotter: I trust all 2016 wannabe’s will be holding their BCs on high the moment theyu announce their candidacy.

    As somebody around here said some time ago: that’s probably the change in political discourse that birtherism will forever have imprinted on the US electoral process. (If only they were content with the fact that finally – starting with Obama – nobody “foreign” can sneak in since they will all be pressured to show what Obama has shown.)

  178. JPotter says:

    The Magic M: that’s probably the change in political discourse that birtherism will forever have imprinted on the US electoral process.

    I could be wrong, but I thought I was being very sarcastic. Birfers haven’t changed diddly, other than propagating brainworms LOL

    There will be some BC highjinks, and it may be more common post-ODS outbreak than it was pre-ODS (witness the miniscule rMoney and Cruz BC kerfuffles), but it will never be de riguer, much less mandatory, for politicians to perp walk their papers for the cameras. What birthering there is is partisan flaming., driven by the basic political priority of winning by the cheapest means possible: disqualification of the opponent.

    Wouldn’t it be refreshing to have a legitimate Presidential eligibility question?

  179. gorefan says:

    Dr Kenneth Noisewater: Nixon’s though wasn’t created until 30 years after he was born and was done through a court order

    And based on oral evidence!

    One of Vogt’s points of forgery is that the variable line spacing of the typewritten entries.

    Look at Nixon’s at the entries for “2. Place of Birth” and for the birthplace of the father.

  180. Dr Kenneth Noisewater says:

    gorefan: And based on oral evidence!One of Vogt’s points of forgery is that the variable line spacing of the typewritten entries.Look at Nixon’s at the entries for “2. Place of Birth” and for the birthplace of the father.

    Johnson’s is even stranger. At birth it just said “Johnson” on it as the given name.
    http://www.fold3.com/spotlight/2294/

  181. Dr Kenneth Noisewater says:

    gorefan: And based on oral evidence!One of Vogt’s points of forgery is that the variable line spacing of the typewritten entries.Look at Nixon’s at the entries for “2. Place of Birth” and for the birthplace of the father.

    Especially how the city is inserted “Near”

  182. W. Kevin Vicklund says:

    nbc: There is no doubly compressed PDF image.

    Hermitian: No doubly compressed image for Layer 1.Are you serious ?

    Your words indicated (incorrectly) that the whole PDF image was doubly compressed. That’s a bit different than the correct claim that only one layer was doubly compressed. Now do you understand why applying DCTDecode to the whole file was moronic?

    When you extract a JPEG from the Xerox PDF you have already pre-supposed that the original file was JPEG.My code doesn’t pre-suppose anything.Rather the code decides which decode filter to apply and in which order the filters are applied.

    First, despite the fact that we have not only told you dozens of times the correct order to apply the filters, but actually linked to and quoted the PDF specification manual that showed the correct order, you still persist in getting the order of application wrong. Secondly, we know that you can extract it as a JPEG because it is actually formatted as a JPEG. In the case of the Xerox files (without Preview), we can extract the Object and unzip it, then look at it and see that it is in JPEG format. After it’s been run through Preview, we don’t have to do any extracting to observe that it is in JPEG format.

    We have done exactly what you describe in that last sentence, but in the right order and without including extraneous data. We simply have observed that it is, in fact, JPEG-formatted and when extracted as a file, opens properly as a JPEG image.

    Your extraction of a JPEG is totally irrelevant to the workflow that you have assumed.The extraction is a separate action that you have imposed which is not in your workflow.

    Depends on what you mean by “extraction”. In order to create an image, the PDF reader has to run it through one or two filters (depending on whether the file has been run through Preview). This results in a JPEG-formatted image Object being run through the DCTDecode filter to create the image. Our forensic examination, on the other hand, is of course irrelevant to the workflow, aside from elucidating what the workflow was.

    Said differently, the manual extraction of a JPEG is not an action taken by the Xerox or by MAC OS Preview.However, it is an action that the forger might impose to pre-determine the outcome.

    If I unzip a file and observe that it is formatted as a Word document and that it opens properly in Word, have I pre-determined the outcome?

    The application of the DCTDecode filter is not proof that the layer 1 image is JPEG because this filter is also used to compress other types of bitmap image formats.

    The PDF specifications say otherwise. Here’s what one manual has to say:

    3.3.7 DCTDecode Filter

    The DCTDecode filter decodes grayscale or color image data that has been encoded in the JPEG baseline format.

    While discrete cosine transforms are used to encode various image and video formats, the DCTDecode filter is used strictly for decoding JPEG-formatted images, including variants such as JFIF.

    As I have constantly reminded you, the JPEG standard is a compression standard rather than a file format standard.The file format standard is JFIF.You have never produced an extracted bitmap file with JFIF in the header.

    You keep asserting that JPEG is not a file format, but that is incorrect. A file that is encoded strictly on the JPEG baseline format will properly open in any PDF reader. JFIF is simply a variant of the JPEG format, one of several, in fact. I should also note that the DCTDecode filter ignores the JFIF specific formatting.

    Of course, this is pretty much irrelevant, since we are talking about a bit of code encoded to the JPEG compression standard, rather than a stand-alone file. But that bit of code, when made into a stand-alone file, does in fact open and display properly in any PDF reader, despite not being in JFIF format (or any of the other JPEG variant file formats).

    But obviously, you consider the standards to be irrelevant.

    Oddly enough, you seem to be blissfully unaware of the PDF and JPEG standards.

  183. Hermitian says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: nbc: There is no doubly compressed PDF image.
    Hermitian: No doubly compressed image for Layer 1.Are you serious ?
    Your words indicated (incorrectly) that the whole PDF image was doubly compressed. That’s a bit different than the correct claim that only one layer was doubly compressed. Now do you understand why applying DCTDecode to the whole file was moronic?

    Object 8 is layer one. Now who is being moronic. Jeeze can’t you read text ?

  184. Hermitian says:

    WKV

    HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
    Re-do of my previous post to NBC

    Hermitian November 15, 2013 at 7:49 am (Quote) #

    nbc: There is no doubly compressed PDF image. Are you that slow?… For goodness sake, you have no concept of what is going on here, now do you? Even though I and others have tried to explain this to you.

    No doubly compressed image for Layer 1. Are you serious ?

    My codes say different…

    Extracted from “wh-lfbc-scanned-xerox-7535-wc copy.pdf”

    Key Type Value

    DATA

    BitsPerComp… number 8
    ColorSpace name DeviceRGB
    DecodeParms array –
    Filter array –
    Height number 1280
    Length number 231258
    Subtype name Image
    Type name XObject
    Width number 1664

    Key Type Value

    DecodeParms array

    0 null null
    1 dict link obj: 25 gen:0

    Key Type Value

    Filter array

    0 name FlateDecode
    1 name DCTDecode

    When you extract a JPEG from the Xerox PDF you have already pre-supposed that the original file was JPEG. My code doesn’t pre-suppose anything. Rather the code decides which decode filter to apply and in which order the filters are applied.

    Your extraction of a JPEG is totally irrelevant to the workflow that you have assumed. The extraction is a separate action that you have imposed which is not in your workflow.

    Said differently, the manual extraction of a JPEG is not an action taken by the Xerox or by MAC OS Preview. However, it is an action that the forger might impose to pre-determine the outcome.

    The application of the DCTDecode filter is not proof that the layer 1 image is JPEG because this filter is also used to compress other types of bitmap image formats. As I have constantly reminded you, the JPEG standard is a compression standard rather than a file format standard. The file format standard is JFIF. You have never produced an extracted bitmap file with JFIF in the header.

    But obviously, you consider the standards to be irrelevant.

    HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

    The following should have been obvious to you by now.

    BitsPerComp… number 8
    ColorSpace name DeviceRGB

    Width = 1664 ; Height = 1280

    My code has the choice of decoding every object within the PDF or not.

  185. nbc says:

    Hermitian: No doubly compressed image for Layer 1. Are you serious ?

    That’s not what you suggested. Layer 1 as you call it, is a PDF object where the datastream is compressed once using a lossless compression (flate) and once using DCT which is a jpeg method using discrete cosine transforms etc. The latter one is a lossy method.

    Said differently, the manual extraction of a JPEG is not an action taken by the Xerox or by MAC OS Preview. However, it is an action that the forger might impose to pre-determine the outcome.

    The manual extraction shows that the YCbCr comment is present in all the files and not created by Preview. Of course that by itself could be determined by simple experiments but since you refuse to do the experiments, you have remained fully uninformed in these matters.

    As to the ‘forger’, sure a forger can do anything in your scenario and thus explains nothing. The mere fact that a simple process explains everything you and others have claimed to be the work of a forgery, shows that the real forger is just a machine and its software components. A simple workflow explains it all.

    The application of the DCTDecode filter is not proof that the layer 1 image is JPEG because this filter is also used to compress other types of bitmap image formats.

    Totally wrong.. DCTDecode is a JPEG standard method to encode and the fact that you can decompress the flatedecode into a jpeg and it displays and shows the YCbCr comment and is bit identical to the preview DCTDecode show that you are totally wrong, as usual.

    It’s your ignorance which makes you so much fun my friend. However, it does make you an excellent subject to try to help educate others.

  186. nbc says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund:

    First, despite the fact that we have not only told you dozens of times the correct order to apply the filters, but actually linked to and quoted the PDF specification manual that showed the correct order, you still persist in getting the order of application wrong.

    That has been a common problem with Hermitian. He makes a claim, we explain why he is wrong, he continues to make the same wrong claim.

    A little S L O W to accept that he has been wrong, and so many times as well. In most cases, when you explain to someone why they are wrong, they will not repeat the same mistake, which is why it is useful from an educational perspective, to focus on mistakes. Even if the subject in question is unwilling to learn, it can still serve as a good example to others who may have similar issues.

  187. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    I guess it’s human nature to want to be right. In rational people, however, there comes a point where they stop and say “…I’m wrong. There writing is on the wall, I don’t like it, but there it is.” Irrational people are more along the lines of “I’m RIGHT! Any evidence to the contrary is FALSE!”

  188. justlw says:

    Monkey Boy: The Grizzly Mama appears to suffer from a common delusion.

    This would imply that there’s a logical reason in her mind why she thought “tort” was a suitable crouton for this week’s word salad, and that if asked she could articulate in any way what its impact would be on the cost of healthcare.

    I think it’s much more likely that she heard that “tort reform” was a thing one could be divisive about, but in the heat of the moment thought that “reform” sounded like something a community organizer (dun dun DUNN!) would be in favor of, and so cut loose with a corresponding string of syllables without realizing she’d taken the ideologically wrong side of the argument.

    Or, it could be that she had indeed been told that “tort reform” was pro-business, thus a good thing, but as is so often the case, the actual words exiting her mouth were not her friend.

    The least likely interpretation is that she sincerely thought that “less tort reform threat”, whatever she thinks that means, is something that would be of actual benefit to the country.

  189. nbc says:

    Andrew Vrba, PmG: I guess it’s human nature to want to be right. In rational people, however, there comes a point where they stop and say “…I’m wrong. There writing is on the wall, I don’t like it, but there it is.” Irrational people are more along the lines of “I’m RIGHT! Any evidence to the contrary is FALSE!”

    There is a real problem here…

    When someone tries to correct you, tries to dilute your misconceptions, it backfires and strengthens them instead.

    Called the backfire effect

    The Backfire Effect

    The Misconception: When your beliefs are challenged with facts, you alter your opinions and incorporate the new information into your thinking.

    The Truth: When your deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory evidence, your beliefs get stronger.

  190. Daniel says:

    nbc: Or Reality Check, or me… Yeah right… That works..

    Yes but unlike Hermi, you and RC, etc already know that, legally speaking, the PDF is not relevant. You’re pursuing an academic exercise, essentially, to show reasonable people how ridiculously wrong, and bullheaded the birthers like Hermitan are in the face of actual facts and research.

    While I applaud your work, and appreciate the hours of entertainment you have provided at birther expense. I doubt you think that this is in any way a win/lose situation for anti-birthers.

  191. Daniel says:

    Dr Kenneth Noisewater: I actually have a copy of it… Well a scan of it.Nixon’s though wasn’t created until 30 years after he was born and was done through a court order… If I was a birther I’d think this sounded fishy.Also the date stamp looks like 2069 on it.http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0133f2d3f5d2970b-pi

    Yes but there was something different about Nixon, and indeed every other past president, which made it unnecessary for people to question, or even bother to care about asking, or even to have it occur to them to bother to care about asking, about their birth certificates…. one thing different…. hmmmm I wonder what that one difference is…..

  192. W. Kevin Vicklund says:

    Hermie claimed the following:

    And while you are working on that maybe you should know that application of FlateDecode to the doubly compressed PDF image does not yield a DCT compressed JPEG.

    However, this is inaccurate. The PDF image is not doubly compressed. Only Layer 1, identified as Object 12 (not 8 as Hermie falsely claims) in the file, is doubly compressed. This may be a case of sloppy writing on Hermie’s part, but it might also explain why Hermie is unable to follow what should be simple directions.

    However, given that Hermie can’t properly identify which object is the image in question, it may simply be yet another case where Hermie borked the download process and changed the file in a way that makes it no longer amenable to the directions as stated.

  193. nbc says:

    Daniel: Yes but unlike Hermi, you and RC, etc already know that, legally speaking, the PDF is not relevant. You’re pursuing an academic exercise, essentially, to show reasonable people how ridiculously wrong, and bullheaded the birthers like Hermitan are in the face of actual facts and research.

    Very true… Points well taken.

  194. W. Kevin Vicklund says:

    Interesting. Where did you get this from, Hermie? The file on WH server doesn’t have all that Additional Metadata…

    Hermitian:
    Oops the editor ate some lines…

    Re-Post of the WH LFCOLB METADATA with missing lines added back.

    File Info
    File Name: birth-certificate-long-form WayBack Machine 04-27-2011JJ-:
    Created: 4/27/2011,8:09:24 AM
    Modified: 4/27/2011,8:09:24 AM
    File Size: 385,354 bytes (376.32 KB)
    Document Info
    Title:
    Author:
    Subject:
    Keywords:
    PDF Producer: Mac OS X 10.6.7 Quartz PDFContext
    Application: Preview
    PDF Version: 1.3
    Pages Count: 1
    PDF Viewer: Unknown

    Additional Metadata…

    http://ns.adobe.eom/xap/1.0/xap:CreateDate:2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00xap:ModifyDate: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00xap:CreatorTool: Previewxap:Description (seq)[1]: (null)xap:Format: application/pdfxap:Title (seq)[1]: (null

    http://ns.adobe.eom/pdf/1.3/pdf:Producer: Mac OS X 10.6.7 Quartz PDFContextpdf:CreationDate: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00pdf:Creator: Previewpdf:ModDate: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00pdf: Subject:pdf:Title:

    http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.l/dc:format: application/pdfdc:description (seq)[1]: (null)dc;title (seq)[1]: (nulL)

    http://ns.adobe.eom/photoshop1.0/photoshop:Caption:photoshop:Title:

    http://ns.adobe.com/png/1.0/png:CreationTime: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00png: Description:png;ModificationTime:2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00png:Software: Previewpng:Title:

    http://ns.adobe.com/tiff/1.0/tiff:DateTime: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00tiff:ImageDescription (seq)[1]: (null)tiff:Software: Preview

  195. W. Kevin Vicklund says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund:
    Interesting.Where did you get this from, Hermie?The file on WH server doesn’t have all that Additional Metadata…

    For that matter, neither does the earliest saved file in the Wayback Machine…

  196. nbc says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: For that matter, neither does the earliest saved file in the Wayback Machine…

    Poor Hermie… Nice try though… But again it appears to be Hermie’s inability to correctly download pdf files.
    It’s moments like this where I am dumbfounded as to Hermie’s abilities to do proper research…

  197. Hermitian says:

    nbc:

    nbc
    November 14, 2013 at 8:22 pm nbc(Quote)
    #

    Hermitian: So now there is double compression and then Preview does a double decompression to get an degraded JPEG image to display in Preview?
    Still not understanding… Flate is a lossless compression, and Preview or any other viewer follows the PDF standard and does a double decompression. The ‘degraded’ JPEG is the result of a simple MRC compression.
    You are clueless…

    Nope you are obviously the one who is confused.

    1. First you claimed that there was no double compression of the background layer.

    2. Then you admitted that the Xerox does apply two compressions but Preview just “hands off” the Xerox DCT compressed background layer to the Preview print to PDF file.

    3. Now you admit that Preview applied two decode filters to obtain an uncompressed image to display in Preview.

    4. So I guess now you must be claiming that when print to PDF is invoked in Preview, rather than writing the screen image to the new PDF, Preview instead reaches back to the Xerox DCT compressed image and writes that xerox DCT compressed file to the Preview print to PDF file. And thus you must also be claiming that Preview saves the Xerox DCT compressed JPEG after the FlateDecode filter has been applied by Preview but before Preview applies the DCT filter?

    Otherwise there would be additional degradation of the image when Preview re-compresses the image using DCT.

    It would be easy for you to test your latest claimed workflow. Just compare the file sizes of the extracted JPEG from the Xerox PDF and the Preview PDF. Actually these two files should be identical if your claimed workfow is correct.

    It’s really not complicated. But then maybe it is for an Obot.

    So maybe you should go ahead and run this simple check before you change your workflow again.

  198. Bdot says:

    Don’t know if this has been mentioned, but saw Vogt’s last point talking about JBIG2 compression and how use of that “indicates manipulation cover-up”. Large jump, but led me to articles about Xeroz issues with character substitution on various devices:

    http://realbusinessatxerox.blogs.xerox.com/2013/08/07/update-on-scanning-issue-software-patches-to-come/#.UoaWCiema_Q

  199. RanTalbott says:

    Daniel: While I applaud your work, and appreciate the hours of entertainment you have provided at birther expense. I doubt you think that this is in any way a win/lose situation for anti-birthers.

    I think there’s a definite “win” here: I find it very useful to be able to say “This is exactly how it was done, conclusively proving your ‘It could only be forgery’ claim false”, instead of merely “Well, I’m pretty sure the artifacts you claim prove forgery could’ve been produced by a normal process”.

  200. An original authentic White House long form PDF file has an MD5 cryptographic digest of 34a7aeb10b7077520e5a976a02de877b.

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Interesting.Where did you get this from, Hermie?The file on WH server doesn’t have all that Additional Metadata…

    For that matter, neither does the earliest saved file in the Wayback Machine…

  201. nbc says:

    All files that I have downloaded so far have this MD5 signature… None of them show the metadata our friend Hermie imagines to exist…

  202. nbc says:

    Hermitian: 1. First you claimed that there was no double compression of the background layer.

    2. Then you admitted that the Xerox does apply two compressions but Preview just “hands off” the Xerox DCT compressed background layer to the Preview print to PDF file.

    3. Now you admit that Preview applied two decode filters to obtain an uncompressed image to display in Preview.

    It was you who sloppily confused PDF image with the actual object. I never have denied that the background layer contains a DCTDecode and FlateDecode object. I also showed you how the order is applied and how to extract the DCTDecode object and render it properly.

    4. So I guess now you must be claiming that when print to PDF is invoked in Preview, rather than writing the screen image to the new PDF, Preview instead reaches back to the Xerox DCT compressed image and writes that xerox DCT compressed file to the Preview print to PDF file. And thus you must also be claiming that Preview saves the Xerox DCT compressed JPEG after the FlateDecode filter has been applied by Preview but before Preview applies the DCT filter?

    Yes… Now you finally get it… In fact applying flatedecode to DCTDecode makes no sense and yes, Preview does exactly what I have explained to you. Even you could have done the experiments but somehow, you seem to be unwilling or unable to do this.

    Not much of a serious researcher..

  203. nbc says:

    Bdot: Don’t know if this has been mentioned, but saw Vogt’s last point talking about JBIG2 compression and how use of that “indicates manipulation cover-up”.

    His own documents are JBIG2 encoded… What a noob… JBIG2 is a commonly used compression, and in fact Xerox uses it when MRC compression is applied.

  204. nbc says:

    Notice that Hermitian has yet to show anything wrong with my workflow other than asking questions he could have researched himself, and which I have already addressed.

    Not just slow in doing the necessary research but also slow to comprehend. I thank you for once again providing us with a platform to explore your claims and show them to be without any merit.

    You’re the best Hermie… With a bit of luck your name may be remembered fondly.

  205. nbc says:

    Bdot: Large jump, but led me to articles about Xeroz issues with character substitution on various devices:

    Yes, JBIG2 is sometimes too aggressive and actually replaced one object with another. As far as I can tell, that did not happen here though but it shows the concept of JBIG2 not being evidence of anything fraudulent by itself.

  206. W. Kevin Vicklund says:

    Hermitian: So now there is double compression and then Preview does a double decompression to get an degraded JPEG image to display in Preview?

    NBC: Still not understanding… Flate is a lossless compression, and Preview or any other viewer follows the PDF standard and does a double decompression. The ‘degraded’ JPEG is the result of a simple MRC compression.
    You are clueless…

    Hermitian: Nope you are obviously the one who is confused.

    1.First you claimed that there was no double compression of the background layer.

    No he didn’t. He merely pointed out that the use of “degraded” is inappropriate. The mere fact that it is in JPEG format and it has gone through MRC separation cased the “degradation”, not the second compression step.

    2.Then you admitted that the Xerox does apply two compressions but Preview just “hands off” the Xerox DCT compressed background layer to the Preview print to PDF file.

    Well, yeah, otherwise the image could be degraded further. Not guaranteed that it would be, though.

    3.Now you admit that Preview applied two decode filters to obtain an uncompressed image to display in Preview.

    This does not contradict 2.

    4.So I guess now you must be claiming that when print to PDF is invoked in Preview, rather than writing the screen image to the new PDF,Preview instead reaches back to the Xerox DCT compressed image and writes that xerox DCT compressed file to the Preview print to PDF file.And thus you must also be claiming that Preview saves the Xerox DCT compressed JPEG after the FlateDecode filter has been applied by Preview but before Preview applies the DCT filter?

    This is a reasonable synthesis of 2 and 3. It’s what we’ve been telling you for ages.

    Otherwise there would be additional degradation of the image when Preview re-compresses the image using DCT.

    Not necessarily. If the same tables are used, you get no additional degradation.

    It would be easy for you to test your latest claimed workflow.Just compare the file sizes of the extracted JPEG from the Xerox PDF and the Preview PDF.Actually these two files should be identical if your claimed workfow is correct.

    And guess what? He did! It was easy, and they were the same!

    It’s really not complicated.But then maybe it is for an Obot.

    So since he could and did do it, why can’t you?

    So maybe you should go ahead and run this simple check before you change your workflow again.

    Objection. Begging the question. No evidence that NBC has changed the workflow, and NBC has already done the simple check. Of course, changing the hypothesis in the face of new evidence is part of the scientific process, and is to be commended when such change is warranted.

  207. nbc says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Objection. Begging the question. No evidence that NBC has changed the workflow, and NBC has already done the simple check. Of course, changing the hypothesis in the face of new evidence is part of the scientific process, and is to be commended when such change is warranted.

    Poor hermie is still struggling with that concept. When I first reported on the quantization matrix, the PDF I had from a 7655 showed a different matrix. However, RC found the same matrix in a 7535 and when I checked the whitehouse 7655 pdf, it also showed the same matrix.

    I hope the eventually Hermitian catches up with these truly trivial issues and shows something wrong with my workflow.

  208. RanTalbott says:

    nbc: Yes, JBIG2 is sometimes too aggressive and actually replaced one object with another. As far as I can tell, that did not happen here though

    I’ve always assumed (but never actually verified) that the “kerning” was caused by replacing characters with ones that were slightly different, but close enough for JBIG2 to consider them “equivalent” and use the same bitmap. In some casses, the substitution would displace them horizontally when rendered.

  209. Daniel says:

    RanTalbott: I think there’s a definite “win” here: I find it very useful to be able to say “This is exactly how it was done, conclusively proving your ‘It could only be forgery’ claim false”, instead of merely “Well, I’m pretty sure the artifacts you claim prove forgery could’ve been produced by a normal process”.

    Yes essentially when I said “win/lose” I was taking as given that birthers have already lost.. In other words, we’re not doing this academic exercise because if we fail we’ll lose the birthbattle. Even if we, by some birther miracle, could not show that The Zullo claim of “impossible to copy” was false, the birthers still lose.

    It’s akin to having an argument about the maximum length of hair on a unicorn’s fetlock. It’s an amusing exercise, but with no real consequences due to the outcome.

  210. Daniel says:

    nbc:
    I hope the eventually Hermitian catches up with these truly trivial issues and shows something wrong with my workflow.

    Whether it’s Chem Trails, Moon Landing Hoaxes, Holocaust Denial, Flat Earthers, 9/11 whackos, Birthers …. whatever, every conspiracy theory nut focuses on the trivialities and ignores the substantive. They are forced to do so precisely because the substantive debunks them. If they can remain focused on the trivialities, and more importantly keep the audience focused on the trivialities, they can keep the conspiracy alive. Once they lose focus on the trivialities and engage the substantives in any way, the conspiracy collapses.

    If you find that people like John, Hermi, etc ignore your questions, take a look at what you’re asking. If you’re asking questions leading to substantive answers, you can bet they’ll continue to ignore, or sidestep.

  211. nbc says:

    RanTalbott: I’ve always assumed (but never actually verified) that the “kerning” was caused by replacing characters with ones that were slightly different, but close enough for JBIG2 to consider them “equivalent” and use the same bitmap. In some casses, the substitution would displace them horizontally when rendered.

    Interesting point to ponder. However, “kerning” is also common on regular typewriters suffering from wear and tear, or fast typing.

  212. nbc says:

    Some hints as to potential side effects of JBIG2

    http://digit.nkp.cz/knihcin/digit/vav/bi-level/g10.gif

  213. JPotter says:

    RanTalbott: I’ve always assumed (but never actually verified) that the “kerning” was caused by replacing characters with ones that were slightly different, but close enough for JBIG2 to consider them “equivalent” and use the same bitmap. In some casses, the substitution would displace them horizontally when rendered.

    I don’t think that’s much of a consideration … assuming my understanding of JBIG2 is correct. JBIG2 and similar schemes look for similar “tiles”, rectangular groups of pixels.

    If 2 characters are “kerned” in the birfer-y sense, that is, encroaching on each other’s horizontal boundaries, and it were caused by tiling, then one of the overlapping characters would be trimmed a bit.

    Further, some of the “kerned” pairs weren’t pulled off the background in the WH LFBC PDF. The spacing is just evidence that the characters were genuinely typewritten.

    Lastly, the position of the characters in the compressed overlays is determined by there positioning in the original image. if the underlying characters hadn’t been overlapping, their representations in the bitmapped overlays wouldn’t be overlapping either.

    It would take a lower effective resolution for this to be a concern.

  214. Hermitian says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Hermie claimed the following:
    And while you are working on that maybe you should know that application of FlateDecode to the doubly compressed PDF image does not yield a DCT compressed JPEG.
    However, this is inaccurate. The PDF image is not doubly compressed. Only Layer 1, identified as Object 12 (not 8 as Hermie falsely claims) in the file, is doubly compressed. This may be a case of sloppy writing on Hermie’s part, but it might also explain why Hermie is unable to follow what should be simple directions.
    However, given that Hermie can’t properly identify which object is the image in question, it may simply be yet another case where Hermie borked the download process and changed the file in a way that makes it no longer amenable to the directions as stated.

    Wrong ! Different PDF parsers order and group the objects differently. The data that I posted for the Xerox 7535 PDF came from one of my favorites which parses at the COS OBJECT LEVEL. This parser finds 26 COS OBJECTs of which COS OBJECT 8 is the background layer. The PDF specification allows eight different types of COS OBJECTS.

    For my download of “birth-certificate-long-form WayBack Machine 04-27-2011_17-11-11.pdf” I ZIP compressed the file and E-mailed it to myself.

    You can see that none of the dates extracted with the METADATA have been modified. This PDF file is the earliest one captured by the WayBack Machine after the White House released Obama’s LFCOLB PDF on 04/27/2011. My METADATA is close to Zatkovich’s which you will find in his report.

  215. Hermitian says:

    JPotter: RanTalbott: I’ve always assumed (but never actually verified) that the “kerning” was caused by replacing characters with ones that were slightly different, but close enough for JBIG2 to consider them “equivalent” and use the same bitmap. In some casses, the substitution would displace them horizontally when rendered.

    I don’t think that’s much of a consideration … assuming my understanding of JBIG2 is correct. JBIG2 and similar schemes look for similar “tiles”, rectangular groups of pixels.
    If 2 characters are “kerned” in the birfer-y sense, that is, encroaching on each other’s horizontal boundaries, and it were caused by tiling, then one of the overlapping characters would be trimmed a bit.
    Further, some of the “kerned” pairs weren’t pulled off the background in the WH LFBC PDF. The spacing is just evidence that the characters were genuinely typewritten.
    Lastly, the position of the characters in the compressed overlays is determined by there positioning in the original image. if the underlying characters hadn’t been overlapping, their representations in the bitmapped overlays wouldn’t be overlapping either.
    It would take a lower effective resolution for this to be a concern.

    I think that JPOT forgot that the Obot workflow requires Preview to decode the JBIG2 and then Flate compress each 1 Bit layer.

  216. JPotter says:

    JPotter: It would take a lower effective resolution for this to be a concern.

    Er, well, duh. I meant that the idea that characters might shift position, relative to the uncompressed image, due to tiling by a compression algorithm would be more of a concern if the characters were rendered at a very low resolution, as in the GIF NBC linked to above.

  217. I fail to see the sense of this discussion. The Xerox does what it does, and Preview does what it does. What is the value of arguing about the internal process? It seems rather a pointless game of “gotcha v. idiot.”

    Hermitian: I think that JPOT forgot that the Obot workflow requires Preview to decode the JBIG2 and then Flate compress each 1 Bit layer.

  218. Several letters are consistently “kerned” in the LFBC (not just Obama’s, it can be seen in the other Kapiolani birth certificates from that month). This is actually caused by the armatures being slightly bent, which causes the letter to shift slightly. Rather common in heavily used typewriters.

  219. JPotter says:

    Hermitian: I think that JPOT forgot that the Obot workflow requires Preview to decode the JBIG2 and then Flate compress each 1 Bit layer.

    And I know that this typical Hermie non-sequitur has nothing to do with RanTalbott’s point! 😉

    Are you incapable of distinguishing general considerations from a specific case?

  220. nbc says:

    Hermitian: You can see that none of the dates extracted with the METADATA have been modified. This PDF file is the earliest one captured by the WayBack Machine after the White House released Obama’s LFCOLB PDF on 04/27/2011. My METADATA is close to Zatkovich’s which you will find in his report.

    Fascinating how the real PDF on the website, obtained from the wayback machine fails to show the information he claims it does…

  221. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    I wonder how much longer Doc is gonna let Hermitian waste everyone’s time. He’s not contributing any sort of proper rebuttal, just going off on tangents like john and scotte.

  222. nbc says:

    Hermitian: I think that JPOT forgot that the Obot workflow requires Preview to decode the JBIG2 and then Flate compress each 1 Bit layer.

    Sloppy at best. Preview decoded the JBIG2 information and turned it into a pure bitmap which it subsequently compressed using flate.

    JBIG2 explains the appearance of similar objects in the bitmaps. Such a beautiful workflow which explains all the artifacts we have observed…

    Note that Hermitian has never refuted any of these findings, other than by making irrelevant and often erroneous comments.

    Still waiting..

  223. nbc says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: I fail to see the sense of this discussion. The Xerox does what it does, and Preview does what it does. What is the value of arguing about the internal process? It seems rather a pointless game of “gotcha v. idiot.”

    Well, yes in a sense that is true. Xerox does what it does and preview does what it does and we see that when preview is used, the raw Xerox file looks in all relevant details like the WH PDF.

    That’s something our friend refuses to accept or address…

  224. CarlOrcas says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    I fail to see the sense of this discussion. The Xerox does what it does, and Preview does what it does. What is the value of arguing about the internal process? It seems rather a pointless game of “gotcha v. idiot.”

    Amen!!

    Even more problematic…….let’s say, for the sake of discussion, the PDF is a fake. What difference does it make? None. Zip.

  225. Hermitian says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: I fail to see the sense of this discussion. The Xerox does what it does, and Preview does what it does. What is the value of arguing about the internal process? It seems rather a pointless game of “gotcha” v. “idiot.”

    Hermitian: I think that JPOT forgot that the Obot workflow requires Preview to decode the JBIG2 and then Flate compress each 1 Bit layer.

    It’s necessary because Preview entirely erases the Xerox METADATA. Consequently it is absolutely necessary to nail down every step in the proposed workflow.

    To prove the Xerox workflow theory, one must be able to do so given only the Preview print to PDF file. Otherwise, the human forger is equally plausible. Actually given all of the evidence it is much more plausible than a two machine plus two operators scenario.

    It is especially important to determine every modification that Preview makes to the Xerox MRC created layers. The issue of double DCT compression is important because double compression of the background layer in the presence of singly compressed snippets placed onto the background is recognized as an indication of forgery. Research into the detection of doubly compressed background layers through the examination of the altered DCT quantization tables is ongoing.

    See:

    “Estimation of Primary Quantization Matrix in Double
    Compressed JPEG Images”

    “Jan Lukáš and Jessica Fridrich
    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
    SUNY Binghamton, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000
    {jan.lukas, fridrich}@binghamton.edu

    “Abstract

    In this report, we present a method for estimation of primary quantization matrix from a double compressed JPEG image. We first identify characteristic features that occur in DCT histograms of individual coefficients due to double compression. Then, we present 3 different approaches that estimate the original quantization matrix from double compressed images. Finally, most successful of them – Neural Network classifier is discussed and its performance and reliability is evaluated in a series of experiments on various databases of double compressed images. It is also explained in this paper, how double compression detection techniques and primary quantization matrix estimators can be used in steganalysis of JPEG files and in digital forensic analysis for detection of digital forgeries.”

    Preview also has to remove only the Flate compression from the doubly compressed background image layer without any alteration of the resulting DCT compressed image. However Preview must also apply it’s DCTDecode filter to the Xerox singly compressed background image in order to display the uncompressed JPEG image in Preview.

    NBC now claims that Preview then passes the Xerox DCT singly compressed JPEG to the Preview print to PDF function without alteration. However he provides no proof to back up his claim. For this to be true, Preview would have to not write the uncompressed screen image to the PDF file but instead substitute the Xerox DCT singly compressed image instead.

    I believe that this is just NBC’s latest fairy tale because his workflow also requires that the Preview operator rotate the screen image by 180 degrees. Why would the operator do that and then just throw the rotated image away?

    Just like everything with Obama —- nothing about NBC’s workflow adds up.

    Long ago I concluded that he doesn’t intend to ever finalize his workflow because he would then have to defend it which he can’t.

    You Figure …

    Preview also would have to decode all of the JBIG2 compressed 1 Bit layers and then re-compress same with FlateDecode.

  226. nbc says:

    Hermitian: Wrong ! Different PDF parsers order and group the objects differently. The data that I posted for the Xerox 7535 PDF came from one of my favorites which parses at the COS OBJECT LEVEL.

    Why not look at the raw PDF file, rather than depend on how some tools interpret the information? That also simplifies a comparison between the WH PDF and the Xerox WorkCentre PDF.

  227. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    Hermitian, you’re beaten. Be a grown up and accept that.
    These imaginary technicalities you keep cooking up are not going to negate RC’s findings. You’ve lost. Time to pack it in.

  228. JPotter says:

    nbc: Sloppy at best. Preview decoded the JBIG2 information and turned it into a pure bitmap which it subsequently compressed using flate.

    Oh …. my …. I just caught that Herms meant that he thinks that “decoding” a JBIG2 compressed image would undo/reverse any tiling.

    Consider me arse laughed off! 😀

  229. For my download of “birth-certificate-long-form WayBack Machine 04-27-2011_17-11-11.pdf” I ZIP compressed the file and E-mailed it to myself.

    According to Hermie, ZIP compressing a compressed image is a sign of forgery. If someone ever sends you a JPEG (or JFIF), or a PNG, or any number of image formats, be aware that it is likely a forgery if it’s been zipped.

    According to Hermie, he should be under suspicion for forgery now.

  230. If someone sends you a zip file in an email, it’s probably evidence of an attempt to install malware on your computer!

    W. Kevin Vicklund: According to Hermie, ZIP compressing a compressed image is a sign of forgery. If someone ever sends you a JPEG (or JFIF), or a PNG, or any number of image formats, be aware that it is likely a forgery if it’s been zipped.

  231. gorefan says:

    Hermitian: two machine plus two operators

    Why plus two operators?

    Operator A scans the document on the Xerox and e-mails it to him or her self. And opens it on his or her Mac. One operator and two machines.

    BTW, I don’t know how you scan documents but I always use two machines – a scanner and a PC or a scanner and a Mac.

  232. Daniel says:

    Hermitian: It’s necessary because Preview entirely erases the Xerox …blah blah blah (reams of baseless scientificish sounding crapo used in a vain attempt to make people think he knows something, snipped) blah blah blah …decode all of the JBIG2 compressed 1 Bit layers and then re-compress same with FlateDecode.

    So what, exactly do you hope to achieve with this? At best all you’ll manage to do is prove the PDF isn’t an exact copy of the original. Congratulations, we already knew that. It’s not exact and was never meant to be. As has been pointed out to you many times, it wouldn’t matter if Obama traced the LFBC in crayon on wax paper and ironed it to the oval office window. The PDF is irrelevant.

    So what are you hoping to achieve with this, Hermi? To entertain us with your obfuscations? Well there’s no question we’re laughing at you. Maybe you’re hoping to show that the President is ineligible? Well you’d have to change the very fabric of the universe such that the data on the original and the data on the certified copy do not match… and somehow I don’t think altering reality is within your grasp, although I’m sure you think you’re an expert in that too.

    But do keep on expending your efforts in tilting at windmills rather than the only possible way you could ever think of maybe getting anywhere with it, i.e. Congress. We realize you like pretending here, because at least here you can pretend you’re not a failure, whereas Congress will just send you packing.

  233. JPotter says:

    Hermitian: the Preview operator

    Why the use of mechanical terminology in reference to digital activities? We’re not talking mimeograph machines here 😛

    ( Yet. 😉 )

  234. Hermitian says:

    nbc: Hermitian: Wrong ! Different PDF parsers order and group the objects differently. The data that I posted for the Xerox 7535 PDF came from one of my favorites which parses at the COS OBJECT LEVEL.
    Why not look at the raw PDF file, rather than depend on how some tools interpret the information? That also simplifies a comparison between the WH PDF and the Xerox WorkCentre PDF.

    Why not do both which is what I have done. As you should recall I discovered that the Muscatine Journal PDF was last modified by someone located in the Mountain Time Zone. This I determined from the LastModified Date in the PDF code. You totally missed that and falsely claimed that the PDF was created entirely by the Muscatine Journal staff in Muscatine Iowa which is located in the Central Time Zone.

  235. Keith says:

    Hermitian: It’s necessary because Preview entirely erases the Xerox METADATA. Consequently it is absolutely necessary to nail down every step in the proposed workflow.

    You have analyzed the PDF from one end to the other. That is really cool, because I find I just can’t trust the Doc, or NBC, or any of the other former pressurized drips on this.

    This is the part of the whole PDF thing that has got me confused:

    What exactly is listed as the location of birth?
    What exactly is listed as the date of birth?

    These questions are burning me up inside, and you are the only one I can trust to answer them honestly.

    Please help me.

    Please.

  236. nbc says:

    Andrew Vrba, PmG: Hermitian, you’re beaten. Be a grown up and accept that.

    Hermitian will never accept that which is so crystal clear to everyone else. His dislikes of our President overcome any shame he may feel for continuing to hang on to full disproven arguments.

    Love the guy, he is a textbook example…

  237. nbc says:

    Hermitian: Actually given all of the evidence it is much more plausible than a two machine plus two operators scenario.

    You have failed to show this to be the case. I can show a simple workflow which explains all the artifacts, you have to use a lot of handwaving why and how a forger would do this.

    You have nothing my friend, other than more foolish assertions that show that you do not understand the scientific method.

    You have argued in the past that the forger did exactly what the Xerox workflow did… Is that the best you have to offer? I have outlined the workflow, shared my evidence and encouraged others to repeat the experiments.

    What have you done Hermitian? You have not tried to formulate a competing hypothesis, you have shown no data, and you have failed to even try to reproduce my findings.

    You have failed at all levels.

    That’s why we all love you and thank you for having been instrumental in debunking the PDF fraud claims… If I ever write a scientific paper outlining the steps, I will make sure to thank you for your contributions.

  238. Slartibartfast says:

    Ain’t that the truth. Hermie doesn’t understand how the forensic process is supposed to work, so he “investigates” the technical details looking for anything which doesn’t match his defective understanding of the obot argument. The result is pretty much a train wreck.

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    I fail to see the sense of this discussion. The Xerox does what it does, and Preview does what it does. What is the value of arguing about the internal process? It seems rather a pointless game of “gotcha v. idiot.”

  239. The Magic M says:

    Hermitian: Otherwise, the human forger is equally plausible.

    Did you tell Comrade Zullo that you just admitted his “100% proof of forgery” evaporated to a “50% proof of forgery”?

    Your problem is that as soon as you are forced to give up the 100%, you have to accept (or somehow prove (!) wrong) the Hawaiian verifications. Only your “100% forgery” claim allowed you to deduce (!) the verifications as lies. At 50%, the verifications destroy any forgery claim.

  240. nbc says:

    The Magic M: Did you tell Comrade Zullo that you just admitted his “100% proof of forgery” evaporated to a “50% proof of forgery”?

    ROTFL… I see what you are doing here… Hermie will never notice…

  241. Slartibartfast says:

    No Hermie, it really isn’t.

    If you really wanted to do a forensic investigation of the LFBC pdf, you would isolate various artifacts and attempt to determine if said artifact made it more likely that the pdf was produced by a algorithmic process or a human forger.

    As an example of what I mean, let’s take a look at halos. We know that the pdf has halos, but does that make a forgery or a compressed scan of a document more likely? First off, can this be explained by either process?

    Any algorithmic scanning process which resulted in the background (security paper) being in a high resolution layer with the foreground (i.e. text) being in a lower resolution layer will necessarily have halos as the background pixels can’t get closer than one foreground pixel to a foreground element in some instances.

    On the other hand, the most straightforward method of forging would have involved making the pdf using pieces from distinct sources, i.e. putting text over a solid background layer. This would result in halos on the assembled image (if the text was lower in resolution than the background), but NOT on the background layer. In other words, the halos would have to be specifically added to the background layer (a painstaking process) by a forger.

    This already suggests that an algorithmic process is responsible for the halos, but scientific investigation requires falsifiable hypotheses which can be tested. In this case, the relevant hypotheses are:

    Halos cannot be the result of an algorithmic process

    and

    Halos cannot be the result of a human forger

    The first hypothesis can be falsified by taking a control document with a foreground image printed onto security paper and generating a pdf with halos using an algorithmic process (i.e. scanning it to email on a Xerox machine). In other words, exactly what nbc has done. Therefore, the first hypothesis is proven to be false.

    Falsifying the second hypothesis requires assembling an image from distinct sources (such as an uninterrupted image of security paper and foreground elements similar to those found in the LFBC pdf and generating an image which displays halos in the complete image as well as “cutouts” for foreground elements in the background image. No birther has ever tried to falsify this hypothesis, either due to their ignorance regarding scientific investigation or an awareness that, while it is possible to do something like this manually, the amount of work required would make it obvious that a forger would have needed to intentionally put in halos and have thought they were necessary to emulate a real document (i.e. the forger added halos because a real scan of a document would have them).

    From all of this, we can conclude that the halos and background “cutouts” in the LFBC pdf are either the result of an algorithmic process or were the result of great effort by the forger to emulate an algorithmic process.

    While this doesn’t rule out forgery, it does rule out the flagrant forgery that acting Postmaster-Private Zullo of the Maricopa CCCP claims and, any way you look at it, means that halos make a document more likely to be genuine and less likely to be a forgery.

    This sort of analysis can be used to show that every single artifact on the LFBC pdf is the result of an algorithm or a painstaking effort by a forger to emulate an algorithm. In other words, all of the artifacts that the birthers have identified, taken together, make it overwhelmingly more likely that the LFBC pdf was the result of an algorithmic process rather than an human forger.

    So you see, Hermie (actually, I highly doubt you do), if you believe in the scientific method, you are forced to the conclusion that the LFBC pdf is probably the result of scanning a real document and the certainty that Zullo and company have lied (although Doc already established that long ago). If you had any intellectual integrity whatsoever you would acknowledge these facts rather than continue your pointless pseudo-analysis.

    Hermitian: It is especially important to determine every modification that Preview makes to the Xerox MRC created layers.

  242. Birthers have said that the halos are the result of a human forger using an algorithmic process, the unsharp mask operator in Photoshop. I did not, however, understand the rationale for her doing this, nor do I know if the resulting halos are comparable.

    Slartibartfast: This already suggests that an algorithmic process is responsible for the halos, but scientific investigation requires falsifiable hypotheses which can be tested. In this case, the relevant hypotheses are:

    Halos cannot be the result of an algorithmic process

    and

    Halos cannot be the result of a human forger

  243. Another thing that demonstrates that Hermie’s “archive copy” has been altered: the online WH and Wayback Machine versions are in PDF 1.3 format, which doesn’t support XMP metadata. It is well documented that Preview saves in PDF 1.3 format (which explains why it converts JBIG2 to Flate). Something that Hermie is doing when he downloads the file is causing it to be restructured in a later version of PDF, which in this case seems to add XMP metadata. Note that the only png and tiff entries with non-generic values are the creator and date created [with a different timezone than the WH, I note], both of which can be extracted from the basic metadata that PDF 1.3 does support.

  244. Hermitian says:

    nbc: Hermitian: Actually given all of the evidence it is much more plausible than a two machine plus two operators scenario.
    You have failed to show this to be the case. I can show a simple workflow which explains all the artifacts, you have to use a lot of handwaving why and how a forger would do this.
    You have nothing my friend, other than more foolish assertions that show that you do not understand the scientific method.
    You have argued in the past that the forger did exactly what the Xerox workflow did… Is that the best you have to offer? I have outlined the workflow, shared my evidence and encouraged others to repeat the experiments.
    What have you done Hermitian? You have not tried to formulate a competing hypothesis, you have shown no data, and you have failed to even try to reproduce my findings.
    You have failed at all levels.
    That’s why we all love you and thank you for having been instrumental in debunking the PDF fraud claims… If I ever write a scientific paper outlining the steps, I will make sure to thank you for your contributions.

    Here are just 10 reasons why your workflow is pure boloney (bologna).

    1. The METADATA from the file “birth-certificate-long-form WayBack Machine 04-27-2011_17-11-11.pdf” proves that TIFF and PNG files were created in the workflow.

    2. My METADATA are in agreement with the METADATA that Zatkovich extracted from the file “birth-certificate-long-form.pdf” on Apr 29, 2011.

    From his report:

    —– Quote:

    “Internal PDF Meta Data”

    “Document creator and content versions

    “Using the Examine Document function of Adobe Acrobat Pro version 9.0.0, the date and time of creation were determined to be April 27, 2011 at 12:09:24 pm. The software application that created the PDF document is Preview, a graphics and PDF utility included with the Mac OS X operating system. The version of Preview used is included with Mac OS X 10.6.7. It is possible that the document was created by some other application at an earlier date and then opened and saved from Preview causing new meta data to be stored in the document. The probability of this is at best 50/50.

    The PDF content version is 1.3 and was created by the Quartz PDFContext engine that is part of Mac OS X version 10.6.7.”

    “Content Elements

    “The meta data indicates that some parts of the file are TIFF images and some parts of the file are
    PNG images.

    “Conclusion: These are two common file formats. TIFF images are usually produced by scanning
    software used with scanner devices. PNG is a newer format used by graphics programs that store in
    graphics data a more efficient format producing smaller files than TIFF files. The two image types
    appearing in the meta data is consistent with the fact that the PDF document contains layers where small chunks of image are overlaid on the larger background image containing the form and security paper background. What caused those layers to exist is unknown. One commenter at a prominent website said that the layers were caused by “optimizing the PDF.” I know of no PDFoptimization process that creates layers in the output PDF file.

    “File created in a single session

    “Based upon the meta data, the file was created and not subsequently modified.

    “Conclusion: Because the internal creation and modification dates are the same, it can be concluded
    that the file was created in one session, not created and then modified with the overlays at a later
    time. This does not preclude the possibility that the scanning and overlays were prepared separately and merged together in this single session.

    “User meta data missing

    “Note from the screen capture below that none of the user meta data has been filled out such as the
    Document Title, Author, etc.

    “Conclusion: This is consistent with saving a PDF document from Preview, since Preview does not
    normally display a dialog for editing the user meta data.”

    —– End of Quote

    Zatkovich also included screen shots of the METADATA in his report.

    3. Your proposed workflow does not produce either TIFF or PNG images.

    4. Your proposed workflow would produce a doubly compressed JPEG image for the background layer.

    5. Your workflow requires that the Preview operator rotate the background image 180 degrees on her screen and then print the rotated image to PDF. Thus the image would be twice DCT compressed. It is not clear that Preview could separate and rotate each of the nine images individually

    6. Your workflow also requires that the Xerox operator scan an 8-1/2 in. x 11 in. image upside down and in landscape orientation.

    7. You have never explained how Xerox MRC sets the image size and color of each of the nine bitmap images.

    8. Most importantly, each of the nine layer bitmap images are imbedded images when the PDF file is initially opened in Adobe Illustrator. None of the eight non-background images can be unembedded using the unembed command in Adobe Illustrator CS6 or CC. However, the background layer image can be unembedded.
    Each of the non-background layers are imbedded Black and White bitmap images. The background layer is 3x 8 Bit RGB color.

    9. There is no trace of Xerox METADATA in the WH LFCOLB PDF METADATA.

    10. You have not shown how your precious YcbCr label survives through the second Preview DCT compression. Nor have you demonstrated how the quantization matrix is altered.

    I have lots of others but this will do for now.

  245. I continue to be baffled by your argument, and your peculiar use of the term “workflow.”

    The workflow is:
    1) Scan birth certificate on Xerox (inverted) to PDF
    2) Open in Preview
    3) Rotate
    4) Save as PDF

    RC has executed this workflow and the YCbCr tag is there.

    End of story.

    No amount of bungling argument, badly-formatted pasted text, or denial is going to make the observation of what the Xerox + Preview does disappear.

    Your argument is akin to saying that a bumble bee can’t fly because of the laws of physics. Bumble bees do fly and anyone arguing that they can’t obviously doesn’t know what they are talking about, no matter how much jargon and details in the argument.

    Hermitian: Here are just 10 reasons why your workflow is pure boloney (bologna).

  246. Hermitian says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: However, given that Hermie can’t properly identify which object is the image in question, it may simply be yet another case where Hermie borked the download process and changed the file in a way that makes it no longer amenable to the directions as stated.

    Not that old crutch again eh Vicklund? You shoveled that manure before and I cleaned your clock. So I will happily double up and smack down your second use of this same lame excuse.

    Notice that none of the date/time values have been modified in my extracted METADATA.

    You should already know that Zatkovich also reported these TIFF and PNG files on Apr 29. 2011. This is a fact even though he used a different graphics program than I did to extract his METDATA.

    He also included screen captures of the METADATA which agree with mine. You and NBC are the ones who are obviously reported altered METADATA.

  247. Hermitian says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: W. Kevin Vicklund:
    Interesting.Where did you get this from, Hermie?The file on WH server doesn’t have all that Additional Metadata…

    For that matter, neither does the earliest saved file in the Wayback Machine…

    The very file that I downloaded and extracted my METADATA from. Duh!

  248. Hermitian says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: I continue to be baffled by your argument, and your peculiar use of the term “workflow.”
    The workflow is:
    1) Scan birth certificate on Xerox (inverted) to PDF
    2) Open in Preview
    3) Rotate
    4) Save as PDF
    RC has executed this workflow and the YCbCr tag is there.
    End of story.
    No amount of bungling argument, badly-formatted pasted text, or denial is going to make the observation of what the Xerox + Preview does disappear.
    Your argument is akin to saying that a bumble bee can’t fly because of the laws of physics. Bumble bees do fly and anyone arguing that they can’t obviously doesn’t know what they are talking about, no matter how much jargon and details in the argument.

    Hermitian: Here are just 10 reasons why your workflow is pure boloney (bologna).

    Golly! Even the head Obot in charge of birth certificates doesn’t get it either.

    So let me translate for you. You can take this to the bank so pay attention…

    1. Scan the image in the Xerox. The image of the background layer is doubly compressed by Flate and DCT. The non-background layers are compressed by JBIG2. These added non-background layers are all Black and White bitmap images.

    2. Totally decompress each layer so that each layer can be displayed in Preview.

    3. Load the decompressed images into Preview

    4. Rotate each image by 180 degress. This alterers the quality of each image unless a lossless rotation algorithm is applied.

    5. Save each layer from Preview using print to PDF. The altered background layer is re-compressed using DCT. Each non-background layer is re-compressed using Flate.

    6. AT a minumum the final background layer image is a doubly compressed JPEG image with additional degradation of the image caused by the 180 degree rotation.

    It really isn’t complicated. But unfortunately for you this workflow just doesn’t deliver the right stuff.

  249. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:

    Your argument is akin to saying that a bumble bee can’t fly because of the laws of physics. Bumble bees do fly and anyone arguing that they can’t obviously doesn’t know what they are talking about, no matter how much jargon and details in the argument.

    Wow! That is the perfect analogy for this, Doc!

  250. Hermitian says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Another thing that demonstrates that Hermie’s “archive copy” has been altered: the online WH and Wayback Machine versions are in PDF 1.3 format, which doesn’t support XMP metadata. It is well documented that Preview saves in PDF 1.3 format (which explains why it converts JBIG2 to Flate). Something that Hermie is doing when he downloads the file is causing it to be restructured in a later version of PDF, which in this case seems to add XMP metadata. Note that the only png and tiff entries with non-generic values are the creator and date created [with a different timezone than the WH, I note], both of which can be extracted from the basic metadata that PDF 1.3 does support.

    KVG keeps piling on the same manure !

    Just for your benefit Vicklund I’m re-posting my METADATA that I personally extracted from the archive copy “birth-certificate-long-form WayBack Machine 04-27-2011_17-11-11”.

    Re-Post of the WH LFCOLB METADATA with missing lines added back.

    File Info
    File Name: birth-certificate-long-form WayBack Machine 04-27-2011JJ-:
    Created: 4/27/2011,8:09:24 AM
    Modified: 4/27/2011,8:09:24 AM
    File Size: 385,354 bytes (376.32 KB)
    Document Info
    Title:
    Author:
    Subject:
    Keywords:
    PDF Producer: Mac OS X 10.6.7 Quartz PDFContext
    Application: Preview
    PDF Version: 1.3
    Pages Count: 1
    PDF Viewer: Unknown

    Additional Metadata…

    http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/
    xap:CreateDate:2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    xap:ModifyDate: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    xap:CreatorTool: Preview
    xap:Description (seq)
    [1]: (null)
    xap:Format: application/pdf
    xap:Title (seq)
    [1]: (null

    http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/1.3/
    pdf:Producer: Mac OS X 10.6.7 Quartz PDFContext
    pdf:CreationDate: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    pdf:Creator: Preview
    pdf:ModDate: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    pdf: Subject:
    pdf:Title:

    http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.l/
    dc:format: application/pdf
    dc:description (seq)
    [1]: (null)
    dc;title (seq)
    [1]: (nulL)

    http://ns.adobe.com/photoshop1.0/
    photoshop:Caption:
    photoshop:Title:

    http://ns.adobe.com/png/1.0/
    png:CreationTime: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    png: Description:
    png;ModificationTime:2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    png:Software: Preview
    png:Title:

    http://ns.adobe.com/tiff/1.0/
    tiff:DateTime: 2011-04-27T07:09:24-05:00
    tiff:ImageDescription (seq)
    [1]: (null)
    tiff:Software: Preview

    So if you can find the PDF version 1.4 in my METADATA then I’ll eat it.

  251. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    Hermitian:
    -long-winded fail-

    Buzz off, Bumblebee.

  252. Are you saying to manually save each layer, or just save the document that happens to save all the layers? If the former, you’re not following the script.

    Nowhere in your list of 6 items do you assert that the White House PDF differs from one scanned on a Xerox, opened in Preview, rotated and saved to PDF. Are you saying this, and if so, what is this difference?

    Is it not true that RC’s sample has YCbCr and the White House has YCbCr? It appears that you’re just trying to cloud the issue.

    I would shut this line of argument down, but it’s on an old thread and doesn’t get in the way of any other discussion. Participate if you want to. I’m deleting the non-technical comments from H, since he is banned from the site.

    Hermitian: 5. Save each layer from Preview using print to PDF. The altered background layer is re-compressed using DCT. Each non-background layer is re-compressed using Flate.

  253. Every scan to email I have done on a Xerox WorkCentre 7535 shows TIFF and PNG in the metadata in Illustrator. Here is an example for a file I scanned this week for a future article.

    Xerox WorkCentre 7535 Metadata

  254. Hermie still doesn’t understand the workflow does he?

    Hermitian: Golly! Even the head Obot in charge of birth certificates doesn’t get it either.

    So let me translate for you. You can take this to the bank so pay attention…

  255. We went through this at NBC’s blog. Hermie asserted his lack of the necessary skills to do about anything was proof of forgery.

    Dr. Conspiracy: I continue to be baffled by your argument, and your peculiar use of the term “workflow.”

    The workflow is:
    1) Scan birth certificate on Xerox (inverted) to PDF
    2) Open in Preview
    3) Rotate
    4) Save as PDF

    RC has executed this workflow and the YCbCr tag is there.

    End of story.

    No amount of bungling argument, badly-formatted pasted text, or denial is going to make the observation of what the Xerox + Preview does disappear.

  256. JPotter says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    Birthers have said that the halos are the result of a human forger using an algorithmic process, the unsharp mask operator in Photoshop. I did not, however, understand the rationale for her doing this, nor do I know if the resulting halos are comparable.

    Vogt has been pushing the Unsharp Mask filter as an explanation of the halos in the WH LFBC PDF since late 2011, if I recall correctly. It’s absolute nonsense! No, they aren’t comparable. And fitting that filter into a workflow that yields the WH LFBC PDF gets convoluted, and nonsensical.

    Unsharp mask can create halos along high contrast edges. No big secret, Vogt’s logic must be: this file appears to have halos; this filter can create halos; therefore, this filter was used to make the halos in this file. He’s identified a possibility; without connecting the dots, the conclusion does not follow from the premise. He makes the assertion without the explanation.

    2 main technical problems with his idea. 1) Applying unsharp mask to a color image creates halos with chromatic variations, turning up the contrast in the saturation values until pixels approach pure values. The halos in the WH LFBC PDF are, chromatically speaking, bland. 2) Unsharp mask only creates halos along a contrast edge; if the filter is applied to say, text rendered as a layer with as transparent background, no halos. If the edge is already at maximum contrast (pure black against pure white), no halos. Further, any halos resulting from the use of the filter are necessarily on the layer the filter was applied to. There’s no evidence of ‘burning’ (heightened contrast) near the halos in the WH LFBC PDF, so no unsharp mask was applied to the background.

    So … to create a layered image like the WH LFBC PDF in Photoshop, with monochrome bitmaps of various hues layered over white halos embedded into an 8-bit, RGB background, and text and line art alos embeded in the background but not halo’d / overlaid … you’d have to lay down the 8-bit, RGB background image, either a scan of an existing document, an analog creation, or a digital creation made and then scanned* … either overlay the digitally-created text and line art elements or overlay a second scan and erase the background from it (leave the edges ‘fuzzy’); this second layer will become the halos, so decide which elements you don’t want to halo/overlay and erase those from this second layer … now make a copy of that layer, which will become the final, bitmap overlays.

    OK, go to the 2nd layer. If you used digitally created text/line art, you’ll need to rasterize it, desaturate it (must make white halos! no color allowed!), select the transparency, invert the selection, and save the unaltered selection for later use. Feather the active selection, create a new layer, fill the selection on this new layer with white, move it behind the 2nd layer, and merge the 2nd layer down. You now have ‘glowing’ text/line art. Deselect, and unsharp mask this now-glowing layer (this will contribute nothing to the final image, but hey, Vogt says we must have used it, so….). Now, to achieve that washed out, muddied appearance seen in the WH LFBCPDF when the bitmaps are removed, Reload the original selection, and manipulate either the Levels or Curves to lighten your text/line art to a suitably washed out appearance. Deselect, lock transparency, Gaussian blur the hell out of it. There, washed out halos. Now, to embed them in the background, merge your second layer onto the background, copy the background to a new image, save this new image as a crappy really JPEG. Open the JPEG, drag it onto your working image, replacing the background there.

    Now on to the 3rd layer, what will be the bitmap overlays. We want them in various shades, so select each element you wish to render in a unique hue, and cut and paste each to a new layer. Reduce each layer to 1-bit depth using the method of your choice, and paint each with your desired final color.

    Now you have your overall image, on which you ever-so-briefly (and pointlessly) employed Unsharp Mask. Congrats! Now all you have to do is save each layer as a separate file (bitmaps to BMPs, background to JPEG… (don’t forget to reduce the resolution on that background on the way out!)), and call NBC for assistance in applying the proper compression schemes to each, and for reconstructing the compressed objects into what appears to be an innocuous PDF file. You’re going to have to literally write the file from the ground up! Happy hex editing!

    Whew. It would have been so much easier to have just used the Xerox. 😉

    _____________

    * Wait, you just completed a forgery, why continue?

  257. Hermitian says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: Are you saying to manually save each layer, or just save the document that happens to save all the layers? If the former, you’re not following the script.
    Nowhere in your list of 6 items do you assert that the White House PDF differs from one scanned on a Xerox, opened in Preview, rotated and saved to PDF. Are you saying this, and if so, what is this difference?
    Is it not true that RC’s sample has YCbCr and the White House has YCbCr? It appears that you’re just trying to cloud the issue.

    Each of the nine bitmap images must be rotated individually because the PDF file contains a sepaparte rotation matrix for each image.

    The fact that the non-background layers are Black and White and permanently embedded as bitmaps in Illustrator means that fill color is added to the Black and White images after the fact. Mara Zebest proved that by removing the fill colors from each non-background layer in Illustrator to reveal the Black and White images. She also showed how she could not use the eyedropper tool to read the Black or White color numbers on any of the non-background layers. This is all consistent with the non-background layers being initially created as 1 Bit bitmap Black and White images where 0 is White and 1 is Black. The different near-Black colors for each text layer were added as a fill color. The raw bitmap files of each non-background layer contain no color information except Black and White. This is also true for the two “white spot” layers. These findings are consistent with the observation that the Black and White images are permanently embedded in Adobe Illustrator.

    I have extracted all of the bitmap images from the WH LFCOLB using many different methods and software programs. these trials have produced many different bitmap image file formats.

    I will detail one of these trials to show one method of obtaining TIFF and PNG files. I obtained these files by first loading the WH LFCOLB PDF into Adobe Illustrator CS6 or CC and then re-saving the PDF file as an SVG vector graphics file. The “Link to File” option was invoked during the save step. This produced nine external bitmap image files on my hard drive. The background image is .JPG and the eight non-background images are PNG. Each image is rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise from its orientation as loaded into Illustrator. If one opens this SVG file in Adobe Illustrator then the original PDF image with embedded bitmaps is restored. However if the SVC is instead placed onto a blank artboard in Illustrator then nine external links are found each linking to one of the nine external files.

    Each of these nine images were then loaded one-at-a-time into Photoshop CS6 or CC. The METADATA from each separate image was then extracted for each image. The METADATA for the background JPG image indicated that the image was initially created as a TIFF file. Thus the initial background image is apparently a DCT compressed TIFF. The METADATA from each of the PNG non-background images indicated that the files were initially created as PNG.

    These findings are consistent with the METADATA extracted from the archive copy of the WH LFCOLB.

  258. I see a lot of words and jargon, but nowhere do you say what your point is and what you are trying to show, or what you are trying to conclude.

    See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_sentence

    Hermitian: Each of the nine bitmap images must be rotated individually because the PDF file contains a sepaparte rotation matrix for each image.

  259. JPotter says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: I’m deleting the non-technical comments from H, since he is banned from the site.

    Gosh, Doc, as he has yet to make a ‘technical’ comment, that would mean deleting all of his pointless, rock-kickin’ commentary.

    Good call.

  260. nbc says:

    Hermitian: These findings are consistent with the METADATA extracted from the archive copy of the WH LFCOLB.

    All of this can be trivially explained by a simple workflow involving a scan on a Xerox work centre, upside down, opening up in preview, rotating the image and resaving it.

    Every single step, and feature.

  261. nbc says:

    Hermitian: 4. Rotate each image by 180 degress. This alterers the quality of each image unless a lossless rotation algorithm is applied.

    Hermitian does not understand rotation. Bitmap rotation cannot change the quality of the image, but jpeg rotation can, which is why the jpeg stored in its original for, then rendered as a bitmap, which is subsequently rotated. The jpeg object itself is not rotated until it is being rendered.

    Clueless…

  262. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    Bye Hermie! Don’t forget to learn how to write!

  263. nbc says:

    Hermitian: 5. Save each layer from Preview using print to PDF. The altered background layer is re-compressed using DCT. Each non-background layer is re-compressed using Flate.

    Nope, the original dct object is rewritten to the new file in its original form, the transformation matrix is changed to deal with the rotation.

    As I have explained, this is trivially simple to show and I have provided Hermitian with all the necessary data. The jpeg in the raw and the rotated preview pdf are exactly the same.

    This is an example of Hermitian making assertions as to how he believes Preview works, versus the facts of how it actually works. Since Hermitian has never done the experiments himself, he is committing one of the big sins in science, turning speculation into fact without testing.

    It’s fascinating that our friend is claiming a flow which he has not supported with any evidence and which is on closer scrutiny completely wrong.

    And the worst is that he has been told many times as to how the facts do no support his speculations but he refuses to do the experiments himself and refuses to change his position.

    That’s unfortunate for him but fortunate for those who want to show how one does proper scientific experiments.

  264. nbc says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: I see a lot of words and jargon, but nowhere do you say what your point is and what you are trying to show, or what you are trying to conclude.

    Hermitian is trying to hide his ignorance is techno-babble, which is meant to give the casual reader the impression that he knows what he is talking about. However, to anyone familiar with these issues, the flaws are quite clear and can be exposed as such effectively so that even the casual reader will understand that Hermitian’s claims have no foundation in fact.

  265. nbc says:

    The following workflow is supported by all the data:

    1. The birth certificate is placed upside down on a Xerox Workcentre, most probably a 7655.
    2. The certificate is scanned in an email workflow which sends the document to an email address. The default settings generate an MRC compressed document with edge erase.
    3. Because of the orientation of the document in reference to the scan direction, the images need to be rotated
    4. Because of the MRC compression, the document is separated into a singled 150 DPI background image encoded as a JPEG and multiple monochrome 1 bit foreground images. Monochrome means that they have two states: On and off, when on they display the stroke color as set by the PDF. The monochrome images are compressed using a lossy JBIG2 compression.
    5. When opened, the user notices that the scan is upside down and rotates the document which updates the transformation matrices for the objects, and decodes the JBIG2 foreground objects. Since PDF v 1.3 does not support JBIG2, preview writes out the monochrome objects as bitmaps, and uses flate to compress them.
    6. The objects are rewritten, reflecting the Preview look and feel, and a mask is added to reflect the print margin settings.

    When the PDF is compared to the Whitehouse PDF they are virtually identical in form, and both contain a DCTdecode object with a comment YCbCr and the same quantization matrix. Both align at 8 bit boundaries as is expected from the workflow. And both show the same rotation applied to the objects, and the same scaling, resulting in a 150 PPI background object and 300 PPI foreground objects.

    I have documented the extent to which both documents are virtually identical in form, I have documented every single step, and provided the tools and information for anyone to repeat these experiments.

    Hermitian? Not so much… He claims that his ‘forger’ did exactly what the Xerox workflow did, which means that his hypothesis fails as he provides no independent evidence of such a forger.

  266. gorefan says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: halos

    Here is the video from on of the CCP’s press conferences. It details how they did their test (green security paper with black and white image of the LFBC printed on it).

    At the 0:50 mark there are images of their results. IMO the letters and line art have halos.

    https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4m1835gn4hftkjc/4WIGvgHkHe#lh:null-sheriff%203.mp4

    PS – this is part of Mike Volin’s Sheriff Kit.

  267. gorefan says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Another thing that demonstrates that Hermie’s “archive copy” has been altered: the online WH and Wayback Machine versions are in PDF 1.3 format, which doesn’t support XMP metadata.

    Hermie’s metadata comes form Illustrator. Open the LFBC PDF in Illustrator select file/file properties and then select the Advance tab.

    Different versions of Illustrator give different results.

    Here is Mara Zebest’s version of the Metadata on page 7 Figure 13:

    http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/assets/Obama_LFBC_Report_MaraZebest_2012-07-04.pdf

  268. nbc says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Another thing that demonstrates that Hermie’s “archive copy” has been altered: the online WH and Wayback Machine versions are in PDF 1.3 format, which doesn’t support XMP metadata.

    He must have opened it in Illustrator and is now confusing the Illustrator or Photoshop metadata as being original. It’s trivially simple to look at the raw data which do not support Hermitian’s claims.

    Funny… Just another example of failing to do proper testing.

  269. nbc says:

    Hermitian: It is especially important to determine every modification that Preview makes to the Xerox MRC created layers.

    I assume that this means that you have gotten your hands on the right tools to do this?…

  270. Hermitian says:

    nbc: 5. When opened, the user notices that the scan is upside down and rotates the document which updates the transformation matrices for the objects, and decodes the JBIG2 foreground objects. Since PDF v 1.3 does not support JBIG2, preview writes out the monochrome objects as bitmaps, and uses flate to compress them.

    What about the second DCT compression of the 8 Bit JPEG background image? Are you still denying that Preview applies a second DCT compression to the Xerox DCT compressed JPEG?

  271. nbc says:

    gorefan: Here is the video from on of the CCP’s press conferences.It details how they did their test (green security paper with black and white image of the LFBC printed on it).

    At the 0:50 mark there are images of their results.IMO the letters and line art have halos.

    https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4m1835gn4hftkjc/4WIGvgHkHe#lh:null-sheriff%203.mp4

    PS – this is part of Mike Volin’s Sheriff Kit.

    They totally missed the likely suspect, a xerox work centre… Did they show any attempt to repeat the experiments we outlined? We know that at least one person had access to such a device, although he was having troubles getting it to work.

  272. nbc says:

    Hermitian: What about the second DCT compression of the 8 Bit JPEG background image? Are you still denying that Preview applies a second DCT compression to the Xerox DCT compressed JPEG?

    Yes, preview does NOT apply a second DCT compression, as I have shown, it takes the original object and changes the CTM matrix which determines rotation, magnification, offset and skew.

    Do you have any evidence that I am wrong since I have shown you all my data…

  273. Hermitian says:

    nbc: Hermitian: What about the second DCT compression of the 8 Bit JPEG background image? Are you still denying that Preview applies a second DCT compression to the Xerox DCT compressed JPEG?
    Yes, preview does NOT apply a second DCT compression, as I have shown, it takes the original object and changes the CTM matrix which determines rotation, magnification, offset and skew.
    Do you have any evidence that I am wrong since I have shown you all my data…

    Sure I do. How does your Preview Lady decide that the background layer displayed as a landscape page in Preview is upside down? Maybe the Xerox Lady whispered in her ear?

    ROTFL !!!!

  274. nbc says:

    I just redid the experiment on the two files.

    RC sent me his raw xerox file which is still double encoded. The object in question is Obj 6 and I extracted it using QPDF and then applied deflate.py to turn it into a dctobject. I also extracted the jpeg from the preview saved PDF and did a comparison… They are the same…

    Obj 6 is the flate/dct encoded object, preview-000.jpg is extracted from the preview saved pdf

    md5 preview-000.jpg raw6.jpg
    MD5 (preview-000.jpg) = c6dd6141cf2d1a2c93d8eb3f54cdd354
    MD5 (raw6.jpg) = c6dd6141cf2d1a2c93d8eb3f54cdd354

    You fail.

  275. nbc says:

    PS: Thanks Hermitian for once again providing me with an educational opportunity.

  276. Hermitian says:

    NBC

    HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
    Just in case my last post went over your head…

    The orientation of the Xerox scan to PDF page when opened in Preview is the correct orientation for a landscape page. The top of the page is to the right, bottom of page is to the left, and the top edge of the page would be the bound edge. For landscape oriented text on the page, one would read from left to right.

    When opened with Preview, the top of the Xerox scanned certificate page is to the right and the bottom is to the left. The binding of the bound volume is at the top.

    So if your Preview Lady had any knowledge of landscape printed documents then there is no way that she would detect that the certificate page is upside-down.

    You really should try harder NBC…

  277. Hermitian says:

    NBC

    Just to take the obvious to a conclusion. Xerox would never design a scanner which copies an upside-down landscape scanned document and then delivers a correctly oriented landscape page image in an E-mailed document.

    Duh!

  278. Hermitian says:

    NBC RC WKV

    The only way for the background layer, when opened in Adobe Illustrator, to be in the correct portrait orientation is for the landscape image in Preview to be upside down. But according to the three Obot amigos, if the Preview operator saw an upside-down landscape image then she would rotate it 180 degrees to the correct landscape orientation. However this would cause the image to be upside-down when rotated to portrait orientation in Illustrator.

    Double Duh !!

  279. Hermitian says:

    nbc: I just redid the experiment on the two files.
    RC sent me his raw xerox file which is still double encoded. The object in question is Obj 6 and I extracted it using QPDF and then applied deflate.py to turn it into a dctobject. I also extracted the jpeg from the preview saved PDF and did a comparison… They are the same…
    Obj 6 is the flate/dct encoded object, preview-000.jpg is extracted from the preview saved pdf

    Did RC send both PDFs for the Xerox 7535/Preview combo ? I.e. before Preview and after Preview ?

  280. Hermitian says:

    nbc: I just redid the experiment on the two files.
    RC sent me his raw xerox file which is still double encoded. The object in question is Obj 6 and I extracted it using QPDF and then applied deflate.py to turn it into a dctobject. I also extracted the jpeg from the preview saved PDF and did a comparison… They are the same…
    Obj 6 is the flate/dct encoded object, preview-000.jpg is extracted from the preview saved pdf
    md5 preview-000.jpg raw6.jpg
    MD5 (preview-000.jpg) = c6dd6141cf2d1a2c93d8eb3f54cdd354
    MD5 (raw6.jpg) = c6dd6141cf2d1a2c93d8eb3f54cdd354
    You fail.

    Whow! Not so fast NBC! I haven’t yet completed my bitmap extractions on RC’s two Xerox 7535 PDFs. However I had completed several extractions for your two Xerox 7535 PDFs.

    I extracted the layers for both PDFs into JPG for the background layer and type P4 PBM for the non-background layers.

    So I wasted some more time opening the background and mostly text bitmap image files in both Adobe Photoshop CC and Adobe Illustrator CC. It was necessary to convert the two PBM mostly text image files from PBM format to BPM format before the images could be placed onto new artboards in Illustrator. The PBM files were opened in Photoshop.

    The image orientations for each of the four images were the same for Photoshop and Illustrator. The two JPG background layer bitmap images were both in correct landscape orientation in both Illustrator and Photoshop. To the contrary the two mostly text layer images were in different orientations in Illustrator and Photoshop.

    The “before Preview” mostly text layer image was in correct portrait orientation in both Illustrator and Photoshop. However the “after Preview” image was in the correct landscape orientation. Both mostly text layer images were White text on Black background.

    So the bottom line is that the “after Preview” JPEG background image was not rotated relative to the “before Preview” JPEG background image. However the mostly text layer image for the “after Preview” PDF was rotated relative to the mostly text layer image for the “before Preview” PDF.

    And that’s just the way it is.

  281. Daniel says:

    So Hermi….

    You ever going to answer the question of just what you hope to achieve with this? Or is the answer just too embarrassing?

  282. nbc says:

    Hermitian: Did RC send both PDFs for the Xerox 7535/Preview combo ? I.e. before Preview and after Preview ?

    Nope. I did the work… Come on Hermitian, the facts speak for themselves

  283. nbc says:

    Hermitian: Just to take the obvious to a conclusion. Xerox would never design a scanner which copies an upside-down landscape scanned document and then delivers a correctly oriented landscape page image in an E-mailed document.

    What a foolish statement. It doesn’t, which is why the recipient rotated the picture and saved it.

    You are so clueless… Why do you not address the fact that you were wrong about what preview does, you loser.

    Love your contributions.

  284. nbc says:

    Hermitian: So if your Preview Lady had any knowledge of landscape printed documents then there is no way that she would detect that the certificate page is upside-down.

    It’s trivial, if the document is scanned upside down, it shows up upside down in the email PDF and all it takes is a rotation of 180 degrees. You are so clueless but thank you for trying, it does help to get the message across.

  285. nbc says:

    Hermitian: And that’s just the way it is.

    Still ignoring the facts I notice… What a funny guy you are… Useful, yes but totally clueless, as I showed your scenario to be totally wrong.

    Lose again.

  286. nbc says:

    Daniel: You ever going to answer the question of just what you hope to achieve with this? Or is the answer just too embarrassing?

    Well he tries to avoid embarrassment by bringing up irrelevant issues but he has been totally pwnd. Love it.

  287. Slartibartfast says:

    Hermie,

    What do you think that you have demonstrated? (Besides your own ignorance, that is.) Nbc and other obots have shown that pretty much every artifact which the birthers claim as evidence of forgery can be explained via an algorithmic process. On the other hand, no birther has ever been able to explain why even a single one of these artifacts is more likely to be present in a forgery than a scan of a physical document. Can you reproduce the halos and associated cutouts of the background using a methodology that you think the forger might have used? As well as explaining the purpose for which a forger would use said methodology?

    Don’t you think that it is important to explain why the anomalies found by birthers make it more likely that the LFBC pdf is an assembled forgery rather than a scan of a physical document? Do you think that the allegations by yourself and other birthers should be taken seriously by anyone given your inability to answer these questions?

    Pretty sad.

  288. Hermitian says:

    Let’s take stock here…

    We know that the background image must be up-side-down landscape orientation in Preview if the image is to be right-side-up portrait orientation in Adobe Illustrator. How do we know this ? We know it because the extracted background layer image files extracted (or un-embedded) from the archive copy of the WH LFCOLB all exhibit this orientation.

    We also know that the Xerox 7535/Preview background layer image is right-side-up landscape orientation when its bitmap file is opened in Photoshop or placed on a new artboard in Adobe Illustrator. So if the Preview operator knows her stuff regarding landscape oriented documents, she would see that the background image has the correct landscape orientation and therefore she would not rotate the image by 180 degrees.

    So, taken together, we know that the Xerox 7535 just dosen’t have the right stuff.

  289. JPotter says:

    So, dearest Herms, the argument seems to have boiled down to, “Because I say a Xerox MRC PDF cannot possibly be a Xerox MRC PDF, Obama is ineligible.”

    Got it.

    Meanwhile, that Xerox MRC PDF just continues on being a Xerox MRC PDF, as has been pointed out to you for 2 years now.

    There’s only one aspect, common to all images of Obama’s BCs (both short and long) that drives you and your fellowship of the mentally crippled to cry, “Forgery!”: they all say Obama was born in Hawaii. D’oh!

    And again, why must there be two “operators” in your misunderstanding of modern office workflow? … and why must they be “ladies”? You do realize that, if it was still 1965 outside of mom’s basement, this discussion would not exist, right? Ach, therein lies the rub. Time has left you behind.

  290. Hermitian says:

    Slartibartfast: Hermie,
    What do you think that you have demonstrated? (Besides your own ignorance, that is.) Nbc and other obots have shown that pretty much every artifact which the birthers claim as evidence of forgery can be explained via an algorithmic process. On the other hand, no birther has ever been able to explain why even a single one of these artifacts is more likely to be present in a forgery than a scan of a physical document. Can you reproduce the halos and associated cutouts of the background using a methodology that you think the forger might have used? As well as explaining the purpose for which a forger would use said methodology?
    Don’t you think that it is important to explain why the anomalies found by birthers make it more likely that the LFBC pdf is an assembled forgery rather than a scan of a physical document? Do you think that the allegations by yourself and other birthers should be taken seriously by anyone given your inability to answer these questions?
    Pretty sad.

    Well FastBart it’s clear that you are clueless when it comes to any of the issues surrounding Obama’s forgeries. For example, you Obots are falling all over each other to find an explanation for the Halos which doesn’t rely on Unsharp Mask. This fruitless scramble in spite of the fact that the Tepper page 4 LFCOLB PDF image exhibits no noticeable Halo. And Obama’s attorneys claim to have pulled off that miracle with just one scan of a printout of the WH LFCOLB PDF image.

  291. Hermitian:

    The orientation of the Xerox scan to PDF page when opened in Preview is the correct orientation for a landscape page.

    Wrong! The PDF image from the pre-Preview Xerox file is displayed on the computer screen in portrait orientation, when opened in Preview (and most other PDF viewers, a notable exception being Illustrator). It is quite easy to determine whether a portrait-oriented image of a portrait page is upside-down or rightside-up.

    We have corrected you many times on your misconception that Preview views Xerox files in landscape orientation many times. Why do you persist in this lie?

    The Xerox PDF image, when properly rendered (examples of programs that properly render it: Preview, Adobe Reader, Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, MS Paint), displays in portrait orientation (if it was scanned upside-down, it will display upside-down). Illustrator does not properly render the image since it does not understand the /Rotate command, so it displays the image without rotating it, in landscape.

  292. Hermitian says:

    WKV

    Nice try but no win.

    So how do you explain the irrefutable fact that the WH LFCOLB displays in the right-side-up Portrait orientation in Adobe Illustrator but your Xerox 7535 forgery does not ?

    Obviously it’s not an Adobe Illustrator problem.

  293. Hermitian:
    NBC RC WKV

    The only way for the background layer, when opened in Adobe Illustrator, to be in the correct portrait orientation is for the landscape image in Preview to be upside down.But according to the three Obot amigos, if the Preview operator saw an upside-down landscape image then she would rotate it 180 degrees to the correct landscape orientation.However this would cause the image to be upside-down when rotated to portrait orientation in Illustrator.

    Double Duh !!

    Aside from his misconception about how Preview displays Xerox files (correct answer: portrait orientation), Hermie seems to have forgotten that the original 7535 scans were done with a rightside-up scan. In fact, that is how we discovered that the WH PDF was an upside-down scan. So the 7535 scans Hermie is most likely using don’t need to be rotated 180.

  294. nbc says:

    Hermitian: So how do you explain the irrefutable fact that the WH LFCOLB displays in the right-side-up Portrait orientation in Adobe Illustrator but your Xerox 7535 forgery does not ?

    Because it was not scanned in upside down… Duh… We discussed this on my blog some time ago.

  295. nbc says:

    Hermitian: So, taken together, we know that the Xerox 7535 just dosen’t have the right stuff.

    You ignore all the evidence, and focus on one minor aspect which is caused because it had not been scanned in upside down.

    Hermitian made claims about preview and double compression and was shown to be wrong, now he abandons that aspect and moves to the orientation issue which was also addressed before on my blog.

    Hermitian refuses to address that he has nothing and that his claims have, once again, been shown without any merit.

  296. nbc says:

    Note how Hermitian, despite being quite certain about how Preview must work, has been shown to be totally wrong. It took a simple experiment. If he had followed and comprehended the discussions at my blog he would have understood why the document was scanned upside down and rotated by the user when opened in preview and saved as a pdf.

    This explains the orientation of the images, the 8 bit alignment and all the other artifacts such as the JPEG comment (YCbCr), the quantization matrix, the multiple foreground layers, the rotations, the scaling, the white edge, the mask, the halos, the identical characters, the x-ray where the background is not fully knocked out when foreground text is lifted and so on.

    As usual, Hermitian is letting ignorance guide his speculations and provide me with yet another educational opportunity to show why he is wrong, again…

  297. nbc says:

    Hermitian: For example, you Obots are falling all over each other to find an explanation for the Halos which doesn’t rely on Unsharp Mask. This fruitless scramble in spite of the fact that the Tepper page 4 LFCOLB PDF image exhibits no noticeable Halo.

    The halos have been explained by showing that such halos can be generated through the same work flow that was proposed to explain the dozen or more artifacts which people had erroneously identified as evidence of fraud.

    For example, there was Hermitian himself who insisted that preview must rewrite the JPEG, thus leading to further degradation of the image. A simple experiment showed him to be wrong. The problem with hermitian is that he made these claims without having properly tested them, and thus they ended up embarrassing him and offered us another unique moment to explain the facts and how one goes about properly testing.

    He also believed that Preview actually rotates the images but it does not, it adjusts the coordinate transformation matrix and applies it to the bitmaps when rendering.

    Now he has ignored all the findings to insist that the orientation of the images are incorrect, even though we have already educated him on how this leads us to the inevitable conclusion that the original document was scanned upside down and rotated 180 degrees in preview.

  298. nbc says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: The Xerox PDF image, when properly rendered (examples of programs that properly render it: Preview, Adobe Reader, Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, MS Paint), displays in portrait orientation (if it was scanned upside-down, it will display upside-down). Illustrator does not properly render the image since it does not understand the /Rotate command, so it displays the image without rotating it, in landscape.

    Hermitian is still a little slow here, even though we have explained this to him several times, with limited success it seems.

    Luckily we do not have to convince Hermitian that he is wrong, that is self evident to almost everyone by now, we only have to show to others that Hermitian refuses to admit to the many artifacts that have been explained by a simple workflow…

    It’s what he is not discussing that shows how well the workflow performs…

  299. Hermitian: So how do you explain the irrefutable fact that the WH LFCOLB displays in the right-side-up Portrait orientation in Adobe Illustrator but your Xerox 7535 forgery does not ?

    Obviously it’s not an Adobe Illustrator problem.

    How about you explain these irrefutable facts:

    The Xerox 7535 file (ie, before Print as PDF in Preview) opens:
    -in Portrait orientation in Preview
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Acrobat
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Reader
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Photoshop
    -in Portrait orientation in Microsoft Paint
    -in Landscape orientation in Adobe Illustrator

    The Preview 7535 file (ie, after Print as PDF in Preview) opens:
    -in Portrait orientation in Preview
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Acrobat
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Reader
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Photoshop
    -in Portrait orientation in Microsoft Paint
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Illustrator

    Sure looks to me like Adobe Illustrator is the problem. And when we compare the two files to see what changes occured when passed through Preview, we see that in the Xerox file, the images are rendered in Landscape orientation on a Landsacpe page, which is then rotated using the /Rotate command, whereas in the Preview file, the images are individually rotated to Portrait orientation and then rendered on a Portrait page using the current transform matrix.

    The icing on the cake is that it has been well documented that Illustrator does not understand the /Rotate command.

  300. gorefan says:

    nbc: We discussed this on my blog some time ago.

    “It’s déj vu all over again”.

  301. nbc says:

    gorefan: “It’s déj vu all over again”.

    Even on my blog I noticed how Hermitian seemed to be unaware of issues we had discussed before and revisited them, it’s either forgetfulness or just an attempt to continue to distract from the solid findings about the artifacts.

    It’s hard to accept for Hermitian, that we have explained all these artifacts which according to CCP ‘experts’ were 100% evidence of fraud, by a simple workflow.

    From the latest reports on the CCP, they have moved onwards and have dropped the birth certificate. Now they claim something even bigger… We can only sit back and smile and see them fail again.

  302. nbc says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: The icing on the cake is that it has been well documented that Illustrator does not understand the /Rotate command.

    Exactly… But poor Hermitian relies on high level tools, so he likely does not even know that a rotate command is present in the PDF.

    He is still struggling with the simplest basics of PDF analysis and it continues to be quite amusing.

  303. Hermitian says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Hermitian:
    NBC RC WKV
    The only way for the background layer, when opened in Adobe Illustrator, to be in the correct portrait orientation is for the landscape image in Preview to be upside down.But according to the three Obot amigos, if the Preview operator saw an upside-down landscape image then she would rotate it 180 degrees to the correct landscape orientation.However this would cause the image to be upside-down when rotated to portrait orientation in Illustrator.
    Double Duh !!

    Aside from his misconception about how Preview displays Xerox files (correct answer: portrait orientation), Hermie seems to have forgotten that the original 7535 scans were done with a rightside-up scan. In fact, that is how we discovered that the WH PDF was an upside-down scan. So the 7535 scans Hermie is most likely using don’t need to be rotated 180.

    nbc
    November 17, 2013 at 1:34 pm nbc(Quote)
    #

    If your claim about portrait orientation in Preview is correct then why does Preview apply a 90 degree clockwise rotation to the background layer ? Remember that I chose my words carefully here.

    By the way, this same question applies to all Xerox 7535 PDFs posted to date.

    All four PDF files (two from NBC and two from RC) indicate that the background layer image is in the correct landscape orientation just prior to opening in Illustrator. Thus the background image produced by all of the Xerox 7535 scans is upside-down relative to the background layer image of the WH LFCOLB just prior to opening in Illustrator.

    This 90 degree rotation is either applied automatically by Preview or by the forger by manually rotating the image after the Preview print to PDF step.

  304. Hermitian says:

    In spite of the huge waste of Xerox toner, the bottom line is that all your Xerox PDFs don’t have the right stuff because they do not duplicate the behavior of the WH LFCOLB in Adobe Illustrator.

    No one is ever going to believe you three amigos unless you Video record each step along your workflow. Please hurry up and do so because you’re just wasting my time because none of you give the same answer to any of my questions. That’s direct proof that you’re just making stuff up to fit your latest storyline.

  305. nbc says:

    Hermitian: All four PDF files (two from NBC and two from RC) indicate that the background layer image is in the correct landscape orientation just prior to opening in Illustrator. Thus the background image produced by all of the Xerox 7535 scans is upside-down relative to the background layer image of the WH LFCOLB just prior to opening in Illustrator.

    Yes, this led us to the conclusion that the document was scanned upside down: This explains the orientation of the images as well as their 8 bit alignment.

    Trivially simple my friend.
    And no, the 90 degree rotation is not applied automatically, it is applied by the user who rotated the image 180 degrees. Instead of 90 degrees clockwise, it becomes 90 degrees counter clockwise.

    Again, all this is observed when one does the actual experiments with Preview. It seems that our friend Hermitian has no capabilities nor interest in pursuing preview experiments.

    That’s too bad…

    What Kevin has shown is how Illustrator fails to properly render a rotate command, however after preview is applied the rotate command becomes a coordinate matrix transformation rotation for all the objects. Before they rotated clockwise now they are rotated counter clockwise, which is exactly what we observe in the WH LFBC. This and the 8 bit alignments all point to the simple fact that the document was scanned upside down and rotated in preview.

    As I said, a simple Xerox work flow explains it all, and now we also know it explains the halos and the white edge.

    In the mean time, we find Hermitian struggling with concepts that have been explained to him many times before.

  306. nbc says:

    Perhaps we should help Hermetian with some simple math

    90 degree clockwise rotation, rotated 180 degrees becomes a 90 degree counter clockwise rotation. You can do the experiment yourself although I have shown exactly what happens, in response to similar confusions by you on my blog.

    At least I tried… Look this is not rocket science but it does require one to have access to preview to run the experiments. Let’s compare notes Hermitian? Or do you still have no access to this essential tool?

    How unfortunate…

  307. nbc says:

    For those who care about the facts, I have documented how the upside down preview version, rotated 180 degrees, matches up with the WH LFBC here

    Both involve a -90 degree rotation ,even though the original Xerox document involved a +90 degree rotation.

    See also here

    I was pleasantly surprised when I also showed how the 8 bit alignments had shifted as I had predicted.

    Everything falls into place quite nicely…

  308. Daniel says:

    Hermi: Once again the elephant ion the room is….

    What do you hope to achieve by all this????

    Why is it that one question seems to be so hard for you that you won’t even acknowledge it’s existence?

  309. nbc says:

    Daniel: What do you hope to achieve by all this????

    Good question… Hermitian is afraid to admit that indeed, the workflow as we outlined matches up with the WH LFBC in a dozen or more aspects, all of which were at some time seen as evidence of fraud…

  310. nbc says:

    Hermetian may have missed that I have documented in excruciating details, the workflow and the results and compared them to the WH LFBC. The only missing steps were to show conclusive evidence that the halos could be explained (thanks to RC we now know that indeed they can be explained) and we have evidence that edge erase works as expected and creates a white border, just as seen on the WH LFBC PDF

  311. nbc says:

    Hermitian: This fruitless scramble in spite of the fact that the Tepper page 4 LFCOLB PDF image exhibits no noticeable Halo

    Weird that you say this because on closer inspection you are wrong. Poor Hermitian was shown to be wrong on Tepper quite a few times as well, see here for example.

    Such educational moments, but did Hermitian really forget about all this?

  312. nbc says:

    I have caught up on reading Hermie’s contributions at the Amazon blogs. Hilarious… Nothing of real relevance but quite amusing.

  313. JPotter says:

    nbc:
    I have caught up on reading Hermie’s contributions at the Amazon blogs. Hilarious… Nothing of real relevance but quite amusing.

    Oh dear …. haven’t been there in a while. Trying to resist …. trying … !

  314. nbc says:

    I see no reason to contribute there either. Especially since Hermitian does not seem to be presenting anything relevant or supported by facts…
    Burden of proof… Hilarious… Believing that the AP photograph somehow infringes on copyright… Just to name a few funny ones. Also notable is that Hermitian’s comments appear mostly to have been voted down enough to require one to explicitly load them.

    I am not surprised.

  315. Hermitian says:

    JPotter: Oh dear …. haven’t been there in a while. Trying to resist …. trying … !

    Don’t worry JPOT ! I’ll be back in the Amazon trenches soon after I have totally destroyed the Xerox forgers and their human handler’s reputations.

  316. Slartibartfast says:

    Hermie,

    I know enough about the issues to understand that not only is there is no evidence of forgery of the LFBC pdf (to the contrary, nbc, et al. have shown that the evidence suggests that the LFBC is simply a scan of a physical document), there is also no motive to have forged the pdf (the Hawai’i DoH, the only agency with the authority to verify birth in Hawai’i, has confirmed that they produced a physical document for the White House and that the information on the pdf is correct).

    Furthermore, the idea that the pdf was forged becomes one of the stupidest premises ever when you realize that the higher resolution AP jpeg could not have had the pdf as a source so it must be either a scan of a real document or an independent forgery—one which shows none of the artifacts that you and the other birthers claim to be evidence of forgery. Quite frankly, the only theory which can account for the artifacts on the pdf, the jpeg, and official statements by the Hawai’i DoH—any theory which alleges forgery of some sort is easily falsified or incapable of explaining the established facts.

    You and the rest of the birthers claiming the LFBC pdf is a forgery are in a lose-lose situation. Until you realize how forensic document examination works, you will never be able to make a scientific argument that the pdf was constructed by a human rather than a machine, but if you come to understand how to do this analysis you will be forced to accept that the evidence is clearly against a claim of forgery.

    It is amazing to me the lengths of willful ignorance and dishonesty that you and your ilk will go to in your efforts to bear false witness against the lawful President of the United States.

    Hermitian: Well FastBart it’s clear that you are clueless when it comes to any of the issues surrounding Obama’s forgeries.For example, you Obots are falling all over each other to find an explanation for the Halos which doesn’t rely on Unsharp Mask.This fruitless scramble in spite of the fact that the Tepper page 4 LFCOLB PDF image exhibits no noticeable Halo.And Obama’s attorneys claim to have pulled off that miracle with just one scan of a printout of the WH LFCOLB PDF image.

  317. One thing to note about the rotations and the Xerox files. Xerox is well aware that its scanned images are rotated 90 degrees from their orientation when placed on the glass or in the document feeder (this is because of the combination of the geometry of the scanning hardware and the way raw image files are built). As a result, by default Xerox WorkCentre PDFs are rotated 90 degrees from the image, as most of the time the image will be orientated in landscape for letter – legal and tabloid images have to be in portrait – and normally letter-sized pages are supposed to be portrait and tabloid in portrait. However, this is not always the case, so Xerox WorkCentres use text recognition software to check to see if the page is oriented properly.

    This means that it is possible that the Xerox fixed the orientation automatically, so there was no manual rotation step in Preview. In fact, this happened on at least one of the tests on the 7655 – the Xerox file displayed rightside-up even though it was scanned upside-down. On other tests, it displayed upside-down when it was scanned upside-down, so obviously the text recognition software isn’t perfect. Which is not surprising, given the atrocious results when the WH LFBC was run through Adobe Acrobat’s OCR software.

    This might also explain why the original was placed upside-down on the scanner in the first place. If the scanner automatically corrects the orientation for most documents, an administrative assistant may not realize that he is scanning documents upside-down (or just gets sloppy because it doesn’t usually matter).

    Ultimately, the question of whether the Xerox or the Preview operator rotated the upside-down image is ancilliary to the main question of forgery. It merely shifts the step from one place to another and changes it from being a manual to an automatic operation.

  318. Slartibartfast says:

    This, of course, is where the analysis of Hermie and the other birther “experts” really falls down. They pick minor nits regarding the details of the process while completely failing to offer any explanations whatsoever as to why any of the trivial points they bring up are more likely to be signs of forgery than to have innocuous causes.

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Ultimately, the question of whether the Xerox or the Preview operator rotated the upside-down image is ancilliary to the main question of forgery. It merely shifts the step from one place to another and changes it from being a manual to an automatic operation.

  319. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    I sometimes think the only reason Doc is allowing Hermitian to stay, is because the place gets a tad boring, without a token birther to mock.

  320. Slartibartfast says:

    Whatever nonsense you may believe, a video on the internet is not the gold standard of forensic investigation. Rather, the gold standard is repeatable experiments. The obots have documented the exact methodology they used as well as the results they obtained. If you can’t follow their methodology and show that it produces different results, then their experiments become part of the evidence which any theory must explain in order to be viable.

    That you don’t realize this indicates a profound misunderstanding regarding how scientific investigation works.

    Hermitian:
    In spite of the huge waste of Xerox toner, the bottom line is that all your Xerox PDFs don’t have the right stuff because they do not duplicate the behavior of the WH LFCOLB in Adobe Illustrator.

    No one is ever going to believe you three amigos unless you Video record each step along your workflow.Please hurry up and do so because you’re just wasting my time because none of you give the same answer to any of my questions.That’s direct proof that you’re just making stuff up to fit your latest storyline.

  321. nbc says:

    Hermitian: Don’t worry JPOT ! I’ll be back in the Amazon trenches soon after I have totally destroyed the Xerox forgers and their human handler’s reputations.

    That’s almost equivalent to saying that you will never be back. I also do not understand why you would want to return to the Amazon ‘trenches’.

  322. nbc says:

    Slartibartfast: Rather, the gold standard is repeatable experiments. The obots have documented the exact methodology they used as well as the results they obtained. If you can’t follow their methodology and show that it produces different results, then their experiments become part of the evidence which any theory must explain in order to be viable.

    That you don’t realize this indicates a profound misunderstanding regarding how scientific investigation works.

    Hermitian however is unable to do his own testing as he lacks the necessary tools. I have provided him with most anything he would need to repeat the analyses, but he so far has shown to have little interest in doing so.

    Video of course is nothing better than what we already have provided. If Hermitian believes that we have somehow manipulated the results, a video would not resolve this, the only way to resolve this is to do what people like RC, Vicklund and I have done: repeat the experiments, and analyze the outcome.

    So let us know when you have managed to repeat the experiments, so that you can report on your findings. That of course assumes that you truly understand the workflow as outlined on my site.

    Good luck my friend… The challenge has stood for quite some time now, and neither the CCP nor anyone else has managed to place any dent in our findings.

  323. nbc says:

    Hermitian: No one is ever going to believe you three amigos unless you Video record each step along your workflow. Please hurry up and do so because you’re just wasting my time because none of you give the same answer to any of my questions. That’s direct proof that you’re just making stuff up to fit your latest storyline.

    We all have given the same answers, it’s just you who has failed to appreciate this. Keep up the good work my friend, we need you…

  324. nbc says:

    Andrew Vrba, PmG: I sometimes think the only reason Doc is allowing Hermitian to stay, is because the place gets a tad boring, without a token birther to mock.

    We’re not mocking as much as educating. If the two overlap, then that is purely coincidental.

  325. nbc says:

    Hermitian: Don’t worry JPOT ! I’ll be back in the Amazon trenches soon after I have totally destroyed the Xerox forgers and their human handler’s reputations.

    But no worries, the Xerox WorkCentre at the whitehouse is likely leased and thus will eventually be recycled. Poor poor Roxy…

  326. Hermitian says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund:

    W. Kevin Vicklund
    November 17, 2013 at 2:21 pm W. Kevin Vicklund(Quote)
    #

    Hermitian: So how do you explain the irrefutable fact that the WH LFCOLB displays in the right-side-up Portrait orientation in Adobe Illustrator but your Xerox 7535 forgery does not ?
    Obviously it’s not an Adobe Illustrator problem.
    How about you explain these irrefutable facts:
    The Xerox 7535 file (ie, before Print as PDF in Preview) opens:
    -in Portrait orientation in Preview
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Acrobat
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Reader
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Photoshop
    -in Portrait orientation in Microsoft Paint
    -in Landscape orientation in Adobe Illustrator
    The Preview 7535 file (ie, after Print as PDF in Preview) opens:
    -in Portrait orientation in Preview
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Acrobat
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Reader
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Photoshop
    -in Portrait orientation in Microsoft Paint
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Illustrator
    Sure looks to me like Adobe Illustrator is the problem. And when we compare the two files to see what changes occured when passed through Preview, we see that in the Xerox file, the images are rendered in Landscape orientation on a Landsacpe page, which is then rotated using the /Rotate command, whereas in the Preview file, the images are individually rotated to Portrait orientation and then rendered on a Portrait page using the current transform matrix.
    The icing on the cake is that it has been well documented that Illustrator does not understand the /Rotate command.

    I would be happy to explain how all this can and does occur.

    1. Before opening in Illustrator, all of the Xerox 7535 scan to PDF and Xerox 7535/Preview print to PDF images are in the correct landscape orientation.

    2. To the contrary, before opening in Illustrator, the WH LFCOLB image is in upside-down landscape orientation.

    3. Consequently, in order for the Xerox 7535 scan to PDF or the Xerox 7535/Preview print to PDF images to display in correct portrait orientation, Illustrator must apply a 90 degree counterclockwise rotation when each PDF is opened.

    4. In order for the WH LFCOLB PDF image to display in the correct portrait orientation, Illustrator applies a 90 degree clockwise rotation. This rotation has been verified many times for the WH LFCOLB.

    5. Both NBC’s Xerox 7535 scan to PDF image and RC’s Xerox 7535 scan to PDF image open in Illustrator without a 90 degree counterclockwise rotation. Consequently, these two images display in correct landscape orientation in Illustrator.

    6. Both NBC’s Xerox 7535/Preview print to PDF image and RC’s Xerox 7535/Preview print to PDF image are rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise rotation when each is opened in Illustrator.

    Consequently the 90 degree counterclockwise rotation that is applied to the two Xerox 7535/Preview print to PDF images is opposite to the 90 degree clockwise rotation that is applied to the WH LFCOLB PDF image.

    This proves that the Xerox 7535/Preview print to PDF images do not have the right stuff.

  327. CarlOrcas says:

    Hermitian: In spite of the huge waste of Xerox toner, the bottom line is that all your Xerox PDFs…..

    How many PDF’s do you get out of a regular toner cartridge, Herm?

  328. JPotter says:

    Hermitian: I’ll be back in the Amazon trenches soon after I have totally destroyed the Xerox forgers and their human handler’s reputations.

    Quite a slip Herms! You’re not hear to learn, to discover, to test ideas; no, you’re here to ‘destroy’ people and reputations. You’re happy to sidestep messages by targeting messengers, engaging in personal attacks if and when you can.

    And yet, when you slipped up and blew your cover, you squealed, and whined endlessly when referred to by name. Hypocrite much?

    What’s all this fascination with rotation? Illustrator is an editor, not a reader. Normal users aren’t using Illustrator to read PDF’s. Illustrator is not tasked with presenting the intended reader experience the creator of a PDF may have built into the file. Therefore, Illustrator ignores a whole suite of commands in regards to how pages are displayed. Duh.

  329. JPotter says:

    CarlOrcas: How many PDF’s do you get out of a regular toner cartridge, Herm?

    Carl Orcas for the win LOL

  330. nbc says:

    Hermitian: This proves that the Xerox 7535/Preview print to PDF images do not have the right stuff.

    Which is why the document was scanned upside down. All align then… Still clueless even though we have explained this to you many times and I even documented it for you.

    Fail..

  331. nbc says:

    JPotter: Quite a slip Herms! You’re not hear to learn, to discover, to test ideas; no, you’re here to ‘destroy’ people and reputations. You’re happy to sidestep messages by targeting messengers, engaging in personal attacks if and when you can.

    Well observed… It does not help his case that he is quite unable to present scientific hypotheses as he seems to be unwilling to do any relevant testing to support or reject them. He repeats the same old claims that have since long been rejected.

    Which is why he is so useful.

  332. nbc says:

    JPotter: What’s all this fascination with rotation?

    Rotation is part of the artifacts that were raised as evidence of forgery. Of course, the workflow proposed trivially captures the rotations, scalings, 8 bit alignments. Once again the Xerox workflow saves the day.

    And once again Hermitian is still struggling with these simple facts. But perhaps he is not really struggling, rather he cannot admit to having been wrong. Well, that’s his problem as his objections are trivially rebutted and anyone who observes the threads can see how he continues to fail.

    It started with his affidavit in the Missisippi Court where he was shown to be somewhat confused about what had happened, it continued with the various PDF documents that were created by different individuals from the AP jpeg, and finalized in his inability to rebut any of the artifacts that I showed to be explained by a simple workflow.

    He has contributed much to our understanding of the facts for which he deserves full recognition.

  333. nbc says:

    CarlOrcas: How many PDF’s do you get out of a regular toner cartridge, Herm?

    ROTFL… Another winner…

  334. Slartibartfast says:

    Hermie,

    As nbc and others have been trying to tell you, what you need to explain is how artifacts on the LFBC pdf may have arisen and why each particular artifact is evidence of forgery (or evidence against forgery). Instead, you seem to be saying: it wasn’t done this particular way so therefore USURPER. This wouldn’t be a valid argument even if you were being clear about what the “anomaly” was and why it contradicts anything said by the obots.

    Hermitian: I would be happy to explain how all this can and does occur.

    […snip…]

    This proves that the Xerox 7535/Preview print to PDF images do not have the right stuff.

  335. Hermitian says:

    nbc: nbc
    November 17, 2013 at 8:08 pm nbc(Quote)
    #

    CarlOrcas: How many PDF’s do you get out of a regular toner cartridge, Herm?
    ROTFL… Another winner…

    I wouldn’t know. But I do know that a set of two toner cartridges for the Xerox WorkCenter is over $500. And in this case that is taxpayer dollars.

  336. nbc says:

    Slartibartfast: As nbc and others have been trying to tell you, what you need to explain is how artifacts on the LFBC pdf may have arisen and why each particular artifact is evidence of forgery (or evidence against forgery).

    Compare the elegant and simple workflow we have proposed and which explains all these artifacts with the total handwaving by Hermitian. Sure, a forger could have done it the same way a Xerox workflow does it, that’s the problem Hermitian cannot constrain his forger and shows evidence which cannot be explained by the workflow. Now, realize that the workflow itself does not explain non PDF artifacts such as questions about the numbering, the term for Obama’s father’s race, or the problem with the stamp. Of course, they have been addressed elsewhere.

    Hermitian seems to believe that merely asserting that something could have been forged is sufficient…

    Which is totally counter to the scientific method which does not rely on ignorance.

  337. Slartibartfast says:

    Hermie,

    Once again, you missed the point: namely that scanning a document and producing a pdf image uses no toner at all. Thank you though, your obliviousness made the joke much funnier than it would have been otherwise.

    Hermitian: I wouldn’t know.But I do know that a set of two toner cartridges for the Xerox WorkCenter is over $500.And in this case that is taxpayer dollars.

  338. Slartibartfast says:

    This is something that is typical of all birthers—if there is a possibility of something (or a similar thing happened in a different case), then that is evidence that it happened in the case of President Obama unless he can prove otherwise. Which pretty much completely perverts the Constitutional guarantee of “innocent until proven guilty” and means that no government documents can be taken at face value.

    nbc: Hermitian seems to believe that merely asserting that something could have been forged is sufficient…

  339. nbc says:

    Hermitian: I wouldn’t know. But I do know that a set of two toner cartridges for the Xerox WorkCenter is over $500. And in this case that is taxpayer dollars.

    In what case? Sure, the WH spent money on printing out the B&W copies and releasing the color PDF, but that’s just part of a day’s work at the WH I am sure. It would be nice if they could reduce the handouts, especially because of the paper.

    Also, you can get recycled cartridges for about 100 dollars, if google is correct and refills for $70.

    But you are missing the point… Scanning does not use any toner…

  340. nbc says:

    Hermitian: In spite of the huge waste of Xerox toner, the bottom line is that all your Xerox PDFs don’t have the right stuff because they do not duplicate the behavior of the WH LFCOLB in Adobe Illustrator.

    Just to remind Hermitian of his somewhat funny claim. As to the xerox PDFs not having the right stuff, again you ignore the evidence, and are confused about the rotation issue which is trivially resolved by scanning upside down.

  341. CarlOrcas says:

    Hermitian: I wouldn’t know.But I do know that a set of two toner cartridges for the Xerox WorkCenter is over $500.And in this case that is taxpayer dollars.

    Cut to the chase time: Do you really think producing a PDF on a multifunction machine uses toner?

  342. nbc says:

    CarlOrcas: Cut to the chase time: Do you really think producing a PDF on a multifunction machine uses toner?

    ROTFL…

  343. JPotter says:

    Hermitian: I wouldn’t know.But I do know that a set of two toner cartridges for the Xerox WorkCenter is over $500.And in this case that is taxpayer dollars.

    Oh myyyy … where to begin! 😀

    1. Classic Herms: when caught humiliating self, double down! Never, ever acknowledge error!

    2. “You wouldn’t know” … you’re not capable of determining how much (*snicker*) toner you’re consuming when you make a PDF file?

    3. Yep, that’s right, $500 cartridges, none of which is ever consumed by scanning, results in $0 worth of toner expended.

    4. You alleged that the anti-birther’s experiments were consuming toner, now you express concern over taxpayer expense … soooo … you’re implying that anti-birther activity is taxpayer-funded? LOL! Silly, Soros pays for all these hijinks. You’re not sending your taxes to Soros …. are you? 😉

  344. RanTalbott says:

    nbc: But no worries, the Xerox WorkCentre at the whitehouse is likely leased and thus will eventually be recycled. Poor poor Roxy…

    Keep in mind that Roxy currently lives in whaat’s pretty much a fortress, full or armed guards and surrounded by fences to keep out the angry people who come there to vent.

    After her stint there is done, I’m sure Xerox will refurb her and send her someplace nicer. Since she’ll be fully depreciated, they’ll be able to sell her cheap, so even a farmer could afford her. Sure, that’s it: she’ll be going to live on a farm…

  345. CarlOrcas says:

    nbc: ROTFL…

    Herm never responds directly to my questions. Maybe he’ll let you know the answer.

    Herm?

  346. nbc says:

    CarlOrcas: Herm never responds directly to my questions. Maybe he’ll let you know the answer.

    Herm never admits to having been wrong, or answers meaningful questions. He loves to revisit issues that long since have been laid to rest, as if they had never been addressed.

    When it comes to dealing with the Xerox workflow, he has failed miserably.

  347. Keith says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: One thing to note about the rotations and the Xerox files. Xerox is well aware that its scanned images are rotated 90 degrees from their orientation when placed on the glass or in the document feeder (this is because of the combination of the geometry of the scanning hardware and the way raw image files are built).

    I just glanced at the specs for the 7655. It can handle A3 sheets. (an A3 sheet is double the size of an A4 sheet. An A4 sheet is the standard normal size sheet everywhere except the US – it is marginally smaller than ‘letter’ size).

    This means that a given A4 (or letter) sheet can be placed in 4 different orientations on either the glass plate or the document feeder. This is an extremely common issue on all models of copiers.

    Most copiers, and I expect this includes the 7655, auto-magically sense the original size. I imagine that trying to sense the page orientation wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to include in the feature set. Since the vast majority of pages that are scanned are text documents, I would guess that the orientation sensing algorithms would be very good at their jobs in the vast majority of cases. On the other hand, documents with lots of non-text, or text that it that it had a hard time recognizing, might well cause it problems.

  348. nbc says:

    Keith: Most copiers, and I expect this includes the 7655, auto-magically sense the original size. I imagine that trying to sense the page orientation wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to include in the feature set.

    It can do this but it depends on OCR and thus it is not necessarily a surprise that it may get the orientation of the birth certificate wrong. In fact, in most of my tests, it failed to properly rotate the document when I scanned it upside down.

  349. Keith says:

    Hermitian: In spite of the huge waste of Xerox toner,

    Oh, for f@x sake.

  350. nbc says:

    Keith: Oh, for f@x sake.

    I told you he is funny… Not very smart but quite enjoyable. You’d almost want to cuddle him, place a warm blanket on him while muttering, now now hermie, finish your dinner

  351. Keith says:

    Hermitian: 1. Before opening in Illustrator, all of the Xerox 7535 scan to PDF and Xerox 7535/Preview print to PDF images are in the correct landscape orientation.

    2. To the contrary, before opening in Illustrator, the WH LFCOLB image is in upside-down landscape orientation.

    The 7535 also supports A3 sheets. This means that the A4 or U.S. letter size input original may be placed on the glass plate or document feeder in any of 4 orientations. The short edge of an A3 sheet is exactly the same as the long edge of an A4 sheet. If the document feeder accepts A3 sheets, it will accept an A4 sheet along any edge.

    There is only one ‘right’ way, but all will work.

  352. Keith says:

    nbc: Also, you can get recycled cartridges for about 100 dollars, if google is correct and refills for $70.

    I imagine the U.S. Government has a lot of these copiers, and a procurement contract for container loads of toner cartridges.

    The likelihood that they are paying anything close to those retail prices is ludicrous.

    They are either paying much less, or if they ‘need’ to be MilSpec, they are paying 10 times that (for exactly the same cartridge of course).

  353. Keith says:

    JPotter: You’re not sending your taxes to Soros …. are you? 😉

    Maybe he is. Does Soros invest in prisons?

  354. nbc says:

    Yes, however, you can scan the document in all four orientations and look at the raw images, they always represent the relative layout of the document to the scanning direction which is from left to right, standing in front of the device.

    Thus I claim that you can accurately determine how a document was scanned in. Which is why scanning a document upside down requires a reverse 90 degree rotation to those scanned in right side up. One can also tell because of the sides which align with 8 bit boundaries, although this becomes a little technical.

  355. Hermitian: I would be happy to explain how all this can and does occur.

    I would like to point out that none of what Hermie wrote actually explained why Illustrator was the only program that did not open the Xerox scan in Portrait mode.

    However, I would like to take the opportunity to add some data points to what Hermie wrote, as he may not have access to as much information as I do. My additions are in bold.

    1. Before opening in Illustrator, all of the rightside-up Xerox 7535 and 7655 scan to PDF and Xerox (7535/7655)/Preview print to PDF images are in the correct landscape orientation.

    2. To the contrary, before opening in Illustrator, all of the WH LFCOLB, upside-down Xerox 7535 and 7655 scans to PDF, and Xerox (7535/7655)/Preview print to PDF images are in upside-down landscape orientation.

    3.Consequently, in order for the rightside-up Xerox 7535 and 7655 scan to PDF or the Xerox (7535/7655)/Preview print to PDF images to display in correct portrait orientation, Illustrator must apply a 90 degree counterclockwise rotation when each PDF is opened.

    4.In order for the WH LFCOLB PDF, upside-down Xerox 7535 and 7655 scan to PDF, and Xerox (7535/7655)/Preview print to PDF images to display in the correct portrait orientation, Illustrator applies a 90 degree clockwise rotation.This rotation has been verified many times for the WH LFCOLB.

    5.Both NBC’s rightside-up Xerox 7535 and 7655 scan to PDF images and RC’s rightside-up Xerox 7535 scan to PDF image open in Illustrator without a 90 degree counterclockwise rotation.Consequently, these three images display in correct landscape orientation in Illustrator.

    6.Both NBC’s upside-down Xerox 7535 and 7655 scan to PDF images and RC’s upside-down Xerox 7535 scan to PDF image open in Illustrator without a 90 degree counterclockwise rotation.Consequently, these three images display in upside-down landscape orientation in Illustrator.

    7.Both NBC’s rightside-up Xerox (7535/7655)/Preview print to PDF images and RC’s rightside-up Xerox 7535/Preview print to PDF image are rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise rotation when each is opened in Illustrator.

    8.Both NBC’s upside-down Xerox (7535/7655)/Preview print to PDF images and RC’s upside-down Xerox 7535/Preview print to PDF image are rotated 90 degrees clockwise rotation when each is opened in Illustrator.

    Consequently the 90 degree counterclockwise rotation that is applied to the three rightside-up Xerox (7535/7655)/Preview print to PDF images is opposite to the 90 degree clockwise rotation that is applied to the WH LFCOLB PDF and the three upside-down Xerox (7535/7655)/Preview print to PDF images.

    This proves that the WH LFBC PDF was scanned in upside-down, not rightside-up.

  356. nbc says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: This proves that the WH LFBC PDF was scanned in upside-down, not rightside-up.

    Applause… But you may have overestimated Hermie here… This has been presented to him at various times, with limited success.

  357. nbc:
    Yes, however, you can scan the document in all four orientations and look at the raw images, they always represent the relative layout of the document to the scanning direction which is from left to right, standing in front of the device.

    Thus I claim that you can accurately determine how a document was scanned in. Which is why scanning a document upside down requires a reverse 90 degree rotation to those scanned in right side up. One can also tell because of the sides which align with 8 bit boundaries, although this becomes a little technical.

    To add to the statement, raw images are built from top down. So if a scanner scans from left to right, the right side of a face-down page (the edge to the left when looking down on it while standing in front of the machine) will be at the top of the image.

    How’s that for a complicated set of mental rotations?

  358. nbc says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: How’s that for a complicated set of mental rotations?

    Yeah, it took me some effort to get it right, darn confusing… But once you realize how the document is scanned, the rest becomes trivial.

  359. Hermitian says:

    As far as I can tell from the grand total of four PDF files that have been released is that the Xerox scan to PDF images are identical to the Preview print to PDF images just prior to opening in Illustrator. The only difference after each image is loaded into Illustrator is that Illustrator applies a zero rotation to the Xerox scan to PDF images and a 90 degree counterclockwise rotation to the Preview print to PDF images.

    This proves that one could simply manually edit the Xerox scan to PDF file to add the appropriate 90 degree rotation The the Xerox scan to PDF images would then display in the correct portrait orientation in Illustrator.

    I have actually carried out this added rotation step in Illustrator and saved the rotated image. When the altered PDF is opened, the Xerox scan to PDF images look the same as the Preview print to PDF images in Illustrator.

  360. But, the PDF would then show Illustrator metadata, no?

    Hermitian: I have actually carried out this added rotation step in Illustrator and saved the rotated image. When the altered PDF is opened, the Xerox scan to PDF images look the same as the Preview print to PDF images in Illustrator.

  361. Hermitian says:

    CarlOrcas:

    CarlOrcas
    November 17, 2013 at 9:08 pm CarlOrcas(Quote)
    #

    Hermitian: I wouldn’t know.But I do know that a set of two toner cartridges for the Xerox WorkCenter is over $500.And in this case that is taxpayer dollars.

    Cut to the chase time: Do you really think producing a PDF on a multifunction machine uses toner?

    No but printing out all of those paper originals from the WH LFCOLB PDF image onto Green safety paper does.

  362. I am not aware of anyone ever printing the WH PDF onto green safety paper. That would be printing green on green and look pretty shabby.

    Hermitian: No but printing out all of those paper originals from the WH LFCOLB PDF image onto Green safety paper does.

  363. Hermitian says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: Dr. Conspiracy
    November 18, 2013 at 9:46 am Dr. Conspiracy(Quote)
    #

    But, the PDF would then show Illustrator metadata, no?

    Hermitian: I have actually carried out this added rotation step in Illustrator and saved the rotated image. When the altered PDF is opened, the Xerox scan to PDF images look the same as the Preview print to PDF images in Illustrator.

    Mr. C I’m glad you asked that question. I believe that the Xerox scan to PDF images were first opened in MAC OS Illustrator to apply the appropriate rotations and then the B&W non-background layer images were permanently embedded. This would also sever all the links to any external files that were used to create the final image. The saved Adobe Illustrator PDF was then opened in Preview and printed to PDF to erase all the Illustrator METADATA.

    It’s also possible that the step of embedding the non-background layers images in MAC OS Illustrator makes them unembeddable in WIN OS Illustrator.

  364. gorefan says:

    Hermitian: This proves that one could simply manually edit the Xerox scan to PDF file to add the appropriate 90 degree rotation The the Xerox scan to PDF images would then display in the correct portrait orientation in Illustrator.

    Are you suggesting the “forger” created the WHLF PDF in landscape mode and then rotated it to portrait mode?

  365. I don’t have the tools myself, but it would seem a pretty simple experiment to do what you describe and then compare the results. By comparing the results, I don’t mean looking at the rotation, but at the internal structure of the PDF.

    Hermitian: I believe that the Xerox scan to PDF images were first opened in MAC OS Illustrator to apply the appropriate rotations and then the B&W non-background layer images were permanently embedded. This would also sever all the links to any external files that were used to create the final image. The saved Adobe Illustrator PDF was then opened in Preview and printed to PDF to erase all the Illustrator METADATA.

  366. Hermitian says:

    It is also possible that the normal embed operation of a bitmap in MAC OS Illustrator makes the embedded images impossible to unembed in WIN OS Illustrator. Unfortunately I don’t have the required resources to test this hypothesis.

  367. Hermitian says:

    gorefan: gorefan
    November 18, 2013 at 10:29 am gorefan(Quote)
    #

    Hermitian: This proves that one could simply manually edit the Xerox scan to PDF file to add the appropriate 90 degree rotation The the Xerox scan to PDF images would then display in the correct portrait orientation in Illustrator.
    Are you suggesting the “forger” created the WHLF PDF in landscape mode and then rotated it to portrait mode?

    No I’m suggesting that the forger created the forged certificate using a digital cut and paste operation carried out in MAC OS Illustrator and in portrait orientation. He then applied a 90 degree counterclockwise rotation to all layers in Illustrator to throw off any forensic investigators. Consequently it is necessary to apply a 90 degree clockwise rotation to all layers in the Preview print to PDF file. This countering rotation would either have been applied using Preview to rotate the document or by a manual edit of the Illustrator PDF code in Preview.

  368. Hermitian says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: Dr. Conspiracy
    November 18, 2013 at 10:21 am Dr. Conspiracy(Quote)
    #

    I am not aware of anyone ever printing the WH PDF onto green safety paper. That would be printing green on green and look pretty shabby.

    Hermitian: No but printing out all of those paper originals from the WH LFCOLB PDF image onto Green safety paper does.

    Oops ! My bad. I meant the HR AP PDF image.

  369. gorefan says:

    Hermitian: apply the appropriate rotations

    Watch the first 50 seconds of this video from April 29, 2011.

    The WHLFBC PDF’s color layer opens in landscape mode in Corel’s Photo-Paint. The top of the document is to the left.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up62cFOtvQ4&lc=jp0oR6sxdOX1sUI7JpEZn20SRi8Nl1ygQAoe768WEzo

  370. CarlOrcas says:

    Hermitian: No but printing out all of those paper originals from the WH LFCOLB PDF image onto Green safety paper does.

    Who printed the PDF on to “Green” safety paper? The White House?

    Why would they do that since they scanned the original printed on safety paper?

    And just how many do you think they printed out? A dozen? Two dozen? Do you really think that broke the bank?

  371. nbc says:

    Hermitian: This proves that one could simply manually edit the Xerox scan to PDF file to add the appropriate 90 degree rotation The the Xerox scan to PDF images would then display in the correct portrait orientation in Illustrator.

    But not in other PDF viewers…

  372. nbc says:

    gorefan: Are you suggesting the “forger” created the WHLF PDF in landscape mode and then rotated it to portrait mode?

    Yeah… That’s something that I have asked him as well before…

  373. Hermitian says:

    nbc: nbc
    November 18, 2013 at 1:34 pm nbc(Quote)
    #

    Hermitian: This proves that one could simply manually edit the Xerox scan to PDF file to add the appropriate 90 degree rotation The the Xerox scan to PDF images would then display in the correct portrait orientation in Illustrator.
    But not in other PDF viewers…

    Wrong ! Illustrator applies a 90 degree clockwise rotation to all nine layers when the WH LFCOLB PDF is opened in Illustrator. The images are in upside-down landscape orientation before the PDF is opened in Illustrator.

    Additionally the WH LFCOLB PDF file opens in the correct portrait orientation in every PDF viewer/editor that I have access to.

    To verify this is straightforward.

  374. Whatever4 says:

    nbc: gorefan: Are you suggesting the “forger” created the WHLF PDF in landscape mode and then rotated it to portrait mode?

    Yeah… That’s something that I have asked him as well before…

    That makes even less sense than his usual.

  375. gorefan says:

    nbc: Yeah… That’s something that I have asked him as well before…

    That has to be Hermie’s explanation for the rotation. If you open the WHLFBC PDF in Illustrator and look at each layer they have -90 degrees rotation. If you use object/transform/rotate to get the layers to have 0 degrees rotation, the entire image is now in landscape mode.

    I suppose in Hermie’s mind it makes perfect sense that a forger would create a document that way.

  376. nbc says:

    gorefan: I suppose in Hermie’s mind it makes perfect sense that a forger would create a document that way.

    Well, it has to because otherwise his forgery scenario would totally fall apart. But there are just too many artifacts that do not make sense from the perspective of a forgery unless you allow the forger to be a pure algorithmic process, like a xerox workflow.

  377. nbc says:

    Whatever4: That makes even less sense than his usual.

    Do not underestimate Hermitian, he has accused quite a few people of being forgers by now, with no evidence to support it.

    He has already concluded: forgery and everything has to be interpreted as such…

    Not a very scientific approach…

  378. nbc says:

    Hermitian: To verify this is straightforward.

    Yes, we have already explained this. You were claiming that a 90 degree rotation was applied in Illustrator but that is not what we see. If such a rotation had been applied, the resulting PDF would have been rotated 90 degrees.

    So perhaps you can explain step by step what happened and show that this can indeed be done.

  379. nbc says:

    Hermitian:

    Wrong ! Illustrator applies a 90 degree clockwise rotation to all nine layers when the WH LFCOLB PDF is opened in Illustrator.

    Yes, that is since the original is scanned in ‘landscape’ because of the way the Xerox scan works. This trivially explains why all the viewers, except Illustrator, manage to show the Xerox scan correctly. Only after preview is applied, does Illustrator manage to correctly portray the PDF.

    Trivially simple to show. You suggested that the Xerox workflow could not explain the facts, and yet, they explain every single step, as long as you scan the original upside down.

    This has been explained to you many times now…. Have you managed to repeat the experiment? I expect you to totally ignore this… And yet, any researcher’s first step would be to try to repeat the experiment. Are you saying that you are lacking in tools that are required for you to do a thorough examination?

    Well?

  380. Daniel says:

    Hermitian…. ohhhhh Heeeeeeerrrrrrrmiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

    The question isn’t going to go away just because you don’t have an answer that doesn’t embarrass you.

    What do you hope to accomplish with all this?

  381. nbc says:

    Daniel: What do you hope to accomplish with all this?

    Embarrass someone… The irony is that this is a two edged sword.

  382. JRC says:

    nbc: Yes, that is since the original is scanned in ‘landscape’ because of the way the Xerox scan works. This trivially explains why all the viewers, except Illustrator, manage to show the Xerox scan correctly. Only after preview is applied, does Illustrator manage to correctly portray the PDF.

    Trivially simple to show. You suggested that the Xerox workflow could not explain the facts, and yet, they explain every single step, as long as you scan the original upside down.

    This has been explained to you many times now…. Have you managed to repeat the experiment? I expect you to totally ignore this… And yet, any researcher’s first step would be to try to repeat the experiment. Are you saying that you are lacking in tools that are required for you to do a thorough examination?

    Well?

    He has shown time and time again he lacks one very important tool. He wants it to be a forgery, so that’s all it will ever be to him. No matter if someone re-scanned the original birth certificate and it looked identical, he would go pixel by pixel to explain that it was a forgery. I laugh at his post, but posting this I kind of feel sad for him as a human being.

  383. nbc says:

    JRC: He has shown time and time again he lacks one very important tool. He wants it to be a forgery, so that’s all it will ever be to him.

    That’s a reasonable conclusion.

  384. gorefan says:

    Hermitian: Additionally the WH LFCOLB PDF file opens in the correct portrait orientation in every PDF viewer/editor that I have access to.

    Have you tried Corel Photo-Paint? It is part of the CorelDraw Graphic Suite.

  385. W. Kevin Vicklund says:

    BTW, Hermie, you still haven’t explained these irrefutable facts:

    W. Kevin Vicklund
    The Xerox 7535 file (ie, before Print as PDF in Preview) opens:
    -in Portrait orientation in Preview
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Acrobat
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Reader
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Photoshop
    -in Portrait orientation in Microsoft Paint
    -in Landscape orientation in Adobe Illustrator

    The Preview 7535 file (ie, after Print as PDF in Preview) opens:
    -in Portrait orientation in Preview
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Acrobat
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Reader
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Photoshop
    -in Portrait orientation in Microsoft Paint
    -in Portrait orientation in Adobe Illustrator

  386. nbc says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: BTW, Hermie, you still haven’t explained these irrefutable facts:

    I believe you may be waiting for quite some time on that one…

  387. I think I have a copy of that somewhere, but I think it requires Windows 3.1.

    gorefan: Have you tried Corel Photo-Paint?

  388. JPotter says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: Corel Photo-Paint

    Must be an early version! The venerable app has been cranked out by Corel since ’92. Latest releas, X6, runs on Win7 … I think I have it running on Win8 … never use it, tho.

  389. No innocent toner cartridges gave their lives to make my test scans. Our WorkCentre 7535 has a refillable electron bucket to power the scanner. It will scan about 1500 PDF’s on one bucket. To refill it you just take it to the electron tank and open the tap. Rubber gloves are required for this operation.

    Hermitian: I wouldn’t know.But I do know that a set of two toner cartridges for the Xerox WorkCenter is over $500.And in this case that is taxpayer dollars.

  390. nbc says:

    Reality Check: To refill it you just take it to the electron tank and open the tap. Rubber gloves are required for this operation.

    Are you positive about this?

  391. No you are thinking of the new model that runs on holes instead of electrons.

    nbc: Are you positive about this?

  392. gorefan says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: I think I have a copy

    JPotter: I think I have it running on Win8 … never use it, tho

    In the YouTube video I posted above, the narrator (a woman, who may or may not be the forger) back on April 29th 2011 open the President’s LFBC PDF in CorelDraw and then edited the color layer in Corel Photo-Paint. The layer opened in landscape orientation (thus my comment to Hermi). The narrator commented that this was because landscape was the original orientation of the document when it was scanned.

    I take her video and comment to mean that two days after the President’s LFBC was released, this woman proved that it was scanned in landscape mode.

    And as Butterdezillion might say this is indirect confirmation that the President’s LFBC was in fact scanned on a Xerox WorkCentre scanner/copier.

  393. I posted a short article about halos last night. I used a fairly simple document with a text file printed on the green security paper. Halos: A slight diversion for gsgs

  394. nbc says:

    Reality Check: No you are thinking of the new model that runs on holes instead of electrons.

    I feel some negative energy here.

  395. nbc says:

    gorefan: In the YouTube video I posted above, the narrator (a woman, who may or may not be the forger) back on April 29th 2011 open the President’s LFBC PDF in CorelDraw and then edited the color layer in Corel Photo-Paint. The layer opened in landscape orientation (thus my comment to Hermi). The narrator commented that this was because landscape was the original orientation of the document when it was scanned.

    Interesting… She selects to edit the document and it opens up in landscape, just as expected. Fascinating attention to detail you have Gorefan.

  396. nbc says:

    Reality Check: I posted a short article about halos last night. I used a fairly simple document with a text file printed on the green security paper. Halos: A slight diversion for gsgs

    Despite his style, I have found gsgs to be very insightful in his analyses of graphics so if he can figure out if MRC was applied by looking at the actual pixels, then the more power to him. And yes, I believe that he has the tools and abilities to do some fascinating research. It was gsgs’s work that impressed me enough to revisit it when I had decided to do a thorough analysis of the WH LFBC, which led me to the Xerox workflow.

  397. JPotter says:

    Hermitian: Illustrator applies a zero rotation

    Much in the same way that I make a zero-sum withdrawal from my billion-dollar trust fund every hour, on the hour. How long will my trust fund last Herms? It’s invested exclusively in Soviet Treasury Bills with a guaranteed fixed rate of return. 😉

  398. JPotter says:

    Hermitian: This proves that one could simply manually edit the Xerox scan to PDF file to add the appropriate 90 degree rotation The the Xerox scan to PDF images would then display in the correct portrait orientation in Illustrator.

    Why?

    You continue to fail to present any sort of narrative.

    Meanwhile, you’re playing with tools you don’t understand, to no end. This is like watching monkeys with typewriters. That Shakespeare wil theoretically pop out eventuially, completely by accident, and possibly before the heat death of the Universe.

    Possibly.

  399. JPotter says:

    Reality Check:
    I posted a short article about halos last night. I used a fairly simple document with a text file printed on the green security paper. Halos: A slight diversion for gsgs

    Wow, you laid it out nicely, cleanly, “I scan this (laser printed text sans halos), and it yields this (bitmap’d text laid over ‘halos’)” … and gsgs responds that clearly somehow Roxy ‘enhances halos’.

    Got to treat density like that with respect.

  400. nbc says:

    JPotter: You continue to fail to present any sort of narrative.

    Exactly, even though Vicklund has outlined where Illustrator fails…

  401. JPotter says:

    nbc: Illustrator

    It’s not a “failure”, Illustrator is an exception among the software mentioned thus far. Toss Acrobat in with a crowd of vector editors, Acrobat will become the ‘exception’.

  402. Hermitian says:

    nbc: gorefan: I suppose in Hermie’s mind it makes perfect sense that a forger would create a document that way.
    Well, it has to because otherwise his forgery scenario would totally fall apart. But there are just too many artifacts that do not make sense from the perspective of a forgery unless you allow the forger to be a pure algorithmic process, like a xerox workflow

    This is the kind of flawed analysis you get from an Obot with a closed mind. He just can’t imagine a human forger working on a MAC OS using Illustrator to digitally cut and paste up a forgery. I have described in detail how this would be accomplished on NBC’s blog. Unlike the huge effort expended to define the Xerox workflow there are few unknows for the human forger to overcome. Cut and paste forgeries have been produced for hundreds of years. The adaptation of the digital technologies to the creation of forgeries has only made it easier to produce them.

  403. Hermitian says:

    nbc: gorefan: I suppose in Hermie’s mind it makes perfect sense that a forger would create a document that way.
    Well, it has to because otherwise his forgery scenario would totally fall apart. But there are just too many artifacts that do not make sense from the perspective of a forgery unless you allow the forger to be a pure algorithmic process, like a xerox workflow.

    Nonsense ! A skilled forger equipped with the latest digital tecnology could have produced dozens of forgeries in the time that you and your two sidekicks have fiddled around with your Xerox forger idea.

  404. gorefan says:

    Hermitian: He then applied a 90 degree counterclockwise rotation to all layers in Illustrator to throw off any forensic investigators .

    Your steps are:

    1) Make PDF from c/p in Illustrator in Portrait mode (0 degree rotation) then rotate 90 degrees into landscape mode and save.

    2) Then open in Preview and rotate back to portrait mode which leaves the rotation as being shown as -90 degrees in Illustrator.

    And this was done to throw off “forensic investigators” when in fact the -90 degree rotation is completely out of the ordinary and was one of the first things birthers were pointing to as proof of forgery.

    You’re nuts.

  405. And yet the entire unwashed birther horde and the resources of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office have been able to accomplish it in a year and a half.

    Hermitian: Nonsense ! A skilled forger equipped with the latest digital tecnology could have produced dozens of forgeries in the time that you and your two sidekicks have fiddled around with your Xerox forger idea.

  406. nbc says:

    Hermitian: This is the kind of flawed analysis you get from an Obot with a closed mind. He just can’t imagine a human forger working on a MAC OS using Illustrator to digitally cut and paste up a forgery. I

    You still avoid the question. Why would the forger work in landscape… Makes no sense. Your ad hominem argument shows that you have no good response.

    Again you have embarrassed someone… Congratulations

  407. nbc says:

    Hermitian: Nonsense ! A skilled forger equipped with the latest digital tecnology could have produced dozens of forgeries in the time that you and your two sidekicks have fiddled around with your Xerox forger idea.

    And yet we have seen no examples of such forgeries, although some have tried and failed miserably. Why is it that you have nothing to show for your speculations other than empty statements?

    Have you gotten your hands on preview yet? Or are you still struggling with illustrator in your quest to show that the WH LFBC is a forgery?… So far you have failed at most every step.

    How embarrassing… Well done my friend.

  408. nbc says:

    gorefan: And this was done to throw off “forensic investigators” when in fact the -90 degree rotation is completely out of the ordinary and was one of the first things birthers were pointing to as proof of forgery.

    You’re nuts.

    Some may think you are too kind here. Hermetian will accept any hilarious scenario without thinking it through… So many fun times were had, and I am sure will be had, with Hermitian struggling.

  409. nbc says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: And yet the entire unwashed birther horde and the resources of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office have been able to accomplish it in a year and a half.

    Well, none appear to be very skilled as a ‘forger’ or have the necessary equipment to do so… All it takes is a Xerox work centre and a Macintosh…

  410. gorefan says:

    Hermitian: He just can’t imagine a human forger working on a MAC OS using Illustrator to digitally cut and paste up a forgery.

    No, you are wrong I can easily see how a forger could create a forgery on a Mac using Illustrator. The problem is that none of the features of the LFBC PDF are the types of things as you called her “[a] skilled forger” would do. For example, there would not be some letters on the background layer and some on text layers. And the ridicules extra steps that you have her taking are laughable.

    Create it in portrait mode then save in landscape mode then open it in Preview and save it in portrait mode just so it would have a -90 degree rotation of the layers when opened in Illustrator.

    You are nuts.

  411. nbc says:

    gorefan: No, you are wrong I can easily see how a forger could create a forgery on a Mac using Illustrator. The problem is that none of the features of the LFBC PDF are the types of things as you called her “[a] skilled forger” would do.

    Exactly… But somehow Hermitian believes in a forger who is both irresponsible, erratic and brilliant as he managed to replicate what one would expect from a Xerox workflow.

    Fascinating ignorance of the scientific method and logical reasoning.

  412. gorefan says:

    nbc: Hermetian will accept any hilarious scenario without thinking it through

    I can smell his desperation through my computer monitor. It smells like cheap cologne.

  413. JPotter says:

    Hermitian: He just can’t imagine a human forger working on a MAC OS using Illustrator to digitally cut and paste up a forgery.

    Oh, I can imagine it, and I see a very frustrated figment of my imagination kicking himself repeatedly for bizarrely choosing to limit himself to a vector editor when choosing to imitate the result of a raster process. 😉

    Again, all your PDF forgery sniffin’ fails. There are images of the same document that cannot have been produced from the PDF. If you wish to claim forgery, you have to explain them. To do that, you have to allege that the source of all these images was a forgery. If you want to allege that, fine, but why continue to obsess over the PDF?

    No, Herms, any successful forgery is not simply clipped and compiled in a single app like Illustrator. Particularly not a vector editor alone. A great forgery, depedning on the available source material, is going to combine found and created materials, analog and digital tools and processes, physical and virtual material and processes. Papers, particular pens and inks, typewriters and ribbons, camera a/o scanner, raster and vector editor(s), ink- a/o toner-based printer(s), copier(s).

    In short, a thorough knowledge of document creation and production, both vintage and modern.

  414. Hermitian says:

    gorefan: Hermitian: He just can’t imagine a human forger working on a MAC OS using Illustrator to digitally cut and paste up a forgery.
    No, you are wrong I can easily see how a forger could create a forgery on a Mac using Illustrator. The problem is that none of the features of the LFBC PDF are the types of things as you called her “[a] skilled forger” would do. For example, there would not be some letters on the background layer and some on text layers. And the ridicules extra steps that you have her taking are laughable.
    Create it in portrait mode then save in landscape mode then open it in Preview and save it in portrait mode just so it would have a -90 degree rotation of the layers when opened in Illustrator.
    You are nuts.

    Every forger makes every effort to conceal the evidence of his act of forgery. The longer the time period before the forgery is detected the greater the forger’s success. To apply these two rotations to an image in Illustrator is trivial. Each could be applied in less than a minute.

  415. So the Obama certificate could not have been a forgery, since it only took birthers minutes to recognize it as such.

    Hermitian: Every forger makes every effort to conceal the evidence of his act of forgery. The longer the time period before the forgery is detected the greater the forger’s success. To apply these two rotations to an image in Illustrator is trivial. Each could be applied in less than a minute.

  416. JPotter says:

    Hermitian: Every forger makes every effort to conceal the evidence of his act of forgery.

    Sweeping generalization, unfounded assumption.

    Dr. Conspiracy: So the Obama certificate could not have been a forgery, since it only took birthers minutes to recognize it as such.

    Nice one! But, don’t underestimate them. They knew in advance, that any documents Obama somehow managed to produce that appeared to corroborate his eligibility would be forged.

    So, either birfers is pre-cogs, or … they are implicated by their own allegations LOL!

  417. nbc says:

    Hermitian: Every forger makes every effort to conceal the evidence of his act of forgery.

    Which is why the appeal to a forger is so hilarious because the artifacts are soo obvious. No forger would have been that sloppy…

    Sigh… Thanks for making my point.

  418. nbc says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: So the Obama certificate could not have been a forgery, since it only took birthers minutes to recognize it as such.

    ROTFL… If Hermitian would spend a minute or so reflecting on his own comments, he would not be so embarrassed so often…

    Excellent point. It had not escaped my attention either…

    Which is why I just adore Hermie… He is so cuddly and predictable

  419. gorefan says:

    Hermitian: To apply these two rotations to an image in Illustrator is trivial. Each could be applied in less than a minute.

    Idioso!

    You still don’t get it – applying two rotations doesn’t make the forgery look less apparent, it makes it more apparent. It’s the fact that the WHLFBC PDF layers are rotated -90 degrees that people were calling it a forgery almost as soon as it was released.

    The skilled forger would have left the rotation at 0 degrees.

  420. nbc says:

    gorefan: The skilled forger would have left the rotation at 0 degrees.

    ROTFL…

  421. foreigner=gsgs says:

    it’s not just the rotation, all the 8×8-blocks, aligned to that rotation, had to be processed
    separately by calculating the color to be placed there in replacement of the pixels mounted
    to the foreground bit-layers. This must be done before it’s JPG-compressed and pfd-ed.
    So, when Corsi shows Zullo how the datestamp and signature can be easily moved,
    that’s only the text for the Zullo-eye. To make it undetectable at zoom-in, the background
    with the halos and securitygrid has to be exactly replaced and adapted as well.
    And that’s _very_ difficult. You can only do it, when you understand the exact
    Xerox-MRC-algorithm, which is still unknown to us.

  422. Hermitian says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: Hermitian: This is the kind of flawed analysis you get from an Obot with a closed mind. He just can’t imagine a human forger working on a MAC OS using Illustrator to digitally cut and paste up a forgery. I
    You still avoid the question. Why would the forger work in landscape… Makes no sense. Your ad hominem argument shows that you have no good response.

    If you re-read my report you will find that the forger worked in portrait orientation to create his masterpiece. All of his images were created at a screen resolution of 72 PPI. The non-background images were all in Black & White. I could go on and on …

  423. The Magic M says:

    Hermitian: Every forger makes every effort to conceal the evidence of his act of forgery.

    Just the same, every conspiracy makes every effort to conceal the depth and width of the conspiracy. With your typical fixation on “distractions”, I’m surprized you even bother with the BC. I mean, by your logic, in all likeliness it matches 100% what Hawaii has on file and was simply created this “forged-looking” way to make you birthers believe it’s forged to keep you distracted from the actual issues (like Vattelism). (You should watch Die Hard 3, one of my favourite storylines ever.)

  424. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    Hermitian, you can’t argue with empirical evidence, and expect to win. You’re not gonna. Ever. You’re like that Rudy Davis, idiot who believes in a geocentric universe. Yeah, that’s the company you keep Hermi! Nutters who think the sun revolves around the Earth.

  425. Dr Kenneth Noisewater says:

    nbc: Some may think you are too kind here. Hermetian will accept any hilarious scenario without thinking it through… So many fun times were had, and I am sure will be had, with Hermitian struggling.

    This is Henry we’re talking about here. Come on for months he was on Amazon concocting all sorts of ways that Obama was behind Andrew Breitbart’s death this included Klingon death rays, heart attack guns, the CIA, workers at the starbucks spraying the sidewalk with water, jagged street lamps of death, high voltage access cover plates, etc.

  426. Hermitian says:

    Dr Kenneth Noisewater: nbc: Some may think you are too kind here. Hermetian will accept any hilarious scenario without thinking it through… So many fun times were had, and I am sure will be had, with Hermitian struggling.
    This is Henry we’re talking about here. Come on for months he was on Amazon concocting all sorts of ways that Obama was behind Andrew Breitbart’s death this included Klingon death rays, heart attack guns, the CIA, workers at the starbucks spraying the sidewalk with water, jagged street lamps of death, high voltage access cover plates, etc.

    And then they poisoned his coroner…Still waiting on Cormer’s autopsy report. I’m sure he took just enough poison to cause himself to die SLOWLY !

    Sure ! When pigs can fly.

  427. Hermitian says:

    foreigner=gsgs: it’s not just the rotation, all the 8×8-blocks, aligned to that rotation, had to be processed
    separately by calculating the color to be placed there in replacement of the pixels mounted
    to the foreground bit-layers. This must be done before it’s JPG-compressed and pfd-ed.
    So, when Corsi shows Zullo how the datestamp and signature can be easily moved,
    that’s only the text for the Zullo-eye. To make it undetectable at zoom-in, the background
    with the halos and securitygrid has to be exactly replaced and adapted as well.
    And that’s _very_ difficult. You can only do it, when you understand the exact
    Xerox-MRC-algorithm, which is still unknown to us.

    Applying the forgers methodology, the 8 x 8 blocks are automatic. And his global origin point was at the upper left corner of his Illustrator screen. It is interesting that the WH LFCOLB background layer image also satisfies the 8 MOD 0 condition. GSGS missed this fact entirely. And it’s the only LFCOLB background image that does so. But only for a upper-left origin point.

  428. Dr Kenneth Noisewater says:

    Hermitian: And then they poisoned his coroner…Still waiting on Cormer’s autopsy report. I’m sure he took just enough poison to cause himself to die SLOWLY !Sure ! When pigs can fly.

    Except it’s been pointed out to you that Cormer wasn’t his coroner let alone the coroner and had nothing to do with the breitbart autopsy.

  429. Bovril says:

    So……

    The name is CORMIER, not Cormer

    He was not Breitbart’s coroner

    In fact he was a photographer and technician not a coroner

    He never saw or interacted in any way with Breitbartt’s body or autopsy

    But other than that…….

  430. Bovril says:

    In the light of Doc’s current “Burma Shave” thread, an update of one of the Haiku’s

    Layer of electric light
    The scanner is not the cert
    Hermie gloom birfoon

  431. Hermitian says:

    Reality Check:

    Reality Check
    November 11, 2013 at 5:07 pm Reality Check(Quote)
    #

    It is there. I will cover that in the next article. It is in every color scan I have done on the WorkCentre 7535. (It is YCbCr BTW).

    john:
    RD(urr RC) didn’t mention the YcBr Comment.

    Reality check here ! The COS objects for each non-background image stream contain no color information. However, these images are identified as BitsPerComp = 1. The raw image streams also contain no color information. Hence these raw images are all white on Black. The fill colors were added after the fact. The fill colors are all solid (non-transparent) colors.

    No information has been released which reveals how the Xerox MRC software could assign these fill colors.

  432. nbc says:

    Hermitian: No information has been released which reveals how the Xerox MRC software could assign these fill colors.

    Again you are wrong. And the answer is simple for anyone familiar with the PDF standard. The non-stroking color is set to the color before the monochrome bitmap is drawn.

    Anyone with the right tools can easily determine this for themselves.

    And it has been discussed more than once…

    Late to the party as usual eh Hermitian, and showing that you really do not understand how this all works.

    Seriously.. that’s the best you can do?…

    Okay just because you are struggling again

    The Xerox assigns the colors in the rendering block

    q 798.72 0.00 0.00 614.40 -3.36 -1.20 cm /XIPLAYER0 Do Q
    q 0.0824 0.1333 0.0980 rg
    336.72 0.00 0.00 419.76 236.64 95.52 cm /XIPLAYER_CM1 Do Q
    q 0.2039 0.3216 0.2902 rg

    rg sets the non stroking color to RGB values.

    Preview does it as follows

    q 0 798.72 -614.4 0 613.2 -3.36 cm /Im1 DO Q
    /Cs1 cs 0.0824 0.1333 0.098 sc
    q 0 336.72 -419.76 0 516.48 236.64 cm /Im2 DO Q
    0.2039 0.3216 0.2902 sc

    I am somewhat shocked that you could not figure this out yourself.

  433. nbc says:

    Hermitian: Applying the forgers methodology, the 8 x 8 blocks are automatic. And his global origin point was at the upper left corner of his Illustrator screen. It is interesting that the WH LFCOLB background layer image also satisfies the 8 MOD 0 condition. GSGS missed this fact entirely.

    Totally meaningless blather… There is a certain chance that this condition is met for every layer and the number of layers where this is the case, match the expectations.

    You have not really thought this through much now have you?… All layers matching… Wow… One layer out of 9 matching… Hmmm…

    This is not rocket science my friend…

  434. Hermitian says:

    Reality Check:

    Reality Check
    November 12, 2013 at 7:10 pm Reality Check(Quote)
    #

    There is also the fact that aside from the technical Xerox/MRC stuff the two options are
    1. Hawaii issued two different birth certificates. The COLB in 2007 and the LFBC in 2011 and the White House scanned the LFBC on a copier that we know they have in place from independent evidence using a procedure they would have done hundreds of times.
    2. A mysterious forger created on a computer using unknown software in a manner that makes no sense whatsoever. The number of people “in on it” would be huge and include two Hawaii administrations.
    It is Occam’s razor raised to the goggol

    Reality Check !!! Ask your sidekick Mr. C. how much time he took to create his Obama LFCOLB “RECONSTRUCTION” in 2009. That was two years before Obama released his faux one. I didn’t know that Mr. C. was tight with your two Hawaii administrators but thanks for the heads up.

    By the way ! It makes all the sense in the world that if you are a candidate for the highest office in the world and you are a non-citizen then you might need a birth certificate.

  435. nbc says:

    Hermitian: If you re-read my report you will find that the forger worked in portrait orientation to create his masterpiece. All of his images were created at a screen resolution of 72 PPI. The non-background images were all in Black & White. I could go on and on …

    Pure speculation to mimic the Xerox but no effort to show that this could have been done successfully. Nor have you explained in any rational manner why the forger is so erratic.

    Sorry my friend, your ‘report’ is useless from a scientific perspective and does not even compete with repeatable scenario of the xerox work center.

    Nice try but again you show that you do not understand the scientific method.

  436. Most of the time spent in the reconstruction involved researching what to put on the form. I spent 3-4 hours maybe actually making the thing. Close examination shows patching and blurring of the security paper and the obvious use of a computer font for the typewriter (too perfect to be real). The purpose of that exercise was to show what the form might look like based on what was known at the time, not to fool anyone. The latter is a wholly different and more difficult problem. I certainly never concerned myself for a moment about the metadata.

    Now, why does my reconstruction not have halos?

    Hermitian: Reality Check !!! Ask your sidekick Mr. C. how much time he took to create his Obama LFCOLB “RECONSTRUCTION” in 2009. That was two years before Obama released his faux one. I didn’t know that Mr. C. was tight with your two Hawaii administrators but thanks for the heads up.

  437. nbc says:

    Hermitian: By the way ! It makes all the sense in the world that if you are a candidate for the highest office in the world and you are a non-citizen then you might need a birth certificate.

    Begging the questions…

    Again, you are ignoring Occam’s razor, common sense and the fact that a Xerox work flow explains it all without the need for a forger. Until you have shown how the forger did it step by step and shows us his end product.. Well…
    Others have tried and failed so perhaps you can do better? Show us the work product of the forger in a step by step fashion that allows us to reproduce how it was done.

    It’s trivially simple using a Xerox workflow.

    No my friend, you have still not understood the scientific method. The Xerox workflow explains it all, adding to this some unknown forger who is both sloppy and extremely capable without any repeatable steps beyond hand waving leads to the rejection of your attempt to formulate a ‘hypothesis’.

    You are so blinded by your bias that the document must have been forged that you are unable to apply scientific methods properly. Not having the right tools, just adds to that.

  438. nbc says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: Now, why does my reconstruction not have halos?

    Or why do the halos that were created using filters not look anything like we see on the Xerox workflow and the WH LFBC?

    Remember that Hermetian has to show a repeatable way to generate a document like the WH LFBC, without just repeating the steps of the Xerox work centre. He needs to show a truly competitive alternative. Not one where he waves his hands and says, well, that’s how the forger did it as well. Worse, he needs to explain why a forger would sometimes do it extremely well and at other times seems to ‘mess up’. All this can be repeatedly shown using a Xerox work centre.

    Hermitian has no concept of the scientific method and the challenges he and others face now that the true forger has been identified.

  439. nbc says:

    nbc: I am somewhat shocked that you could not figure this out yourself.

    And as to how MRC works and why some pixels are separated to a foreground and others to a background, there are some very good papers on the principles. It basically moves pixels with similarly enough colors and other identifying factors, to the foreground and assigns it an averaged color.

    I am sure that Hermitian has read the relevant papers in this area? Care to discuss them? What is your favorite paper on MRC?

  440. Hermitian says:

    nbc: Hermitian: Applying the forgers methodology, the 8 x 8 blocks are automatic. And his global origin point was at the upper left corner of his Illustrator screen. It is interesting that the WH LFCOLB background layer image also satisfies the 8 MOD 0 condition. GSGS missed this fact entirely.
    Totally meaningless blather… There is a certain chance that this condition is met for every layer and the number of layers where this is the case, match the expectations.
    You have not really thought this through much now have you?… All layers matching… Wow… One layer out of 9 matching… Hmmm…
    This is not rocket science my friend…

    I know. It’s Mathematics.

    You can read about my mathematical analysis here:

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/151738307/Analysis-of-Rectangular-Object-Boundaries

    Notice that all nine layers of the WH LFCOLB PDF image comply with the 8 MOD 0 condition. Additionally, three out of nine layers also satisfy the 16 MOD 0 condition. The certificate page size of the WH LFCOLB is also the minimum size consistent with a nominal page size of 8.5 in. x 11 in. and the MOD 8 0 condition. The layers of the Xerox PDFs do not comply with the 16 x 16 block alignment and none of the Xerox images are minimum page size.

    My graphical analysis of the alignments for the Xerox 7535 scan to PDF can be
    retrieved here:

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/161641778/Xerox-7535-Wc-Block-Alignments

    The table of results for the Xerox 7535 scan to PDF are given in the following table.

    The results are summarized in the following table for the upper-left origin position.

    Layer x y W H x/8 y/8

    Mostly 1000 408 1403 1749 125 51
    Text

    Onaka 312 1328 196 694 39 166
    Signature

    The results for the upper-right origin position are given in the table below.

    Layer x y W H x/8 y/8

    Mostly 2328 408 1403 1749 291 51
    Text

    Onaka 3016 1328 196 694 377 166
    Signature

    Results are given for the “Mostly Text” and Onaka signature stamp layers.

  441. W. Kevin Vicklund says:

    nbc: I am somewhat shocked that you could not figure this out yourself.

    Especially after we told him several times how it worked and even linked to the page in the PDF manual that described how it worked.

  442. Hermitian says:

    JPotter:

    JPotter
    November 13, 2013 at 9:34 pm JPotter(Quote)
    #

    Hermitian: Is that label present before or after you massaged the Xerox 7535 produced PDF in Apple Preview?

    “Massage”! I think you’re on to something. Preview always leaves me smiling.
    The tag is found in Xerox Workcentre-created MRC PDFs that have never been subjected to Preview. Go back to sleep, Herms.

    The YCbCr label appears nowhere in the Xerox 7535 scan to PDF file. I think you must have intended to say that the label is found if one extracts a JPEG compressed file from the PDF with a particular software tool.

  443. nbc says:

    Hermitian: The YCbCr label appears nowhere in the Xerox 7535 scan to PDF file

    It is of course compressed using deflate… Anyone should be able to extract that information given that I have provided all the steps and even the script to deflate.

    Except for Hermitian… Poor tool skills, no intellectual curiosity and an inability to follow instructions.

  444. nbc says:

    Hermitian: I know. It’s Mathematics.

    You do not provide mathematics nor do you show the logic as to why and how these alignments happen. I have shown how consistently the Xerox workflow recaptures the data found in the WH LFBC.

    Anyone can add and divide, but few can apply that knowledge in a logical fashion. I have shown how consistently all layers align at two particular sides with 8 bit boundaries and how this is not the case for the other two boundaries (consistently that is).

    It ain’t rocket science my friend.

  445. W. Kevin Vicklund says:

    Hermitian: Notice that all nine layers of the WH LFCOLB PDF image comply with the 8 MOD 0 condition. Additionally, three out of nine layers also satisfy the 16 MOD 0 condition.

    This is entirely consistent with an algorithm that takes a 600 ppi 4:2:2 JPEG (MPU of 16×16) or a 300 ppi 4:4:4 JPEG (MPU of 8×8), analyzes each MPU for a contiguous color (comparing to adjacent MPUs to determine if they have a matching color), separating out the pixels that have contiguous color from the background, and saving the separated colors into 300 ppi 1-bit bitmaps (JBIG2 encoded) and the background image as a 150 ppi 4:2:2 JPEG.

    Note that there is a 25% chance that a block alignment that meets an 8 MOD 0 alignment will also meet a 16 MOD 0 alignment. There’s a greater than 20% chance that 3 out of 9 layers, given a 8 MOD 0 alignment, will also satisfy the 16 MOD 0 alignment. Therefore, we cannot conclude anything about the 16 MOD 0 alignment.

    The certificate page size of the WH LFCOLB is also the minimum size consistent with a nominal page size of 8.5 in. x 11 in. and the MOD 8 0 condition. The layers of the Xerox PDFs do not comply with the 16 x 16 block alignment and none of the Xerox images are minimum page size.

    Close examination of the Xerox image shows that it was scanned slightly skewed, somewhere between 0.5 and 1.5 degrees. Applying trigonometry to determine the minimum size rectangle that a skewed 8.5×11 sheet of paper will fit in shows that the minimum size condition is met when taking into account the skew. The Xerox pdf layers comply with the 16 MOD 0 alignment at approximately the same rate as the WH LFBC layers (roughly 25%, as expected), provided you set the origin point as the upper left corner of the background JPEG in its landscape orientation, IIRC.

    Of course, Hermie has no real reason to latch onto the 16 MOD 0 condition, other than gsgs mentioned it at some point. Cargo cult forensics at its finest!

  446. nbc says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: This is entirely consistent with an algorithm that takes a 600 ppi 4:2:2 JPEG (MPU of 16×16) or a 300 ppi 4:4:4 JPEG (MPU of 8×8), analyzes each MPU for a contiguous color (comparing to adjacent MPUs to determine if they have a matching color), separating out the pixels that have contiguous color from the background, and saving the separated colors into 300 ppi 1-bit bitmaps (JBIG2 encoded) and the background image as a 150 ppi 4:2:2 JPEG.

    Note that there is a 25% chance that a block alignment that meets an 8 MOD 0 alignment will also meet a 16 MOD 0 alignment. There’s a greater than 20% chance that 3 out of 9 layers, given a 8 MOD 0 alignment, will also satisfy the 16 MOD 0 alignment. Therefore, we cannot conclude anything about the 16 MOD 0 alignment.

    Some people do understand the mathematics properly. Sadly enough Hermitian has been informed many times about all this, with no success.

  447. nbc says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Of course, Hermie has no real reason to latch onto the 16 MOD 0 condition, other than gsgs mentioned it at some point. Cargo cult forensics at its finest!

    He cannot even defend the claim or explain why it should be there and then explain why it is not there for many of the layers.

    So much fun.

  448. foreigner=gsgs says:

    I think you spend too much time to point out Hermitian flaws and sillyness.
    You can do it occasionally but this extensiveness is embarrassing and
    unscientific and just bad behaviour.
    A teacher doing this is generally considered a bad teacher (agreed ?)
    It’s the general pattern here how you deal with birthers.
    Maybe it’s even the motivation why most people are here, I’m not sure.
    Sort of culture. Reminds me to niman in the flu-forums, who I had
    ~10000 posts with. He used to start his posts with “you are posting nonsense”
    enjoys extensive use of phrases like “clueless clowns”,”babbleboard”,”Martians did it”,
    “emperor has no cloths” and such. That didn’t make him right but he uses to spend much
    effort and bandwidth on it. There must be a word for this phenomenon ?
    A wiki-article ? The cooperation was still productive but finally he was banned
    from almost all forums.
    I’m not defending birthers or Hermitian arguments and logics

  449. You’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. Most of it’s being deleted.

    foreigner=gsgs: I think you spend too much time to point out Hermitian flaws and sillyness.

  450. Hermitian says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: Most of the time spent in the reconstruction involved researching what to put on the form. I spent 3-4 hours maybe actually making the thing. Close examination shows patching and blurring of the security paper and the obvious use of a computer font for the typewriter (too perfect to be real). The purpose of that exercise was to show what the form might look like based on what was known at the time, not to fool anyone. The latter is a wholly different and more difficult problem. I certainly never concerned myself for a moment about the metadata.
    Now, why does my reconstruction not have halos?

    Hermitian: Reality Check !!! Ask your sidekick Mr. C. how much time he took to create his Obama LFCOLB “RECONSTRUCTION” in 2009. That was two years before Obama released his faux one. I didn’t know that Mr. C. was tight with your two Hawaii administrators but thanks for the heads up.

    Maybe because it’s not a layered PDF but rather a flattened .JPG ?

  451. nbc says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: You’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. Most of it’s being deleted.

    Thank goodness for that, he loves to spam when he loses an argument.

  452. Adrien Nash (h2o of life, claimed that the AP JPEG was just a version of the LFBC PDF with the background made lighter. He tried to create his own from the PDF but it was a dismal failure.

  453. Hermitian says:

    gorefan:

    gorefan
    November 18, 2013 at 10:30 pm gorefan(Quote)
    #

    Hermitian: He then applied a 90 degree counterclockwise rotation to all layers in Illustrator to throw off any forensic investigators .
    Your steps are:
    1) Make PDF from c/p in Illustrator in Portrait mode (0 degree rotation) then rotate 90 degrees into landscape mode and save.
    2) Then open in Preview and rotate back to portrait mode which leaves the rotation as being shown as -90 degrees in Illustrator.
    And this was done to throw off “forensic investigators” when in fact the -90 degree rotation is completely out of the ordinary and was one of the first things birthers were pointing to as proof of forgery.
    You’re nuts.

    Experienced users of Illustrator would connect the -90 degree rotation in Illustrator to the fact that the image had to have been in the landscape orientation just prior to opening the PDF in Illustrator. This is also easily seen in illustrator because the layer thumbnail image for the background layer located at the left end of its layer bar in the Illustrator links panel is in landscape orientation.

    Most people seeing that the image was in landscape orientation would not leap to the conclusion that the image had been assembled by a digital cut and paste process.

  454. JPotter says:

    Hermitian: I could go on and on …

    Obviously, and endlessly demonstrated. 😛

    nbc: I am sure that Hermitian has read the relevant papers in this area? Care to discuss them? What is your favorite paper on MRC?

    I can’t count the number of times I provided him with a full suite of resources over at Amazon. It was a standard cut’n’paste for months. You can lead a Hermit to knowledge….

    Hermitian: You can read about my mathematical analysis

    I must have missed the ‘analysis’ … all the pointless cataloguing and screenshot porn got in the way, I guess. What was even more pitiful was the glimpse into your other navel-gazings posted at Scribd. Hey, there’s that long-neglected laffydavit! How’s tricks on the Mighty Mississip’?

    Hermitian: The YCbCr label appears nowhere in the Xerox 7535 scan to PDF file. I think you must have intended to say that the label is found if one extracts a JPEG compressed file from the PDF with a particular software tool.

    It took you 6 days to compose that double down? You realize what you’re saying here–that something in the file isn’t found in the file? LOL!

    I know that what you meant to say was that you can’t find that darn “YCbCr ” tag in the PDF markup. That’s a feature of how 1 object, a object common to all MRC PDFs—y’know, the only one in which bit-depth > 1, and therefore in need of a color palette—, is processed in Xerox’s implementation of MRC. Why are you looking for it in the overall collection of objects?

    Reality Check:
    Adrien Nash (h2o of life, claimed that the AP JPEG was just a version of the LFBC PDF with the background made lighter. He tried to create his own from the PDF but it was a dismal failure.

    That poor chump. Compression is a one-way street. Information removed cannot be reconstructed with access to the original. Nash was trying to read a book for the first time, after the book had already been burned 😛

  455. Rickey says:

    foreigner=gsgs:
    I think you spend too much time to point out Hermitian flaws and sillyness.
    You can do it occasionally but this extensiveness is embarrassing and
    unscientific and just bad behaviour.
    A teacher doing this is generally considered a bad teacher (agreed ?)
    It’s the general pattern here how you deal with birthers.
    Maybe it’s even the motivation why most people are here, I’m not sure.

    Different people have differing motivations. Speaking only for myself, I have little interest in Hermitian’s ramblings. I also do not have any real knowledge of how PDFs are made, so my eyes glaze over when the subject becomes technical.

    That said, I respect both Reality Check and NBC, so I am satisfied that they have solved the “mystery” of the White House PDF.

  456. nbc says:

    Rickey: That said, I respect both Reality Check and NBC, so I am satisfied that they have solved the “mystery” of the White House PDF.

    Well, at least tentatively… Although the case appears to be extremely strong, there is always a possibility that someone finds a problem.

    The problem is that some of the topics are quite technical and thus Hermitian plays an important role in allowing us to approach the same issue from a different perspective. However, recently, Hermitian has not contributed much of anything novel and has failed totally to rebut any aspect of the workflow.

    I decided to ignore him on my blog after he showed no interest in a discussion on the merits and blocked him. Dr C has blocked him as well but has allowed him to contribute in a limited fashion.

    Personally I am growing weary of having to repeat the same old explanations that have been given to Hermitian but as long as he feels it necessary to express them, I will try to help him understand, once again, why he is wrong.

  457. Arthur says:

    Rickey: Different people have differing motivations. Speaking only for myself, I have little interest in Hermitian’s ramblings. I also do not have any real knowledge of how PDFs are made, so my eyes glaze over when the subject becomes technical.

    That said, I respect both Reality Check and NBC, so I am satisfied that they have solved the “mystery” of the White House PDF.

    \

    I’m exactly the same, especially in regard to the technical issues.

  458. gorefan says:

    Hermitian: Most people seeing that the image was in landscape orientation would not leap to the conclusion that the image had been assembled by a digital cut and paste process.

    And everyone seeing that the image was in portrait orientation would not leap to the conclusion that the image had been assembled by a digital cut and paste process.

    The original document was scanned in landscape orientation. That is indisputable.

  459. Hermitian says:

    Maybe if you started answering my questions using an assortment of words that make sense then you wouldn’t be so useless.

    For example…

    You suggested that a JPEG compressed TIFF is a JPEG file. However I found that the COS object data indicates that the scanned background image was first compressed via Flate and then with DCT. I assume that you brought up the JPEG compressed TIFF because the METADATA extracted from the LFCOLB archive copy indicates that TIFF and PNG files were created.

    RC seems to agree in this earlier post:

    “Reality Check November 16, 2013 at 11:23 am (Quote) #

    “Every scan to email I have done on a Xerox WorkCentre 7535 shows TIFF and PNG in the metadata in Illustrator. Here is an example for a file I scanned this week for a future article.

    “Xerox WorkCentre 7535 Metadata”

    I have extracted the bitmap files from the archive copy of the WH LFCOLB using an extraction tool that extracts a TIFF for the background layer and a PNG file for each of the eight non-background layers.

    None of these files contain the Label YCbCr. Moreover I have also extracted the files to many other bitmap formats other than JPEG. None of these other formatted files contain the label YCbCr. Moreover the bitmap file specification document that you cited for JPEG formatted TIFF files requires that all color information be contained within the TIFF and not within the JPEG compression code.

    I have also extracted the background image into a JPEG using a significant number of different programs and procedures. Several of the extracted JPEGS contain the YCbCr label but the rest did not.

    Collectively, these findings indicate that whether or not this label is found depends on both the file format extracted and the extraction program applied to the PDF.

    The color spaces for the WH LFCOLB are ICC Based DeviceRGB for the first eight layers and ICC Based DeviceGray for layer 9, the white spot layer at the top edge of the page.

    The color spaces for the Xerox 7535 scan to PDF is DeviceRGB for 13 layers and DeviceGray for four layers.

    The color spaces for the Xerox 7535/Preview print to PDF is ICC Based DeviceRGB for 13 layers and ICC Based DeviceGray for four layers.

  460. nbc says:

    gorefan: The original document was scanned in landscape orientation. That is indisputable.

    Exactly…
    The fact that it was rotated led people immediately to conclude forgery…

  461. Every file I open in Illustrator, even a simple JPG, has the “TIFF” and PNG” in the advanced properties. It doesn’t mean anything.

  462. Paper says:

    I myself mostly leave it alone simply because it is meaningless. No aspersions on the work of RC and NBC.

    There is no motive to forge a PDF of Obama’s bc. it makes no sense.

    once you start down this road, the only possibility is corruption in the Hawaiian government. in which case, there would be no need for a forged PDF, because theoretically speaking the birth certificate itself would be fraudulent.

    a forged PDF makes no sense, has no chance of going unexposed, unless you have Hawaii in your pocket, and if you have Hawaii in your pocket, you do not need a forged PDF.

    Rickey: Different people have differing motivations. Speaking only for myself, I have little interest in Hermitian’s ramblings. I also do not have any real knowledge of how PDFs are made, so my eyes glaze over when the subject becomes technical.

    That said, I respect both Reality Check and NBC, so I am satisfied that they have solved the “mystery” of the White House PDF.

  463. Slartibartfast says:

    This is why cranks like Hermie endlessly nitpick the details while staying a mile away from any discussion of motive. No birth certificate produced by the Hawai’i DoH can be a forgery since they are ones with the authority to produce Hawai’ian birth certificates. If they stand behind a BC, the only way to discredit it is to prove malfeasance on their behalf—something the birthers cannot do.

    Paper:
    I myself mostly leave it alone simply because it is meaningless.No aspersions on the work of RC and NBC.

    There is no motive to forge a PDF of Obama’s bc. it makes no sense.

    once you start down this road, the only possibility is corruption in the Hawaiian government.in which case, there would be no need for a forged PDF, because theoretically speaking the birth certificate itself would be fraudulent.

    a forged PDF makes no sense, has no chance of going unexposed, unless you have Hawaii in your pocket, and if you have Hawaii in your pocket, you do not need a forged PDF.

  464. Daniel says:

    Slartibartfast:
    This is why cranks like Hermie endlessly nitpick the details while staying a mile away from any discussion of motive.

    It also explains why Hermie ignores my oft repeated question of what he hopes to accomplish. The fact is he’ll never accomplish anything with it, even if his nitpicking is correct (which it isn’t but bear with me), because the PDF simply does not matter.

  465. Daniel says:

    foreigner=gsgs:
    I think you spend too much time to point out Hermitian flaws and sillyness.
    You can do it occasionally but this extensiveness is embarrassing and
    unscientific and just bad behaviour.
    A teacher doing this is generally considered a bad teacher (agreed ?)
    It’s the general pattern here how you deal with birthers.
    Maybe it’s even the motivation why most people are here, I’m not sure.
    Sort of culture. Reminds me to niman in the flu-forums, who I had
    ~10000 posts with. He used to start his posts with “you are posting nonsense”
    enjoys extensive use of phrases like “clueless clowns”,”babbleboard”,”Martians did it”,
    “emperor has no cloths” and such. That didn’t make him right but he uses to spend much
    effort and bandwidth on it. There must be a word for this phenomenon ?
    A wiki-article ? The cooperation was still productive but finally he was banned
    from almost all forums.
    I’m not defending birthers or Hermitian arguments and logics

    If birthers don’t like being ridiculed, they need to stop being ridiculous.

    If Hermitian was debating in good faith, he would be treated with respect. Alas, he is not debating in good faith.

  466. Slartibartfast says:

    I think what he’s trying to accomplish is to add a patina of legitimacy to the smears against the president with his technobabble, but you are absolutely right.

    Daniel: It also explains why Hermie ignores my oft repeated question of what he hopes to accomplish. The fact is he’ll never accomplish anything with it, even if his nitpicking is correct (which it isn’t but bear with me), because the PDF simply does not matter.

  467. Hermitian says:

    Reality Check:
    Every file I open in Illustrator, even a simple JPG, has the “TIFF” and PNG” in the advanced properties. It doesn’t mean anything.

    Here are the filenames for the two Xerox 7535 PDFs that NBC released.

    wh-lfbc-scanned-xerox-7535-wc.pdf

    and its advanced METADATA

    Property Tree Dublin Core Properties (http://purl.org/dc/elements/l-l/)
    dc: format: application/pd

    PDF Properties (http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/l-3/)
    pdf:Producer: Xerox WorkCentre 7535

    Schema (http://ns.adobe.eom/pdfx/l.3/)
    pdfx:PXCViewerInfo: PDF-XChange Viewer;2.5.211.0;Jun 17 2013;09:19:35;D:20130703073700-04’00’

    XMP Basic Properties (http://ns.adobe.eom/xap/l.O/)
    xmp:CreateDate: 2013-06-27Tll:09:59-05:00
    xny::CreatorToof: Xerox WorkCentre 7535
    xmp:MetadataDate: 2013-06-27T11:06:28-04:00
    xmp:Mod/fyDate: 2013-07-03707:37-04:00

    XMP Media Management Properties (http://ns.adobe.eom/xap/l.0/mm/)
    xmpMM:DoajmentID: uurd:b932841b -3c67-4dec-972f<73adec95731
    xmpMM.:InstancelD: Uufd:ac06ac9c-d30d-49ea-8dl6-8797b8e51e28

    and

    wh-lfbc-scanned-xerox-7535-wcpreview.pdf

    and its advanced METADATA

    Property Tree
    Dublin Core Properties (http://purl.org/dc/elements/l-l/)
    dccreator (seq container
    [1]:
    dc:description (alt-text container)
    (language: x-default)
    dc:title (alt-text container)
    (language: x-default)

    PDF Properties (http://ns.adobe.com/pdf/l-3/)
    pdf: Keywords:
    Pdf:Producer: Mac OS X10.8.3 Quartz PDFContext

    XMP Basic Properties (http://ns.adobe.eom/xap/l.0/)
    xmp:CreateDate: 2013-07-22T19:54:34Z
    xrrpiCreatorTool: Preview
    xmp/ModifyDate: 2013-07-22T19:54:34Z

    The Adobe Illustrator Advanced METADATA extracted from these two PDFs does not include either TIFF or PNG files.

    The Adobe Illustrator raw METADATA extracted from these two PDFs also does not include either TIFF or PNG in the raw data.

    The archive copy of the WH LFCOLB does include creation date/time for TIFF and PNG files.

    Zatkovich included screenshots of the Advanced METADATA in his report. He read the METADATA with Adobe Acrobat not Illustrator.

    I read the same METADATA from the archive copy of the WH LFCOLB using PDF XChange PDF Viewer Pro.

    I posted the METADATA several days ago on this same thread.

    The METADATA showing TIFF and PNG files is not an Illustrator problem.

  468. Slartibartfast says:

    gsgs,

    You should consider both of these posts from Daniel. You have delved into the minutia of the pdf in good faith, but I think your lack of interest in the bigger picture and focus on the technical details leads you to treat this issue as if the claims of both sides were equal. Because the idea that the pdf is a forgery is absurd on its face, not to mention the facts that none of the birther claims have ever been shown to have any merit whatsoever and the refusal of any birther to discuss the issue in good faith, this does not sit well with many of us.

    No one can do anything more productive than ridiculing Hermitian and his idiotic post because he refuses to discuss the matter in the context of the scientific method—either because he doesn’t understand how scientific inquiry works or because he knows that doing so would force him to admit that his position (that the LFBC pdf is a digital forgery) is completely without merit. You cannot teach someone who refuses to learn, instead clinging steadfastly to their willful ignorance and dishonest style of debate.

    Birthers, taken as a whole, are willfully ignorant, dishonest, and unintelligent bigots who have spent the last five years in a seditious attempt to de-legitimize the lawfully elected President of the United States with the intent of usurping his position. None of this is my opinion or open to debate—it is well-established fact based on the words and actions of birthers over the last five years and while not all birthers may be racists, they all seem remarkably tolerant of the many outspoken racists in their midst.

    Daniel: If birthers don’t like being ridiculed, they need to stop being ridiculous.

    If Hermitian was debating in good faith, he would be treated with respect. Alas, he is not debating in good faith.

  469. JPotter says:

    Hermitian: I have extracted the bitmap files from the archive copy of the WH LFCOLB using an extraction tool that extracts a TIFF for the background layer and a PNG file for each of the eight non-background layers.

    Hermitian: Moreover I have also extracted the files to many other bitmap formats other than JPEG. None of these other formatted files contain the label YCbCr.

    In other words, assuming you’re actually performing these “experiments” … in each and every one, you’re translating these objects into new files, of various formats, and expecting to see the untranslated data.

    Well, help yerself to a quad-facepalm with a triple twist.

  470. nbc says:

    Hermitian: I posted the METADATA several days ago on this same thread.

    And Vicklund and I showed that the metadata you claim is present is actually not there.

    So what happened?

  471. nbc says:

    Hermitian: Moreover I have also extracted the files to many other bitmap formats other than JPEG. None of these other formatted files contain the label YCbCr.

    Good for you but you need to extract the DCT object my friend… Somehow you have been unable to do so…

    Why is that?

  472. Also, XMP isn’t supported by PDF 1.3, so the Advanced metadata Hermie is reporting can’t be in the Preview or WH LFBC files. It has to be something that Illustrator is adding.

  473. Keith says:

    Hermitian: It’s necessary because Preview entirely erases the Xerox METADATA. Consequently it is absolutely necessary to nail down every step in the proposed workflow.

    Andrew Vrba, PmG:

    Hermitian, you’re beaten. Be a grown up and accept that.
    These imaginary technicalities you keep cooking up are not going to negate RC’s findings. You’ve lost. Time to pack it in.

    Hermitian: Maybe if you started answering my questions using an assortment of words that make sense then you wouldn’t be so useless.

    For example… (etc, etc, etc)

    The PDF, no matter how it was created, built up bit-by-bit by some supergeek, or by simply slapping the actual document on an actual scanner and using an actual Apple Mac to upload it to a server, or anything in between, is utterly and completely and redundantly 100% IRRELEVANT.

    The only thing that is relevant is the birth details that are recorded in the PDF and whether or not those details are the same as every other reliably documented instance of the communication of those details.

    Whether the Xerox did or did not use deflate or any other encoding method in the construction of the PDF has no bearing what-so-ever on whether or not the ‘Location of Birth’ shows ‘Honolulu’ or ‘Kenya’. Whether the Xerox did or did not use JBIG2 or any other encoding method in the construction of the PDF has no bearing what-so-ever on whether or not the ‘Date of Birth’ is shown as ‘4th August 1961′ or ’25 December 6BCE’. Whether the Xerox did or did not use deflate or any other encoding method in the construction of the PDF has no bearing what-so-ever on whether or not the State of Hawai’i verifies, confirms, certifies, swears, testifies that the actual INFORMATION displayed in the document is accurate.

    Those are the ONLY two ‘things’ that are of any interest what-so-ever. Birth Place and Birth Date. NOT Metadata; but actual INFORMATION. The PDF is only a CARRIER for that INFORMATION.

    The INFORMATION carried by the PDF under consideration shows those birth details to be Honolulu on the 4th of August 1961. Those details have been certified and verified and testified about under oath by the only body with the authority to do so and further substantiated by contemporary external documentation.

    There is NO WAY that those birth details can be wrong. None. Zip. Nada. The State of Hawai’i is the ultimate and only arbiter of the veracity of that INFORMATION. That is the end of the story.

    It doesn’t matter what form or media those facts are recorded on, they are still facts. If the Obama’s location and date of birth is written in crayon on a piece of toilet paper they are still the facts of his birth. If the PDF was built-up bit-by-bit or from cut and pasting together other documents, it doesn’t change the facts.

  474. Hermitian: I have extracted the bitmap files from the archive copy of the WH LFCOLB using an extraction tool that extracts a TIFF for the background layer and a PNG file for each of the eight non-background layers.

    None of these files contain the Label YCbCr. Moreover I have also extracted the files to many other bitmap formats other than JPEG. None of these other formatted files contain the label YCbCr.

    I’m not sure why you expect to find a comment in compressed code in the decompressed file. But yeah, when I take the DCT encoded object stream and make it a file (by deleting the rest of the PDF), when I open it in MS Paint it opens as a JPEG file, and when I check it still has the YCbCr comment. I can then save it as a bitmap, GIF, TIFF, or PNG, and none of these have the YCbCr comment, nor do I expect to see it, as it is unnecessary for the file.

    As far as your various methods of extracting it as a jpeg, I noted previously that some of these methods actually changed the size of the image (height and width, not just the size of the file, which also changed depending on your method). I am not surprised that these methods aren’t protecting the integrity of a comment, when they aren’t even protecting the integrity of the image.

  475. nbc says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Also, XMP isn’t supported by PDF 1.3, so the Advanced metadata Hermie is reporting can’t be in the Preview or WH LFBC files. It has to be something that Illustrator is adding.

    Of course… Our friend still refuses to use the basic tools, and instead relies on what high level tools report to him.
    This is not the first time he has failed because of proper due diligence

  476. nbc says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: I’m not sure why you expect to find a comment in compressed code in the decompressed file. But yeah, when I take the DCT encoded object stream and make it a file (by deleting the rest of the PDF), when I open it in MS Paint it opens as a JPEG file, and when I check it still has the YCbCr comment. I can then save it as a bitmap, GIF, TIFF, or PNG, and none of these have the YCbCr comment, nor do I expect to see it, as it is unnecessary for the file.

    I am still amazed how Hermitian seems to be unable to take the simple steps we have outlined, allowing him to properly extract the object.

  477. Slartibartfast says:

    Why are you surprised? Hermie cannot possibly follow a sound scientific methodology and honestly report his results as it would clearly demonstrate that he is wrong.

    nbc: I am still amazed how Hermitian seems to be unable to take the simple steps we have outlined, allowing him to properly extract the object.

  478. nbc says:

    Slartibartfast: Why are you surprised? Hermie cannot possibly follow a sound scientific methodology and honestly report his results as it would clearly demonstrate that he is wrong.

    So far he has refused to take any of the necessary steps to see if the xerox workflow holds under closer scrutiny. He refuses to run the documents through preview, he refuses to acknowledge the existence of the YCbCr comment and the Quantization Matrices, instead he focuses on trivialities that result from poor application of inappropriate tools.

    The last thing he can afford is to repeat my experiments because he then will have to admit that I am correct. But by refusing to take these steps he has shown that he is unable to follow the scientific method.
    In the mean time, my findings stand as strongly as ever.

    So disappointing…

  479. Hermitian says:

    W. Kevin Vicklund: Also, XMP isn’t supported by PDF 1.3, so the Advanced metadata Hermie is reporting can’t be in the Preview or WH LFBC files. It has to be something that Illustrator is adding.

    Balony! Bologna!

    From the Zatkovich report:

    “Internal PDF Meta Data

    “Document creator and content versions

    “Using the Examine Document function of Adobe Acrobat Pro version 9.0.0, the date and time of creation were determined to be April 27, 2011 at 12:09:24 pm. The software application that created the PDF document is Preview, a graphics and PDF utility included with the Mac OS X operating system. The version of Preview used is included with Mac OS X 10.6.7. It is possible that the document was created by some other application at an earlier date and then opened and saved from Preview causing new
    meta data to be stored in the document. The probability of this is at best 50/50.
    The PDF content version is 1.3 and was created by the Quartz PDFContext engine that is part of Mac OS X version 10.6.7.”

    Anyone can download the archive copy from:

    http://web.archive.org/web/20110201000000*/http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/04/27/president-obamas-long-form-birth-certificate

    like I did. Then they can open the PDF in PDF XChange Viewer and either click on the “Propertie” tab in the upper left corner of the screen or execute “File/Document Properties” and then click on “Additional Metadata” and then “Advanced” just like I did.

    Notice that neither Zatkovich nor I used Illustrator to extract the Advanced METADATA.

    So what’s your problem with Illustrator ?

    Both Zatkovich and I say you’re dead wrong !

  480. The problem with Illustrator is that when you open a PDF in it, the document is converted into Illustrator’s internal format. It alters metadata. You yourself have posted numerous examples of this happening.

    Zatkovich was not an expert in PDF internals and frankly he reported beyond his expertise.

    This discussion is now closed and the ban on Hermitian is now being enforced.

    Hermitian: So what’s your problem with Illustrator ?

    Both Zatkovich and I say you’re dead wrong !

  481. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    Hermitian, if this were the space race, RC would have already built a rocket, been the moon and back, and be fast at work on designing the space shuttle. In other words, he has attacked the PDF subject scientifically. He has all the hard data.

    You on the other hand wouldn’t even have your first blue print made, because you’re too busy moaning about how what RC did, couldn’t possibly have happened. Trying to find some reason to explain how he could have “faked it”. In other words, all you have on your side are incorrect nit-picks and opinions. No hard data to back up what you say! You’re arguing technicalities that don’t exist.

    As Doc said before, you’re like those people who try to nitpick how impossible it is for Bumblebees to fly. Yet there they are! You have nothing. You are nothing. Go back to your flat Earth society, you stupid tosser!

  482. Hermitian, in an unpublished comment, says that he will be posting “blockbuster” results on Amazon.

  483. The Magic M says:

    Andrew Vrba, PmG: Trying to find some reason to explain how he could have “faked it”.

    It’s the typical anti-science crank MO. When someone proves something you don’t like, claim foul play. When peer review confirms the finding, cry “conspiracy”. And they’re back to square one. Because no proof is ever good enough, whereas for things confirming the bias, “belief” and hearsay suffice.
    (Just like john who says he “believes” the one newspaper saying Obama was born in Kenya but not the million others who say otherwise.)

  484. Dr Kenneth Noisewater says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: Hermitian, in an unpublished comment, says that he will be posting “blockbuster” results on Amazon.

    He’s been saying that same thing for over a year now.

  485. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    I think Doc is being very patient with him. Way more patient than I could ever hope to be.

  486. nbc says:

    Hermitian: Both Zatkovich and I say you’re dead wrong !

    And yet the metadata in the raw file speaks clearly. You are wrong. Would not be the first time. Worse he does not even have preview versions to compare it with.

  487. Daniel says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    Hermitian, in an unpublished comment, says that he will be posting “blockbuster” results on Amazon.

    We already have the Blockbuster results. Bankrupt and out of business.

  488. CarlOrcas says:

    Andrew Vrba, PmG:
    I think Doc is being very patient with him. Way more patient than I could ever hope to be.

    Amen!

  489. Dr Kenneth Noisewater says:

    Daniel: We already have the Blockbuster results. Bankrupt and out of business.

    He already posted something it was his incessent whining from his previously deleted comments here.

  490. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    Daniel: We already have the Blockbuster results. Bankrupt and out of business.

    Internet killed the video rental star.

  491. Dr Kenneth Noisewater says:

    And yep there we go Hermitian is posting the metadata improperly extracted. He had this explained to him before and still keeps claiming it.

  492. nbc says:

    Dr Kenneth Noisewater: And yep there we go Hermitian is posting the metadata improperly extracted. He had this explained to him before and still keeps claiming it.

    Poor Poor Hermitian…

  493. Daniel says:

    Dr Kenneth Noisewater:
    And yep there we go Hermitian is posting the metadata improperly extracted.He had this explained to him before and still keeps claiming it.

    But it’s his only liiiiine…

  494. JPotter says:

    Dr. Conspiracy:
    Hermitian, in an unpublished comment, says that he will be posting “blockbuster” results on Amazon.

    … Ah, Amazon Forums, the go-to place for scholarly findings.

    Alternately, the wide open sewer of last resort for cranks who jumped shark long ago.

    And the people who love them 😉

  495. JPotter says:

    Dr. Conspiracy: Illustrator

    The most irritating thing about PDF Madness has been watching cranks molest such fine software. Such a waste seeing excellent tools put to bad ends.

  496. Andrew Vrba, PmG says:

    I’ve never done much with illustrator. I tend to stick to Photoshop.

  497. Suranis says:

    Just because you hate the fact that Illustrator can extract the REAL metadata and REAL forgery activities in documents!

    JPotter: The most irritating thing about PDF Madness has been watching cranks molest such fine software. Such a waste seeing excellent tools put to bad ends.

  498. Dr Kenneth Noisewater says:

    JPotter: … Ah, Amazon Forums, the go-to place for scholarly findings.

    Alternately, the wide open sewer of last resort for cranks who jumped shark long ago.

    And the people who love them

    Remember how we were told that downvoting comments was censorship and obstruction

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