UPDATE I may have been too hasty in claiming to have been in error. For the moment, disregard my mea culpa below and read my later comments.
This morning I started to look more into the font/kerning issue which techdude illustrated in a number of animated GIF files, and in doing so stumbled upon something, well… something rather interesting. The Michele COLB appears to have some sort of aspect ratio distortion.
I took a cue from elliewyatt and decided to start by matching the green basketweave pattern of the background.
I pulled in the Michele COLB, and then overlaid the Obama COLB and set it to about 50% transparency. I zoomed in on the center of the image and used that point to line up the pattern. However I noticed that as I scrolled up and down and left and right, the patterns didn’t match up nearly as well at all.
I found this strange as the Michele COLB I had was a 300 DPI image, same as the Obama image. So I decided to brute force it. I separately adjusted the image width and height until I had a good alignment of the pattern over the entire page.
Here’s an image of the alignment left to right:
Then I lined up the lower left corner of the Obama border to the lower left corner of the Michele border.
And you know what?
Even though the width of each of the four legs that make up the whole border were the same, and the overall height of the border was the same, the overall width of the Michele border was significantly greater than than the Obama border.
What’s up with that?
But of course! The Obama COLB is a horrible forgery. The dim-witted forger who couldn’t even get the border right also screwd up the aspect ratio. Right?
Well, I’d thought of that so I figured I’d check to see if the aspect ratio problem was in the Obama image or the Michele image.
The only other known COLB I’m aware of which still retains enough of the background pattern to be useful is the DeCosta COLB. And since the change in aspect ratio is pretty much entirely horizontal, the DeCosta COLB will do just fine (it was apparently scanned without putting the lid down on it so the folds are still very slightly folded which screws up the vertical image).
The background pattern of the DeCosta COLB is faint enough as it is, and after making it semi-transparent in order to see the underlying Obama image at the same time, well, you really can’t see much of anything. So I took a different approach.
I took the opaque DeCosta COLB and laid hash marks on each side of each of the left and right vertical borders as well as on each pair of vertical bits in the background pattern.
Next I converted all the lines into a single group element, copied them and overlaid them on the Michele COLB image, sizing it so that the pairs of vertical bits were lined up across the width of the page. Then I copied that and moved it up a bit and centered the left vertical border between the two left hashmarks.
The results were the same as with the Obama image. The overall width of the border in the Michele image was significantly wider.
Ok. What else could explain this?
I believe someone made mention of Hawaii having changed their paper sometime between 2003 and 2006. Ok. Maybe the aspect ratio of the background patern had changed and that’s only making it seem as if there’s something wrong with the aspect ratio as all of this has been focused on the background pattern.
Thought of that too.
If the aspect ratio of the printing on the background had changed, then one would expect everything else to be copasetic.
To check for this, I drew a line running from the lower left corner of the border to the upper right corner of the border. In the lower left corner of the border, I adjusted the angle of the line to match the angle of one of the lines running from lower left to upper right. Once I had the angle properly adjusted, I copied the line I’d just set and copied it several times over the next several lines.
If all that had changed was the aspect ratio of the background pattern on the paper, then these lines should line up with their counterparts in the upper right corner.
Here is the lower left corner:
And here is the upper right corner:
As you can see, they do not line up, showing that it’s not any change in the aspect ratio of the background pattern, but that the aspect ratio of the image itself is out of whack. Compressing the image horizontally by the same amount of the offset shown in borderwidth4.jpg brings the upper right lines into proper alignment as shown here:
And just for comparison, here is the same test applied to the unaltered Obama image:
They line up as they should.
By the way, I tried the same thing on the DeCosta COLB. There was some misalignment, but that was expected owing to the vertical aspect ratio being slightly shortened due to the document having not been pressed flat when it was scanned. However the relative misalignment wasn’t quite as bad as it is in the Michele image.
Ok, so now how did the aspect ratio of the Michele image get so messed up?
Well, the image I’d been working with was the image I pulled off Polarik’s photbucket blog. Maybe he boogered it up somehow.
So I grabbed techdude’s 2007 overlay image (crappy as it may be) and ran the same test.
No dice.
So I think I’ve pretty well established that the aspect ratio of the Michele COLB is messed up and this has absolutely nothing to do with Hawaii’s OHSM. I mean, what are the chances that the aspect ratio of the paper’s background pattern would change and that the aspect ratio of certificate information they laser print on that paper would change by exactly the same amount?
No, it’s definitely the aspect ratio of the image itself that’s messed up.
Some of you may be saying by now “What’s the big deal? Michele screwed up when she scanned the COLB. So what?”
I’m glad you asked.
Here’s the so what.
AND PLEASE PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO WHAT I SAY NEXT BECAUSE IT IS THE MOST SALIENT POINT I HAVE TO MAKE IN THIS POST.
I’ll start by quoting from techdude’s report over on Atlas Shrugs:
Thanks to several individuals I managed to collect and review multiple images of certificates issued between 2001 through 2003 all of which bore an identical layout to the previous Decosta image which was issued during the same time frame.
Ok. These are the images that have been out there for a while now. These aren’t really used by techdude to prove the Obama COLB “a horrible forgery.”
Next there’s this:
Several more certificate images and physical certificates were also sent to me of certificates issued between 2006 through 2008 directly by their respective owners. All of the 2006 through 2008 certificates bore an identical layout to one another.
These are the certificates of interest. These are the certificates that are anonymous, and we only have techdude’s word that they came as both images and hardcopies from several different individuals. And it is these which techdude uses to prove the “horrible forgery.”
Ok, now pay close attention to this:
The post-2006 COLBs were then compared against one another for a direct 1:1 comparison. Using copies of the images I digitally enhanced and modified the scans by removing only the hatch pattern background and then removing the merged information fields leaving just the raw document templates and saving them as a series of digital overlay templates. When the 2006 overlay was placed on top of the 2007 image they matched from corner to corner with some minor variations on the minute angle of the images. The fonts were observed to be in the same locations and of the same size and kerning. The procedure was then used with the 2006 overlay on top of the 2008 image. Once again, they matched from corner to corner with some minor variations on the minute angle of the images. The fonts were observed to be in the same locations and of the same size, style, and kerning. The 2007 overlay was then applied on top of the 2008 image. The 2007 and 2008 also matched from corner to corner with some minor variations on the minute angle of the images. The fonts were observed to be in the same locations and of the same size, style, and kerning. Having verified that all of the examined post-2006 certificates were identical in form and substance…
You get that?
The 2006, 2007 and 2008 images were all overlaid on each other and according to techdude were essentially a perfect match. He makes no mention at all of even having to size them, let alone changing their aspect ratios. They all perfectly overlay each other with the exception of “some minor variations on the minute angle of the images.”
Now, the 2008 image is the Michele image, which I think I’ve amply shown has a messed up aspect ratio. So now how was this possible? How did these other two COLBs, supposedly from two completely different people, one of which apparently was in hardcopy form which techdude would have had to scan himself, all come to overlay perfectly on an image with a fucked up aspect ratio?
I mean think about that. Three different people, with three different scanners, all of which are so crappy that they screw up the aspect ratio by a not insignificant amount, and that amount is exactly the same with all three scanners.
What are the odds of that?
Now, either I’m going to end up falling flat on my face and looking stupid because I overlooked something simple and obvious, or I smell a rat.
I noted before that the Obama image, save for its funky borders, was quite consistent with all the previous COLBs whose provenance isn’t really questionable. Whereas the images used to prove the Obama image “a horrible forgery” had aspects to them which were consistent with each other, but not consistent with any of the other known COLBs.
And now apparently there’s yet another aspect about them which is consistent among them, but not consistent with any of the other known COLBs. A mess up aspect ratio.
I also noted before that all three of these COLBs are anonymous and sourced through either TexasDarlin or techdude.
Interesting that.
TexasDarlin.
TechDude.
Oh well, time for bed.
se
Koyaan's Weblog 
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July 23, 2008 at 2:28 am
rayinaus
I haven’t read your above message carefully yet, but it sounds like you haven’t taken any notice of what I said about all the text being reduced on size in 2007 for the smaller inside dimension of the new border.
Blow up the Kos image and it will fit – except for one line which has more space.
Ray
July 23, 2008 at 3:04 am
rayinaus
Re-PRINTED FROM THE PREVIOUS THREAD
[Copied across from AJStrata’s blog]
TECHDUDE’S ERROR NO.1(a) – re: off centre Kos doc.
==================
After examining the Michele and KOS documents tonight, I noticed that the reason why there is more space on the right side of the KOS document is not because of any forgery, but because the (then) new 2007 document had the new wider cross-hatch border design incorporated into the COLB template and it was narrower than the previous borders and no attempt was made by the Hawaii Health to move the narrower document to a new ‘centred’ position before printing their COLB’s
.
TECHDUDE’S ERROR NO.2 – re: Text out of alignment
==================
The reason why the KOS text is out of alignment (in relation to previous versions of the COLB’s) is not because of any forgery, but because the (then) new 2007 COLB was shorter in depth, as well as being narrower than the previous versions, and the computer operator, after having loaded tghe new border and seeing that the COLB’s code number at the very bottom of the page, was running into it, reduced all the text from it’s standard 100% size to roughly 98.7% to make it fit.
This reduction in size also accounts for the much smaller sideways shift that was seen in Techdude’s moving GIF’s. The reduction in size of the text to an irregular percentage such as 98.7 would have slightly distorted some or all of the characters and also caused microscopic lateral movement of them when the individual characters had to “jump” to make best fits into the 300 ppi matrix of the original scan for the JPEG.
The operator also altered the “Date filed” vertical depth, which was unnecessary, but that may well have been the result of an earlier attempt to alter spacing, rather than reduce the overall size the text layout.
Ray
July 23, 2008 at 7:14 am
koyaan
rauinaus:
I haven’t read your above message carefully yet, but it sounds like you haven’t taken any notice of what I said about all the text being reduced on size in 2007 for the smaller inside dimension of the new border.
Then you need to read my post above carefully.
k
July 23, 2008 at 8:04 am
rayinaus
koyaan wrote:
“This morning I started to look more into the font/kerning issue which techdude illustrated in a number of animated GIF files, and in doing so stumbled upon something, well… something rather interesting. The Michele COLB appears to have some sort of aspect ratio distortion.
I took a cue from elliewyatt and decided to start by matching the green basketweave pattern of the background.
I pulled in the Michele COLB, and then overlaid the Obama COLB and set it to about 50% transparency. I zoomed in on the center of the image and used that point to line up the pattern. However I noticed that as I scrolled up and down and left and right, the patterns didn’t match up nearly as well at all.
I found this strange as the Michele COLB I had was a 300 DPI image, same as the Obama image. So I decided to brute force it. I separately adjusted the image width and height until I had a good alignment of the pattern over the entire page.
Here’s an image of the alignment left to right:”
Yes, that’s what I was referring to on AJStrata’s blog. The Kos version is about 98.7% of the Michele version, so if the Kos version is enlarged to the reciprocal of that percentage (101.31% ) then the text in the Kos version will line up both vertically and horizontally with the text of the Michele version throughout most of the document below certificate number.
Ray
July 23, 2008 at 8:07 am
koyaan
Again, Ray, read what I wrote. All of it. Carefully.
se
July 23, 2008 at 9:17 am
rayinaus
It’s too long and you’re claiming more forgery, which is off-putting when the Registrar has already certified that Michele’s certificate is valid.
July 23, 2008 at 10:01 am
elliewyatt
se~
I don’t think I’m following all of your points yet, but I will say that I think expecting the Michele border pattern to carry across the black banner titles may be a wrong assumption.
They do not appear to be a continuous pattern, but separate ‘clips’, so I wouldn’t expect your red diagonals to line up in corners on opposite sides of the cert.
These are very large images, because of the width. Be SURE to click on ,b.”full size” button near the top, and then you’ll need to scroll across to see the entire image on a couple of them.
July 23, 2008 at 10:21 am
rayinaus
The border seems to have been made with 4 joined segments, so I wouldn’t have expected to see any precise alignment.
July 23, 2008 at 11:24 am
elliewyatt
Ray, that’s my point. NOT FOUR jointed segements, but SIX segments. Three on the left of the black title banners (top, side and bottom), and three on the right. The two top border pattern clips are not continuous, and neither are the bottom two.
July 23, 2008 at 11:36 am
rayinaus
Hell – they couldn’t be have been t-h-a-t slack could they?
I suppose I’d better separate the 4 (or 6) sections and see what lines up with what.
July 23, 2008 at 11:56 am
koyaan
Ok, here’s the part where I fall flat on my face and look stupid. ;)
When I did the diagonal lines, I started with a short segment down in the lower left corner and aligned it to the angle of one of the lines in that corner. Then I scaled up the line so it was long enough to extend from lower left corner to lower right corner.
What I should have done was to simply start out with a 45 degree line, and then worked my way down from the upper left corner down to the lower left to make sure that the lines that weren’t matching up were in fact the “mates” to the lines down below.
I did this this morning.
Oops. ;)
Using the raw Michele image, they all lined up.
Using the raw Obama image, their alignment got worse as I progressed.
Changing the aspect ratio of the Obama image to match the background pattern with the Michele image resulted in an image in which they did line up.
So it seems that the aspect ratio of the Obama image is what was distorted, not the Michele image.
My apologies for casting aspersions with regard to TexasDarlin and techdude.
So now where does this leave us?
k
July 23, 2008 at 12:09 pm
elliewyatt
I don’t see it as “slack”, it’s just a graphic. I don’t see that it would matter that the top or bottom segments are continuous.
July 23, 2008 at 12:12 pm
rayinaus
I still can’t see any point in looking at the diagonal lines on the border because they were only lined-up by eye to make an out-of-square rectangle.
It will pay to find the repeating distances between the tiles that made up the green background. I mentioned earlier that I made a complete (high grade) background, but it’s not identical because mine is symmetrical and theirs is not. Anyway it’s about 105 pixels each way from memory.
It will also be handy to know the outside dimensions of all the known borders.
July 23, 2008 at 12:27 pm
rayinaus
elliewatt wrote:
“I don’t see it as “slack”, it’s just a graphic. I don’t see that it would matter that the top or bottom segments are continuous.”
It should have been drawn in one piece so it would be square instead of crooked and so it wouldn’t have join marks.
The ideal way to go is:
* draw an 8 x 8 inch (double) square in Freehand or Illustrator
* turn it 45 degrees
* lay a grid of 1 point lines at 5 point intervals
* delete inside & outside the border
* rotate back -45 degrees
* lay the reverse text on top
Back in half a day.
July 23, 2008 at 2:32 pm
elliewyatt
“It should have been…”
I would imagine that a state employee or an ouside contractor (lowest bidder) does this work for many state documents. The state may not care too much about “the ideal way”, as long as it ‘looks’ decent. The main security aspects would be the security paper, embossed seal and signature stamp. The border is just decoration.
Your method would probably be nicer (and easier), but hey, maybe there was no time to be thinkin’ about that on a Friday afternoon when the pay is low and surf’s up.
July 23, 2008 at 8:52 pm
abc1abc2
With your re-discovery, you should at least make note of your mistake at the top, wouldn’t you agree?
July 24, 2008 at 9:23 am
koyaan
abc1abc2:
With your re-discovery, you should at least make note of your mistake at the top, wouldn’t you agree?
Point taken. Thanks.
k
July 24, 2008 at 1:44 pm
oldatlantic
K,
Thanks for you effort and integrity. I think we all learn more. I regard all those working on this as colleagues, whichever side they support at the moment.
Rayinaus,
On the theory that shrinkage of text explains the offset, it seems to be that would produce an offset that was a function of position in the direction of the shrinkage. So if the vertical is shrunk, the vertical offset should vary with position. Seems to follow from linear math thinking apart from how the shrinkage is done. Is that daft?
July 24, 2008 at 2:43 pm
rayinaus
oldatlantic,
Yes it sounds daft to me when it’s described in that fashion :-)
As a graphic reproducer who has enlarged and reduced thousands of images on industrial process cameras, enlargers and also in graphics programs, I’d start off by saying that enlargement or reduction in a camera or enlarger is always proportional but in a graphics program it sometimes isn’t.
In either case the enlargement or reduction has no bearing on the starting x-y position (from say top and left) because they can be controlled manually.
In the case of a COLB which is produced on a PC it would be quite easy in some programs to alter the percentage of one area of the text fields without touching the others. In a quality program one could alter the spacing between the individual letters as well if required. That’s what I had to do to get some of the Obama text [in the same font] to line up dead accurately with the certificate.
Ray
July 24, 2008 at 2:46 pm
rayinaus
elliewyatt wrote:
“It should have been…”
I would imagine that a state employee or an ouside contractor (lowest bidder) does this work for many state documents. The state may not care too much about “the ideal way”, as long as it ‘looks’ decent.
But weren’t you one of the posters on Texasdarlin’s blog who was complaining about the low grade image — so low, that it HAD to be a forgery?
Ray
July 24, 2008 at 4:59 pm
elliewyatt
“But weren’t you one of the posters on Texasdarlin’s blog who was complaining about the low grade image — so low, that it HAD to be a forgery?”
No.
July 24, 2008 at 6:45 pm
oldatlantic
“it would be quite easy in some programs to alter the percentage of one area of the text fields without touching the others. In a quality program one could alter the spacing between the individual letters as well if required.”
Is that the case on the Kos COLB?
Let n be the number of lines from the top.
Suppose two images were aligned at the top. One has letters of
height h1, the other h2.
After n lines, there is a relative offset of (h2-h1)*n.
Thus the offset is variable.
If the offset started as A at line m, then at line n, the offset would be
A + (h2-h1)*(n-m)
Thus the offset would be variable, unless the letter height varied to offset this. But is that the case on the Kos COLB relative to the Michele COLB?
July 25, 2008 at 5:12 am
rayinaus
oldatlantic wrote:
[RAY]: “it would be quite easy in some programs to alter the
percentage of one area of the text fields without touching the others. In a quality program one could alter the spacing between the individual letters as well if required.”
Is that the case on the Kos COLB?
Yes, the lines above “Child’s Name” were untouched when the KOS version was made, but the rest of the text (and the accompanying spacing) was reduced in size to 99% as a block. There was one line which was set in a larger font, so that extra space remained in the KOS version for the following lines.
[See my composite JPG here]:
Let n be the number of lines from the top.
Suppose two images were aligned at the top. One has letters of
height h1, the other h2.
After n lines, there is a relative offset of (h2-h1)*n.
Thus the offset is variable.
If the offset started as A at line m, then at line n, the offset would
be
A + (h2-h1)*(n-m)
Thus the offset would be variable, unless the letter height varied to
offset this. But is that the case on the Kos COLB relative to the
Michele COLB?
———————–
The offset you described is visible when the KOS and Michele images
are compared, but only when:
(a) The starting point is at “Child’s Name” and
(b) The finishing point is at “Father’s Race”
After “Father’s Race, the KOS version was set in a larger font for the word
“African”.
My composite JPG shows that when the KOS version is enlarged to 101%
it matches the Michele version and the reverse is true is the Michele
version is rduced to 99%.
So to repeat what I have written elsewhere:
* Hawaii Health changed the border in 2007
* The border had smaller inside dimensions than previous COLB’s.
* The last line (“OHSM 1.1 etc”) was sitting on the new border
* A computer operator reduced all text and spacing in the main body of the form (from “Child’s Name” to OHSM to 99% so the last line would fit ABOVE the border.
* The “Father’s Race” line was made in slightly bigger font size.
Ray
Ray
July 25, 2008 at 6:06 am
oldatlantic
Ray, great work. I will need more time to study this. Let me try to summarize the procedure.
1) The two images are Michele and the Kos BHO.
2) The two images were positioned so that Child’s Name is aligned.
3) This causes the BHO border in red to be above the Michele in black at
the top.
4) The words at top in red from BHO are above those in black from Michele
Questions
5) When we get to Father’s Race, do you consider the two images in line or to have an offset? If we were seeing a variable offset, shouldn’t the letters be slightly offset at this point compared to at Child’s Name? Do you see such an offset or is it the same alignment as at Child’s Name?
6) Caucasian and African are offset but this is due to something different than the variable offset formula, its a change by the creator.
7) If the text was made smaller on the BHO image by the creator from Child’s Name to Father’s Race, how much total vertical space was saved?
8) Can you develop a budget so to speak of where vertical space is saved or given up by the KOS? If African is bigger in height, then the creator was losing on that change?
9) Can you attach numbers to some key values? Total vertical space inside border. The space from the bottom of the top border to Child’s Name. Space from Child’s Name to bottom of African or Caucasian, and then separately to the top of the bottom border. Widths of top and bottom border. I think there needs to be a table of these numbers for the Kos and Michele slides if you want to convince others.
Thanks for doing this work, I consider us all trying to come to a common understanding even if we may vary at times on what it means.
July 25, 2008 at 6:08 am
oldatlantic
Sorry for the face in the middle that happened on its own. It doesn’t have any meaning.
July 25, 2008 at 10:01 am
koyaan
Sorry. Apparently WordPress isn’t very bright when it comes to interpreting text for smileys.
Your 8) was interpreted as a smiley with sunglasses. And it even interpreted Ray’s “) into a smiley.
So I just turned that feature off.
k
July 25, 2008 at 10:22 am
koyaan
Ray, instead of doing a straight scaling, you need to adjust the aspect ratio. That’s the one thing that came out of my ultimate error is that the aspect ratio is a bit off. You can adjust the aspect ratio by matching the background pattern of the Obama COLB to that of the Michele COLB.
k
July 25, 2008 at 10:48 am
rayinaus
koyann,
To me, it seems pretty obvious that the PC operator has simply reduced the panel of text to 99%, so I can’t see any point in playing around with any other adjustments because they wouldn’t have been made.
Any slight variations from the 99% [as seen in my composite JPG] would be attributable to microscopic optical error in either or both scanners plus a minute lack of “flatness” of the COLB’s due to normal conditions PLUS the distortion from flatness due to the raised seals on both COLB’s. Dead flatness could only be obtained under vacuum, but that’s only possible WITHOUT the seals.
Another microscopic error is caused by the out-of-squareness of the 2 images in the composite. There’s about 5 pixels difference on the right side, which is why the line-up is not as good where the upper right text is situated.
If you wanted to track down the error across the page, you’re dealing with a 4 pixel error out of about 1740, so that’s about 0.2% variation, which is not worth worrying about when you consider the other variables above.
I would imagine that scanners might only be 99.8% accurate sometimes.
Ray
Ray
July 25, 2008 at 11:15 am
rayinaus
oldatlantic wrote:
Ray, great work. I will need more time to study this. Let me try to
summarize the procedure.
1) The two images are Michele and the Kos BHO.
2) The two images were positioned so that Child’s Name is aligned.
3) This causes the BHO border in red to be above the Michele in black
at the top.
4) The words at top in red from BHO are above those in black from
Michele
Yes, but any image that is above “Child’s Name” in red is (sort of)
irrelevant because the idea behind making the composite JPG was to
show by example what happened to the original KOS panel of text
when it was reduced from 100% to 99% to make the “OHSM” line
fit slightly above the border, instead of remaining on the border.
Questions
5) When we get to Father’s Race, do you consider the two images in
line or to have an offset? If we were seeing a variable offset,
shouldn’t the letters be slightly offset at this point compared to at
Child’s Name? Do you see such an offset or is it the same alignment as
at Child’s Name?
The line “Father’s Race” looks spot-on to me. That’s how it should be now that I have increased the size of the KOS version BACK to the size of the Michele version. The KOS version was originally 100% – then it was reduced to 99% to fit – and then I made it 101% to compensate for that reduction. Strictly speaking it should have been 101.0101% because that is the reciprocal of 0.99. Everything should be lined up between Child and African.
6) Caucasian and African are offset but this is due to something
different than the variable offset formula, its a change by the
creator.
Yes, when word “African” was typed, it was not typed in 7 point type
like “Caucasian” in the Michele version, but instead it was set in 9 point type – which meant that the baseline for it to “sit on” was 2 points lower plus (probably) 1 extra point of space [leading] for the bigger font. Those three points equate with 12.48 pixels and there are about 14 extra pixels between the old baseline for 7 pt type and the new baseline for 9 pt type.
(There are 72 points in an inch and the image has a resolution of 300
ppi (pixels per inch) so that make 4.166 pixels per point).
7) If the text was made smaller on the BHO image by the creator from
Child’s Name to Father’s Race, how much total vertical space was
saved?
The figures below will show that.
Can you develop a budget so to speak of where vertical space is saved
or given up by the KOS? If African is bigger in height, then the
creator was losing on that change?
Yes, the bigger type for “African” caused a loss of 14 pixels in the
depth. [They can be seen as 14 checkerboard squares if you enlarge the composite image]
Here’s the ‘budget’–
The KOS overall depth, before reduction, from the top of “Child’s
Name to the bottom of “OHSM”
(using the “y-coordinates” of 1498 and 3109 gave a depth of 1711
pixels.
The Michele overall depth – using the y-coordinates of 938 and 2623
gave a depth of 1685 pixels
If we multiply the KOS depth of 1711 by 0.99 (for 99%) we get 1694,
which is 9 pixels difference.
Nine pixels @ 300ppi = 9/300 = 0.03 inches = 0.76 mm which is the
thickness of a sheet of paper folded on itself 3 times and squashed
tight.
9) Can you attach numbers to some key values? Total vertical space
inside border.
Kos’s y-coord = 980 and 3129 = 2149 inner depth
Mich y -coord = 472 and 2643 = 2171 inner depth
The space from the bottom of the top border to Child’s
Name.
Kos y-coord = 980 and 1498 = 518 pixels (@ 100%)
Mich y -coord = 472 and 938 = 466 pixels (@100%)
Space from Child’s Name to bottom of African or Caucasian, and
then separately to the top of the bottom border.
Kos y-cord = 1498 and 2593 = 1095 pixels (@100%)
Mich y-coord = 938 and 2047 = 1109 pixels (@100%)
Widths of top and bottom border.
Both 84 pixels deep at top (in composite)
Both 81 pixels deep at bottom (in composite)
I think there needs to be a table of these numbers for
the Kos and Michele slides if you want to convince others.
If anyone didn’t appreciate waht teh composite means as it stands, it would be better to show them one with ONLY the ALTERED text panel (to prevent confusion).
Keep in mind when looking at the above numbers that you’re sort of working backwards from waht actually happened, because the composite image is merely showing the line up that occurs when the 99% KOS text is enlarged to 101%.
A better example would have been one that showed what actually happened – i.e. Take the Michele version (which has standard settings) and reduce it to 99% to show how it is the same size as the KOS version in that “panel” in question.
Some of your numbers may not make sense immediately if you don’t keep in mind how it was all done.
Ray
July 25, 2008 at 11:55 am
rayinaus
[Correction]
“The KOS overall depth, before reduction, from the top of “Child’s
Name to the bottom of “OHSM”
(using the “y-coordinates” of 1498 and 3109 gave a depth of 1711
pixels.”
Should have read:
“The KOS overall depth, before ENLARGEMENT (to 101%)
July 25, 2008 at 1:26 pm
oldatlantic
Ray, great work. I had not understood that the image was magnified to offset the offset to verify the offset. So my questions corrected my misunderstanding by accident, or you realized my misunderstanding is actually what happened and pointed it out.
I think its important that others see this, Techdude and Polarik and A J Strata. I am interested in hearing them respond.
July 25, 2008 at 2:11 pm
rayinaus
I thought something was missing in your understanding of the composite image, but I couldn’t pinpoint it.
As you may appreciate already, if the type size hadn’t been changed for “African” the whole thing would have looked more convincing. Those last few lines being out-of-whack tend to throw up questions until the whole theoretical procedure that I explained really sinks in.
I’ve just started a quick search on the net for scanner accuracy and and I’m also wondering about the microscopic inaccuracy that MUST exist in laser printers. I haven’t come across anything yet, but there’s got to be something that explains the 0.2% variation sideways.
I know that humidity causes paper dimensions to vary slightly – mostly in the direction of the grain with normal printing papers, but I think laser printer paper may have a less detectable grain in it. [We can tell which way the grain runs if we tear the paper in each direction — the straightest tear is the direction of the grain].
—————
I’m just trying to think as I’m typing, how a composite image would have looked if I’d gone the other way:
I could have:
(1) Made a 100% template of the KOS border and top few lines.
(2) Taken the Michele text and reduced it to 99% on a transparent overlay.
(3) Positioned the overlay on the ‘blank’ KOS image to match the x-y coords of “Child’s Name” on the Michele image.
The resulting composite image would theoretically match the Michele COLB, except at the bottom where “Africa” and the following lines are.
—–
I think it would be a waste of time mentioning this observation to Techdude and Polarik.
Ray
July 25, 2008 at 2:32 pm
koyaan
Ok, I think I may have been too hasty in saying that the aspect ratio distortion was in the Obama image, not the Michele image.
Today I was going over Ray’s comments and found something rather interesting. Let’s see what y’all make of it.
As I’d said in my mea culpa post, when I adjusted the Obama image separately both vertically and horizontally to match the background pattern of the Michele image, when I tried matching the angled lines in the border pattern to their counterparts on other parts of the border, I noticed they started going out of alignment.
However that was based on just a few matches and I’d just assumed that they would get progressively worse.
Today while I was looking into Ray’s arguments, I redid the matching and did it for all of the lines which had counterparts on the opposite side of the border.
It ended up that the distortion was really quite minor. Here is an image showing it at its worst:
obamadiagonals.jpg
As you can see, the leftmost line isn’t very far off to begin with, and only gets very slightly worse as it nears the upper right corner, and then as it progresses down the right vertical leg of the border, it comes back into alignment.
Also, as I said in my original post, when I scaled the Obama image to match the background pattern in the Michele image, while the overall height of the border was the same, the overall width was greater.
When I align the printed seal in the Obama image to the printed seal on the Michele image, I notice that the text seems to be shifted out from the center.
In other words, in the upper left corner, “STATE OF HAWAII” starts further to the left in the Michele image and in the upper right corner, “DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH” ends further to the right in the Michele image, with respect to the Obama image.
The same thing occurs in the text below, such as “CHILD’S NAME” and “DATE OF BIRTH” on the left, and “SEX” and “COUNTY OF BIRTH” on the right.
Text in the middle, such as “HOUR OF BIRTH” and “ISLAND OF BIRTH” are pretty much lined up.
However the “This copy serves and prima facie evidence…” and the “ANY ALTERATIONS INVALIDATE…” lines are decidedly longer in the Michele image compared to the Obama image.
Here’s the interesting part.
If I line up the left vertical leg of the border in the Obama image to the left vertical leg of the border in the Michele image, and then squeeze the Michele image only horizontally, making the overall border width of the Michele image the same width as the overall border width of the Obama image, then everything “works.”
The only difference being the vertical positioning of all the text between “CERTIFICATE NUMBER:” and “OHSM 1.1 (Rev. 11/01) LASER” which is shifted upward in the Michele image.
From this it seems that in one of these images, either the aspect ratio of the printing is out of whack with the background pattern it’s been “printed” on, or the aspect ratio of the background pattern is out of whack with what’s supposed to have been “printed” on it.
k
July 25, 2008 at 3:07 pm
rayinaus
The green background could fall anywhere in relation to the laser printed border and text because it’s position is not at all critical.
Even if the commercial printer had printed the job only 1-up (which is unlikely) and his guillotine operator had used a high grade guillotine, there would still be minor error occurring throughout any batch of blanks that were trimmed to size after printing.
So in ideal circumstances there could easily be 0.25mm error in paper size – even if the guillotine had been calibrated by NASA 5 minutes beforehand because it is a visual line-up with a steel or transparent ruler. In special cases a special plastic grid and a magnifying glass might be used, so an error of +/- 3 pixels (@ 300 ppi) would be normal.
We need to remember that printed jobs that are considered ‘spot-on’ in real life, will always look a bit innacurate when we put them under the equivalent of a low powered MICROSCOPE in Photoshop.
In printing it’s a bit tricky, but not too hard to print within “hairline” tolerance where one colour must fit inside another, but we’re still talking 0.1mm (the thickness of a hair) which is 1.1 pixels at 300 ppi. In practice it’s more like a 2 pixel error because a small amount of “bleed” is built into images if they overlap ot butt up against each other. Don’t forget printing is a mechanical process.
Ray
July 25, 2008 at 3:19 pm
koyaan
rayinaus:
The green background could fall anywhere in relation to the laser printed border and text because it’s position is not at all critical.
Ray, I’m not talking about the relative position of the background pattern with respect to the text/border.
I’m talking about the scaling and aspect ratio of the background pattern in one image with respect to the other.
Let me explain again.
I bring in the raw Michele image. Then I bring in the raw Obama image.
I overlay the Obama image on the Michele image and set its transparency to about 50% so I can see the background patterns of both images.
I zoom in on the center of the images and then shift the position of the Obama image such that the background patterns line up.
However that alignment goes out of whack as I scroll through areas outside the area I’m zoomed in on.
So what I did then was adjust separately the vertical and horizontal scaling of the Obama image so that I get alignment on the vertical pairs of lines in the pattern, and then the horizontal pairs of lines in the pattern.
Once I’ve done that, the background pattern aligns throughout the whole page, top to bottom and left to right.
Do you see what I’m saying now, Ray?
k
July 25, 2008 at 3:33 pm
rayinaus
Yes, but it’s not irrelevant to anything we’re looking at because the green background is pre-printed.
If one pattern is (as you say) out of alignment with another, that could be:
(a) Slack process camera work
(b) Poorly aligned process camera
(c) Slack step and repeat of tiles in the green image
(d) Slack manual joiming of negartives for the offset plates
(e) Paper stretch in humid conditions (anywhere from the printing to the scanning in either or both documents).
July 25, 2008 at 3:54 pm
rayinaus
That should read ‘not relevant’
July 25, 2008 at 4:49 pm
koyaan
rayinaus
If one pattern is (as you say) out of alignment with another, that could be:
(a) Slack process camera work
(b) Poorly aligned process camera
(c) Slack step and repeat of tiles in the green image
(d) Slack manual joiming of negartives for the offset plates
(e) Paper stretch in humid conditions (anywhere from the printing to the scanning in either or both documents).
Or not.
Yes, but it’s not irrelevant to anything we’re looking at because the green background is pre-printed.
Because it is pre-printed, it’s the only thing you can have some chance of holding relatively constant.
But if not even the background pattern can be relied upon to be relatively constant, then any talk about the size and scale of ANYTHING between the two images becomes arbitrary, an therefore ultimately irrelevant.
No reference, no relevance.
So I guess both our arguments are worthless.
k
July 26, 2008 at 5:42 am
rayinaus
There’s no need to debate size or scale when we know all the originals were a standard U.S. paper size of 11 x 8.5 inches (3300 x 2550 mm) scanned at 100%.
The main things we need to use as points of reference for forged or altered COLB’s, are the border dimensions and type sizes for any given version, but we haven’t even seen a second allegedly genuine COLB for mid-2007 to BEGIN making any comparisons, however we do have witnesses who have assured us that the Obama COLB is the same as others (of the same version).
July 26, 2008 at 9:25 am
koyaan
rayinaus
There’s no need to debate size or scale when we know all the originals were a standard U.S. paper size of 11 x 8.5 inches (3300 x 2550 mm) scanned at 100%.
If all the originals were a standard US paper size of 11 x 8.5 inches, and were scanned at 100%, then why do both the Obama and Michele images have that white border around them?
k
July 26, 2008 at 10:24 am
rayinaus
The Michele scan that was put on the net had no white space around it. It was actually under size because of the small amount of cropping on the sides and a large amount at the top. The full size Obama COLB that was put on the net had about 10 pixels of white space all round. That could be caused by slightly undersized paper or an 11 x 8.5 the scanner dropping the outer image.
July 26, 2008 at 11:21 am
koyaan
rayinaus
The Michele scan that was put on the net had no white space around it. It was actually under size because of the small amount of cropping on the sides and a large amount at the top.
The one I’m working with is not cropped. It’s the one with the embossed seal enhanced with some pencil lead.
Uncropped Michele COLB
It’s identical with respect to the white borders to the uncropped Obama image posted by FactCheck.
Uncropped Obama COLB
The full size Obama COLB that was put on the net had about 10 pixels of white space all round.
As does the uncropped Michele COLB.
That could be caused by slightly undersized paper…
Slightly undersized paper? Interesting that the white space is essentially equal all the way around the image in both the Michele and Obama images. How did both documents manage to get centered so precisely as to have the same amount of white space around them?
…or an 11 x 8.5 the scanner dropping the outer image.
What do you mean by “outer image”?
k
July 26, 2008 at 11:42 am
elliewyatt
Ray said~
“…we do have witnesses who have assured us that the Obama COLB is the same as others (of the same version).”
We do? I had not read that. What “witnesses”? Any images? I have not seen any images of “the same version”.
July 26, 2008 at 11:44 am
rayinaus
“Slightly undersized paper? Interesting that the white space is essentially equal all the way around the image in both the Michele and Obama images. How did both documents manage to get centered so precisely as to have the same amount of white space around them?”
Photoshop cropping I’d imagine. That’s the most likely scenario when it was well known to those who wanted to work with the scans that the Obama COLB was centred on 11 x 8.5 inches.
July 26, 2008 at 12:33 pm
koyaan
Photoshop cropping I’d imagine.
You’d imagine?
That’s the most likely scenario when it was well known to those who wanted to work with the scans that the Obama COLB was centred on 11 x 8.5 inches.
Who said it was centered? Who determined that the actual document size was smaller than 8.5 x 11?
k
July 26, 2008 at 12:41 pm
koyaan
Techdude supposedly has physical documents.
How ’bout someone ask him what the actual dimensions are?
k
July 26, 2008 at 12:43 pm
rayinaus
The original COLB’s were either:
(a) Centred on green-background paper with a tiny while border or
(a) Slightly under size and centred in graphics programs after scanning
There’s no other alternatives.
July 26, 2008 at 12:48 pm
rayinaus
koyaan wrote:
Techdude supposedly has physical documents.
How ’bout someone ask him what the actual dimensions are?
He seems to have gone into hiding after the facts from the old newspaper came out.
Does anyone here know anyone in the witness protection program who can ask him?
Ray
July 26, 2008 at 12:49 pm
rayinaus
Texasdarlin has original documents. Could someone who is not banned ask her?
July 26, 2008 at 5:46 pm
elliewyatt
Ray~
I think I’m confused.
You want and trust information from someone you regard as and called a “racist bigot”?
July 26, 2008 at 7:24 pm
polarik
There is nothing wrong with Michele’s original COLB images I have five of them, three at 5100 x 6600 @ 600 DPI, or twice as large as the FactCheck image, which is the same image as the Kos image.
There’s nothing wrong with the aspect ratio of Michele’s COLB, either. To say I messed with it is the height of hubris.
There is, however, something seriously wrong with using the Kos image as the benchmark — an obviously altered image — against which to compare actual,genuine, and true reproductions of the original COLB paper document.
What’s wrong, Koyaan, is that the width of the borders on the Kos image vary all the way around it. They are not equal. Go ahead and measure them.
Studying the borders is rather meaningless, IMHO. I don’t care if the borders had flowers and polka dots on them. The real forgery is in the text of the Kos image — it is not at all like what the original
text was like.
Critics like AJ, Ray, and yourself have been asking me to prove that the Kos image is a fake, while, at the same time, clamoring for me and Techdude to make a Kos clone, to demonstrate how it was made.
At least your trying to use images. Your fellow fetractors, like Ray and AJ, think that their “thought exercises” and “verbal critiques” puts them on a par with his direct, concrete, and visually evident, which are proofs to support Tech Dude’s theories.
How utterly ridiculous is that!
Meanwhile, all that the detractors know how to do is talk smak, They have never provided no visual evidence, no Kos-like images, nothing whatsoever resembling an honest, genuine line of inquiry.
There has never been ONE SINGLE IMAGE that looks like the Kos image, either real or created, that has the same anomalies as the Kos — anomalies that allegedly can be concretely demonstrated as only the natural results of a scanner, and/or of mucklng around with its settings, and/or a laswer printer running out of toner, and/or changing the image size, and/or changing the compression ratio, and/or any number of similar unsubstantiated issues raised by anyone whose blind faith is the only thing that underlies the notion that the Kos a direct and true copy of OBama’s paper COLB.
Weak, weak,very weak.
Well, I have created the Kos clone. I, and nobody else. I did what you asked of me, I know how the Kos was made.
I’ve been saying that the text on the Kos image was altered more than a month ago. nothing’s changed since theren
So, here we are, more than a month later, and detractors are still saying the same non sequiturs, the same empty invectives, the same ad hominem arguments, the same, “What if,” games, and the same, hypothetical reasons for why the Kos image is not for a forgery.
And, it proves “Squat.”
Even more galling is their call for “peer review” of TechDude’s results, and mine.
Are you freakin’ kidding me?
Asking us to have our research, peer-reviewed, when you guys cannot even produce a single visual image that demonstrated why the Kos image looks the way it does.
Not one viable, concrete example of their suppositions.
None. Nada. Zip.
Now, it’s your turn to either find an image like the Kos image, or to make one using only your stated intervening variables that you claim happened naturally and normally.
More than a month ago, I stated, categorically, that the text on the Kos COLB had been altered, using image editing software, AFTER the image had already been been scanned. I never varied from my assertion.
What the hell have you done?
Now that I made a Kos clone, the comebacks I get are stuff like “your research is a piece of sh*t,” and “you didn’t prove anything,” and more of the old, “Well, it could have been made this way.”
Nah, that crap doesn’t cut it. Show me a single, solitary image that looks like the Kos image that is a real. true copy of a COLB.
Mine is there for all the world to see.
Michele’s COLB (my copywrited acronym, BTW) has none of the distinguishing textual features found on the Kos COLB.
Why? Because the Kos is a fake, always has been a fake, and there’s no evidence to prove it is real.
Meanwhile, there’s lots of evidence against it being real, and trying to denigrate the negative research does nothing to validate it.
What, in the history of Science was ever proven solely by discounting another’s theory?
So, I now draw a line in the sand, and say, “it’s your turn to produce a Kos clone and tell us how it was done naturally. It’s your turn to provide the visual evidence. It’s your turn to take the heat.
Good luck.
July 26, 2008 at 7:32 pm
koyaan
I’ll get to the rest later this evening. But for now…
Michele’s COLB (my copywrited acronym, BTW)
Um, sorry, but you can’t copyright an acronym. And it’s copyright, by the way, and not copywrite.
se
July 26, 2008 at 8:03 pm
elliewyatt
Thanks, se, for saving me the trouble. I used to write extensively on copyright law.
July 26, 2008 at 8:23 pm
koyaan
Oops. Meant “k.” ;)
k
July 26, 2008 at 9:10 pm
elliewyatt
O.K., k!
July 26, 2008 at 9:18 pm
koyaan
polarik
There is, however, something seriously wrong with using the Kos image as the benchmark — an obviously altered image — against which to compare actual,genuine, and true reproductions of the original COLB paper document.
What’s wrong, Koyaan, is that the width of the borders on the Kos image vary all the way around it. They are not equal. Go ahead and measure them.
That’s not quite true.
The left and right vertical borders are the same width. The bottom horizontal border is a bit wider than the vertical borders. And the top horizontal border is a bit wider still.
However, if that’s what’s “wrong” with the Kos image, then the Michele image is just as “wrong” because the exact same thing holds true for it. Go ahead and measure them. Same thing. Vertical borders are the same width. Bottom horizontal border is wider than the vertical borders, and the top horizontal border is wider still.
Nah, that crap doesn’t cut it. Show me a single, solitary image that looks like the Kos image that is a real. true copy of a COLB.
Send me a real true COLB.
k
July 26, 2008 at 9:22 pm
koyaan
Thanks, se, for saving me the trouble. I used to write extensively on copyright law.
No problem.
Pretty silly wanting to copyright “COLB” in the first place. But then did you see Polarik’s little temper tantrum on his blog? Whining and crying because techdude stole his thunder?
Pretty sad.
Makes you wonder what his motives are.
k
July 26, 2008 at 9:29 pm
elliewyatt
I gotta say, the work by Polarik and techdude is compelling and persuasive, and none of the competing views have been, quite yet.
I have seen the empty “what if” arguments and moving of the goal posts, and on the otherhand, real work and honest admissions where someone felt they’d been incorrect.
I stick around and read and follow because there is some honest, open-minded searching by some here, but there is also some completely closed-minded, defensive nonsensical babbling bullshit by some(one).
Thank you for this blog, k.
July 26, 2008 at 9:40 pm
elliewyatt
I think Polarik harms his credibility and/or reputation with his “tantrums” and rants and focus on receiving credit or aknowlegement.
I can sorta understand his feelings, but he comes off like a crackpot, and it diminishes his work and efforts.
Kinda like the fact that I am the most stunningly beautiful person in the world, but I really don’t have to mention it or brag about it, because anyone seeing me will know.
July 27, 2008 at 1:21 am
rayinaus
Polarik wrote:
“Well, I have created the Kos clone. I, and nobody else. I did what you asked of me, I know how the Kos was made.”
You have created nothing new at all. If you want to create something, use ENTIRELY new text so that the artifact-effect can be seen.
July 27, 2008 at 1:35 am
rayinaus
Polarik wrote:
“Meanwhile, there’s lots of evidence against it being real, and trying to denigrate the negative research does nothing to validate it.”
All of the evidence we have points to the Obama COLB as being real – over and over and over again. Speculation by Photoshoppers is not “evidence”.
July 27, 2008 at 2:28 am
rayinaus
elliewyatt wrote:
Ray~
I think I’m confused.
You want and trust information from someone you regard as and called a “racist bigot”?
I can certainly understand your confusion because it’s quite common for the average person not to trust them as far as they can see them, so I’ll explain it.
Racists and bigots, because of their faulty brain wiring, are notorious for pre-judging stuff when they have not been exposed to the facts or (more commonly) had them forced upon them, but they’re fine with numbers because they are processed in a different part of the brain altogether – so even though Texasdarlin is a disgusting racist AND bigot, she can still be relied upon to tell the truth about numbers she ses on a ruler – even though it would almost certainly hurt her addled brain if she sensed that it could somehow assist the groups she hates so feverishly.
If you’d like to obtain the dimensions of the COLB’s from her, I’d suggest that if you have any compassion and don’t want her brain to hurt, that you just lie to her about the reason for your inquiry. I’d also suggest that you make it quick because she will be peed-off if she is distracted for too long from her mad quest to stir up hatred against people of other cultures and religions.
Ray
July 27, 2008 at 6:13 am
rayinaus
Polarik wrote:
“Critics like AJ, Ray, and yourself have been asking me to prove that the Kos image is a fake, while, at the same time, clamoring for me and Techdude to make a Kos clone, to demonstrate how it was made.”
No, you got that wrong too. There was no ‘clamoring’, but there was a sedate challenge. I knew in advance that both you and Techdude didn’t have a hope in hell of doing it with DIFFERENT text without it being easily detected.
July 27, 2008 at 9:07 am
rayinaus
For anyone who has stopped following the expert, Dr. Neal Krawetz’s blog, there’s a few recent additions there:
http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/202-The-Birth-of-a-Conspiracy.html&serendipity%5Bcsuccess%5D=true#feedback
July 27, 2008 at 9:34 am
elliewyatt
“DIFFERENT” as in different font and different text?
July 27, 2008 at 9:40 am
rayinaus
All of the text needs to be different so that there is no possibility of using any existing text in the experiment. This would obviously mean changing words like African to something else.
July 27, 2008 at 10:26 am
koyaan
I gotta say, the work by Polarik and techdude is compelling and persuasive, and none of the competing views have been, quite yet.
Can’t say I found anything compelling or persuasive from Polarik.
Pretty much his whole argument was the lack of “green stuff” between the letters. But as I pointed out over on TexasDarlin, if you use the FactCheck image instead of the cropped Kos image, and account for the fact that the brightness/contrast is different between the Obama and Michele image (which changes just how “green” the overall background is), then there doesn’t really appear to be any unusual lack of “green stuff” between the letters in the Obama image.
birthcompare.jpg
As for techdude, I think his analysis was quite a stretch in some respects. I mean, a couple of smudges is made out to be the remains of the original printed border, and a claim that the crosshatch border pattern is tiled while providing absolutely ZERO evidence.
However there were two interesting things which came of it. One is that it provided (assuming of course they were genuine) a look at borders from COLBs which were issued not long before and after Obama’s. And the other is the font issue.
Thank you for this blog, k.
You’re welcome.
k
July 27, 2008 at 10:54 am
elliewyatt
I find that the large ‘A’ in “7:25AM” on Polarik’s “forgery matches NONE of the other ‘A’s on that image, but all of the others match one another.
I find that the large ‘M’ in “7:25AM” on Polarik’s “forgery matches NONE of the other ‘M’s on that image, but all of the others match one another.
He claims to have replaced ALL of the text on the document, but clearly did not.
July 27, 2008 at 11:12 am
rayinaus
Besides that, the 7:25 AM is in a different colour.
I’ll knock up an image now to demonstrate it.
July 27, 2008 at 11:56 am
rayinaus
This image shows Polarik’s copy/paste from a darker COLB, which is easy to see.
July 27, 2008 at 11:59 am
elliewyatt
Ray~
Wow. I see it. ALL text on the supposed Polarik forgery are rainbow colored, EXCEPT the 7:25AM.
WTF?!
July 27, 2008 at 12:29 pm
koyaan
Wanna have some fun? Check this out. ;)
obamabc.jpg
k
July 27, 2008 at 12:41 pm
rayinaus
That would be a definite forgery because it has the course stepping on the font curves.
July 27, 2008 at 12:45 pm
rayinaus
Three of my messages with links have not arrived here.
July 27, 2008 at 12:45 pm
rayinaus
July 27, 2008 at 12:51 pm
rayinaus
My last JPG (for the different colour of 7:25 AM) can be found at Photobucket.
The URL for my Photobucket is in the “composite” JPG link above.
Just chop the end off the link to get in
July 27, 2008 at 12:59 pm
rayinaus
Ignore above post. Link has arrived above it.
July 27, 2008 at 1:02 pm
rayinaus
In the 7:25 AM, the 7 and 2 are in a different font and the colon may be as well.
July 27, 2008 at 1:03 pm
koyaan
Three of my messages with links have not arrived here.
Seems four of your comments got tagged as spam.
k
July 27, 2008 at 1:08 pm
rayinaus
One was a link to Dr. Neal Krawetz’s blog and the others were the link I just posted
July 27, 2008 at 1:18 pm
rayinaus
The koyaan fake is also square instead of being crooked.
July 27, 2008 at 1:28 pm
koyaan
One was a link to Dr. Neal Krawetz’s blog and the others were the link I just posted
I de-spammed all the comments that were tagged as spam. Anything else that didn’t get through I can’t help with.
k
July 27, 2008 at 1:39 pm
rayinaus
The koyan fake also needs rotating and is too deep
July 27, 2008 at 1:42 pm
koyaan
That would be a definite forgery because it has the course stepping on the font curves.
What are you talking about? They all have course stepping on the font curves. That’s because they’re all bitmap images.
k
July 27, 2008 at 1:49 pm
koyaan
I think you’re being a little too anal here, Ray.
I said “Want to have some fun?”
The “paper” is from the Obama image. The border and all of the text were created from the ground up. The border is patterned after the Michele border and the text positioning is the same as in the Michele image, but the information is Obama’s.
It was never intended to be something to be passed off as a fake.
k
July 27, 2008 at 2:06 pm
rayinaus
What are you talking about? They all have course stepping on the font curves. That’s because they’re all bitmap images.
That’s probably what Polarik thinks too, and why he reckons it’s possible to forge convincing alterations with a graphics program.
In reality, the image that the Hawaii Health Dept PC sends to the laser printer is always an absoutely perfect image that could be printed on an image setter at 4,000 dpi if required – which is 44 times as sharp as a 600 dpi laser printer (16 million dots instead of 360,000 dots in each square inch).
When the laser printer in Hawaii receives that perfect image it drops it back in quality (according to it’s resolution) to give courser stepping on the curves than would exist on an imagesetter but vastly better than what you see on a monitor in Photoshop.
If the Hawaii Health Depr sent the image to an imagesetter and you viewed the resulting negarive , you would need a very powerful magnifying glass (about 20 or 32 power) to see the bitmapping.
What you see in Photoshop is actually FAKE. If the same image is viewed in a proper typesetting program like Quark XPress you don’t see any stepping beyond that which your monitor creates.
July 27, 2008 at 2:08 pm
rayinaus
“It was never intended to be something to be passed off as a fake.”
Yeah I know. I’m just proceeding as if it was, to show how easily fakes can be uncovered.
July 27, 2008 at 3:17 pm
koyaan
Yeah I know. I’m just proceeding as if it was, to show how easily fakes can be uncovered.
You’re proceeding with something which was never intended to be passed off as a fake in order to show how easily fakes can be uncovered?
I’m sorry, but that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
k
July 27, 2008 at 3:20 pm
rayinaus
What did you expect us to do with your image?
July 27, 2008 at 3:21 pm
koyaan
That’s probably what Polarik thinks too, and why he reckons it’s possible to forge convincing alterations with a graphics program.
…
What you see in Photoshop is actually FAKE. If the same image is viewed in a proper typesetting program like Quark XPress you don’t see any stepping beyond that which your monitor creates.
Essentially what you’re saying is that in the graphics program, the text is in “perfect” vector form, and not bitmap form as it is once it’s printed.
k
July 27, 2008 at 3:30 pm
rayinaus
SAMPLETXT.gif
July 27, 2008 at 3:31 pm
rayinaus
The link worked with brackets but not with “”
July 27, 2008 at 3:32 pm
rayinaus
The above message didn’t show what was between the quotes at the end of the line (the arrow symbols)
July 27, 2008 at 3:40 pm
rayinaus
koyaan wrote:
[Ray]: What you see in Photoshop is actually FAKE. If the same image is viewed in a proper typesetting program like Quark XPress you don’t see any stepping beyond that which your monitor creates.
Essentially what you’re saying is that in the graphics program, the text is in “perfect” vector form, and not bitmap form as it is once it’s printed.
No, it’s not that. could have worded it a lot better.
Hawaii Health is not
USING Photoshop or anything like it.
It uses a word processing program with
vector images (normal fonts) for the text
so that the operator can type normally.
July 27, 2008 at 3:50 pm
koyaan
Ok Ray, here ya go.
One step closer to actually intending to be fake.
obamabcfake.jpg
k
July 27, 2008 at 3:52 pm
rayinaus
koyaan wrote:
“Essentially what you’re saying is that in the graphics program, the text is in “perfect” vector form, and not bitmap form as it is once it’s printed.”
There’s 2 ways to set type on top of a Photoshop image:
(1) Import the image into a typesetting or word processing program and then use normal fonts for a perfect job.
(2) Use bitmapped type for 3rd rate internet images.
July 27, 2008 at 3:54 pm
rayinaus
The above URL didn’t work
July 27, 2008 at 3:57 pm
koyaan
The above URL didn’t work
URL’s fine. I forgot to upload the image. ;)
It’s there now.
k
July 27, 2008 at 3:59 pm
rayinaus
Now we need to see some different text.
July 27, 2008 at 4:02 pm
koyaan
Now we need to see some different text.
What do you mean by “different” text?
k
July 27, 2008 at 4:11 pm
rayinaus
I answered taht earlier.
It’s no good copy/pasting stuff that is already close to being right. All the text needs to be different so we can see what sort of a job a forger could do.
Try George W Bush
Different date and time
Different race – say Chinese
July 27, 2008 at 4:16 pm
koyaan
I answered taht earlier.
It’s no good copy/pasting stuff that is already close to being right. All the text needs to be different so we can see what sort of a job a forger could do.
Try George W Bush
Different date and time
Different race – say Chinese
Same font or different font?
k
July 27, 2008 at 4:19 pm
rayinaus
The same font.
I can assure you that a convincing result cannot be obtained on a PC
July 27, 2008 at 4:21 pm
rayinaus
CAPS as in the COLB’s – not in u/lower case
July 27, 2008 at 4:26 pm
koyaan
Ok. Dinner time right now. I’ll post shortly.
k
July 27, 2008 at 5:40 pm
rayinaus
ok
July 27, 2008 at 5:49 pm
koyaan
Mmmm! Nothing like a BLT made with fresh, ripe, homegrown tomatoes! ;)
Anyway, I just realized after the fact that I forgot to make him Chinese. Ah well. This should still more than suffice.
bushbcfake.jpg
k
July 27, 2008 at 8:40 pm
elliewyatt
k~
Replace the lettuce with fresh basil leaves.
BBT.
July 27, 2008 at 11:16 pm
koyaan
Replace the lettuce with fresh basil leaves.
BBT.
Heheh. Thanks for the tip.
But for me, BLTs are largely nostalgia. They take me back to a little coffee shop in downtown Reno where my mother and grandmother used to when they’d go shopping when I was a kid. Anything other than plain ol’ iceberg lettuce and well, it just ain’t the same. ;)
k
July 28, 2008 at 5:59 am
elliewyatt
Iceburg!!??? Now you’ve really blown it.
Wonderbread?
July 28, 2008 at 6:01 am
elliewyatt
The Bush cert is a kick. Should have made the time 27:64.
July 28, 2008 at 6:07 am
elliewyatt
OK, now ya got me goin’. Tomorrow for dinner I’ll make BBTs with San Francisco sourdough, tomatoes, bacon, fresh basil and a sprinkle of gorganzola.
Bad thing is, I aint got me no home grown tomattas.
True, though, the BLTs are a childhood memory.
Toasted or not toasted?
July 28, 2008 at 7:43 am
koyaan
Iceburg!!??? Now you’ve really blown it.
Sorry ’bout that. :(
Wonderbread?
Actually, no. Wheat bread. Not going to buy a whole loaf of white bread just for a couple BLTs. :)
k
July 28, 2008 at 7:46 am
koyaan
The Bush cert is a kick. Should have made the time 27:64.
Hehehe. Yeah. 27:64 PM. ;)
Glad you like it.
Wonder what’s happened to Ray though?
k
July 28, 2008 at 7:52 am
koyaan
OK, now ya got me goin’. Tomorrow for dinner I’ll make BBTs with San Francisco sourdough, tomatoes, bacon, fresh basil and a sprinkle of gorganzola.
“A sprinkle of gorganzola”? What, are you actually IN San Francisco? ;)
Bad thing is, I aint got me no home grown tomattas.
Bummer. I have some promised to two other people at the moment. Where ’bouts are you geographically? I get Priority Mail delivered in 1-2 days to most places. I could send you some after I take care of the other two.
Toasted or not toasted?
Why, toasted of course. ;)
k
July 28, 2008 at 8:54 am
elliewyatt
K said:
”What, are you actually IN San Francisco? ;)”
Even WORSE! I am in ‘The Wine Country’, Sonoma/Napa north of SF.
July 28, 2008 at 8:56 am
elliewyatt
“Wheat bread”? You some kinda hippy?
July 28, 2008 at 9:00 am
elliewyatt
… or is it spelled ‘hippie’? I wouldn’t know. Grew up in Berkeley a teen in the 60s. I forget.
July 28, 2008 at 9:21 am
koyaan
Even WORSE! I am in ‘The Wine Country’, Sonoma/Napa north of SF.
Oh dear. Well, could be worse yet. You could still be living in Berzerkeley. ;)
“Wheat bread”? You some kinda hippy?
Nah. I only eat big corporate wheat bread. Earthgrains. ;)
… or is it spelled ‘hippie’? I wouldn’t know. Grew up in Berkeley a teen in the 60s. I forget.
Cool! So like, if I turned on a strobe and made weird hand motions in front of your face, am I likely to induce flashbacks? ;)
And it is indeed “hippie.”
k
July 28, 2008 at 9:29 am
koyaan
Wonder what’s up with Ray? Think he’s gone walkabout?
k
July 28, 2008 at 9:35 am
rayinaus
No, I had to dive out and then have a sleep. Back sooon.
July 28, 2008 at 9:42 am
koyaan
No, I had to dive out and then have a sleep. Back sooon.
Excuses, excuses… ;)
k
July 28, 2008 at 10:45 am
elliewyatt
“sleep”? Sleep is for hippies.
Actually, I now live in the mountains of red Arizona. I am just here visiting my husband for awhile. It’s sorta an old hippie kinda thing- to visit yer husband.
K, I symapthyse with you. Looks like you can’t get any bonafide real-life sourdough. I can’t get it up in them landlocked, inland mountains, but I am gonna get me some today while I’m here.
July 28, 2008 at 10:47 am
elliewyatt
… and gorganzola.
July 28, 2008 at 10:48 am
elliewyatt
No herbs though. Except for fresh basil.
July 28, 2008 at 8:14 pm
rayinaus
A few things that point to the Bush “COLB” being a fake:
(1) It doesn’t line up with the Michele version.
(2) The word Caucasian way too long in one instance.
(3) The fake text is washed out from an attempt to mask
it as computer generated text.
[http://i355.photobucket.com/albums/r478/RayAus/bushbcfakewashedout.gif]
July 28, 2008 at 8:15 pm
rayinaus
July 28, 2008 at 8:17 pm
rayinaus
Message with the above link for Photobucket didn’t come though again.
July 28, 2008 at 9:17 pm
koyaan
Actually, I now live in the mountains of red Arizona. I am just here visiting my husband for awhile. It’s sorta an old hippie kinda thing- to visit yer husband.
I didn’t think hippies got married. You know, free love and all that. ;)
K, I symapthyse with you. Looks like you can’t get any bonafide real-life sourdough. I can’t get it up in them landlocked, inland mountains, but I am gonna get me some today while I’m here.
Oh I can get bona fide, real life sourdough. I just don’t use it for BLTs. ;)
k
July 28, 2008 at 9:36 pm
koyaan
A few things that point to the Bush “COLB” being a fake:
Ok.
(1) It doesn’t line up with the Michele version.
Doesn’t line up in what respect?
And why would two images necessarily line up perfectly if they were printed at different times and scanned by two different people using two different scanners?
(2) The word Caucasian way too long in one instance.
Yeah, don’t know how that happened.
(3) The fake text is washed out from an attempt to mask
it as computer generated text.
Oh. Shit. I uploaded the wrong image. That was the first one I’d done and then I did a second which is what I meant to upload.
Here’s the one I meant to upload.
bushbcfake2.jpg
k
July 28, 2008 at 9:38 pm
koyaan
Message with the above link for Photobucket didn’t come though again.
That’s because it gets tagged as spam.
Next time, just send the message just the straight URL and then EMail me. I’ll remove it from the spam filter.
k
July 28, 2008 at 10:09 pm
elliewyatt
k~ Where did you get the state seal at the top of your fake? I don’t recall having seen such a high-quality one before.
July 28, 2008 at 11:18 pm
koyaan
k~ Where did you get the state seal at the top of your fake? I don’t recall having seen such a high-quality one before.
Simple. Just did a Google image search on “hawaii state seal” and found a nice 386 x 382 pixel GIF on some University of Hawaii website. ;)
Here ya go: seal.gif
k
July 29, 2008 at 12:34 am
rayinaus
koyaan wrote:
[….]
(1) It doesn’t line up with the Michele version.
Doesn’t line up in what respect?
If you line up “State” id wanders in and out of alignment with the Michele text. It’s the same of course if you line up with ‘Child’s’
And why would two images necessarily line up perfectly if they were printed at different times and scanned by two different people using two different scanners?
They wouldn’t be expected to line up perfectly – as we noticed the other day when the KOS text was view at 101% we got a slight stretch of about 0.2%, but the difference in thid Bush fake is a LOT more than that. For example when we look at the ‘stretch’ from “State of Hawaii” to “Child’s” where we get a 5 or 6 extra pixels drop, that’s six times as much ‘stretch’ — 1.2% compared to 0.2%.
(2) The word Caucasian way too long in one instance.
Yeah, don’t know how that happened.
Eleven pixels
(3) The fake text is washed out from an attempt to mask
it as computer generated text.
Oh. Shit. I uploaded the wrong image. That was the first one I’d done and then I did a second which is what I meant to upload.
Here’s the one I meant to upload.
bushbcfake2.jpg
You’ve thickened the image by making it blacker PLUS highlighted something I wasn’t going to mention until I did that myself (check the artifacts for continuity by making them more visible).
When a real COLB is scanned we get JPEG artifacts for a reasonably even (and large) distance from the text, but in the Bush fake there are normal looking wide ‘halo’s’ AND narrow halo’s for the altered text. There are also artifact “fields” completely missing – where you have pasted background ‘panels’ over the top of them.
I got the Photoshop pencil out and ran red lines on the perimeter of each JPEG ‘halo’ but where the halo was missing I used the blue pen. There’s also some suspicious looking ‘panels’ of the green/white background in those places and teh artifacts are all (or nearly ) cut off dead straight.
July 29, 2008 at 12:44 am
rayinaus
Some URL’s
Dr. Neal Krawetz [Real Expert]
[http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/202-The-Birth-of-a-Conspiracy.html&serendipity[csuccess]=true#feedback]
[JPG Error Analyser]]
[http://www.tinyappz.com/wiki/Error_Level_Analyser]
Can anyone here get the above anlayser program working on Windows?
It won’t work on my PC’s.
July 29, 2008 at 9:37 am
koyaan
They wouldn’t be expected to line up perfectly – as we noticed the other day when the KOS text was view at 101% we got a slight stretch of about 0.2%, but the difference in thid Bush fake is a LOT more than that. For example when we look at the ’stretch’ from “State of Hawaii” to “Child’s” where we get a 5 or 6 extra pixels drop, that’s six times as much ’stretch’ — 1.2% compared to 0.2%.
But what’s the stretch if you don’t increase the KOS image to 101%?
Eleven pixels
Yes. Weird. Because if I just bang out “CAUCASIAN” and scale it, it fits just fine on the Michele image. So I don’t know how that instance of “CAUCASIAN” got wanked like that.
You’ve thickened the image by making it blacker PLUS highlighted something I wasn’t going to mention until I did that myself (check the artifacts for continuity by making them more visible).
When a real COLB is scanned we get JPEG artifacts for a reasonably even (and large) distance from the text, but in the Bush fake there are normal looking wide ‘halo’s’ AND narrow halo’s for the altered text. There are also artifact “fields” completely missing – where you have pasted background ‘panels’ over the top of them.
This seems to be where your analysis has led you to an incorrect conclusion.
Nothing was pasted over any text. All of the text, as well as the border were created from the ground up. The only thing that came from any of the images is the “paper” which is from the uncropped FactCheck Obama image.
Here’s how I did the fakes.
I took a good size horizontal section of the background from the Obama image up above the printed area and just copied it five times from top to bottom to create a full blank page of the background pattern.
The basic border (i.e. just the lines portion of it) was made to scale in AutoCAD. That was then imported into Xara Xtreme Pro where I had the “blank” page ready to go. Then I pulled in the Michele image and using it as a guide, set the line widths and added the “CERTIFICATION OF LIVE BIRTH” and “ANY ALTERATIONS…” portions at the top and bottom of the border. I also recreated all of the non specific text, such as “CHILD’S NAME,” “DATE OF BIRTH,” etc. This was done one letter at a time, aligning each letter to each letter in the Michele image.
Then I found the GIF of the Hawaii state seal I’d mentioned above, scaled it, and plunked it down where it was supposed to go.
That left me with a bank, vector-based (except for the seal GIF) template to add whatever other text I wanted, such as the text for the first Obama fake and the subsequent Bush fake.
When you said that the first fake was too straight, I laser printed the filled-in template on plain white paper and then scanned it. I saved it out as a GIF file so I could have a transparent background. Then I laid the GIF image on top of the “blank” certificate page and exported it as the JPEG image I posted here.
So the “stretch” between “STATE OF HAWAII” and “CHILD’S NAME” changed due to printing and scanning. Because in the original template, “STATE OF HAWAII” and “CHILD’S NAME” were in perfect alignment.
k
July 29, 2008 at 1:29 pm
elliewyatt
Well, I think the G W Bush certificate is real, anyway. The Hawaii Stae Seal at the top pretty much proves it.
July 29, 2008 at 1:38 pm
elliewyatt
koyaan said:
“I didn’t think hippies got married.’
Of course they do. How else is one to collect the support checks for the goats and chickens if the relationship breaks up?
“free love”? Ya well, after ten years of free, we got married. Then it was “pay and pay and pay and pay and pay”, according to him.
July 29, 2008 at 1:41 pm
elliewyatt
k~
Why didn’t you print the green pattern on paper, then scan, then print text onto the green background paper, then scan it as a whole green/black paper?
July 29, 2008 at 1:43 pm
elliewyatt
I mean~
Why didn’t you print the green pattern on paper, then print text onto the green background paper, then scan it as a whole green/black paper?
July 29, 2008 at 5:00 pm
rayinaus
The green & yellow background cannot be copied onto paper via scanning and a digital printer without it being easily detected (if not completely screwed up).
It would even be very difficult to reproduce the background accurately with the proper equipment – a process camera and a good offset press.
July 29, 2008 at 5:25 pm
rayinaus
koyaan wrote:
“But what’s the stretch if you don’t increase the KOS image to 101%?”
Virtually the same. About 99% of 1.200% = 1.188%
This demonstrates that the 0.2% sideways error that I saw in the laser printing of the Obama certificate was probably well with the normal tolerances because your system gave 6 times as much error (in percentage terms) in a much smaller space.
July 29, 2008 at 5:34 pm
rayinaus
koyaan wrote:
“I took a good size horizontal section of the background from the Obama image up above the printed area and just copied it five times from top to bottom to create a full blank page of the background pattern.”
Yes, I noticed that a repeating pattern was visible when the contrast was increased dramatically. It’s not identical repeating pattern, but it’s certainly enough to ask why a normal looking variation wasn’t there. It’s not the sort of ‘uneven inking’ that can occur in either offset printing of the original background or with laser printers copying it, because the circumference of the rollers involved is larger than the repeating pattern.
July 29, 2008 at 6:28 pm
rayinaus
koyaan wrote:
“When you said that the first fake was too straight, I laser printed the filled-in template on plain white paper and then scanned it. I saved it out as a GIF file so I could have a transparent background. Then I laid the GIF image on top of the “blank” certificate page and exported it as the JPEG image I posted here.”
Ok, so after you had almost completed the job on the PC (without the background and logo) you laser printed it and then scanned it and then added the logo and background.
Well like I said, a good forgery cannot be done on a PC. The laser printing gave you the distortion of the text that a PC cannot. You had vector based fonts (instead of Photoshop bitmapped fonts) which were then adequately mangled in the laser printer to look like Obama’s fonts. In effect you were more or less reproducing the steps involved for making a real COLB.
I looked at the job as if you were doing it:
(a) All on a PC
(b) Without vector fonts
and not with sophisticated Cad software; a scanner and a laser printer.
In any case it didn’t pass as a real COLB because of:
(1) More wandering of the text from proper vertical positioning than Hawaii certificates are known to have.
(2) Text too light on first try and too thick on the second.
(3) Obvious difference in logo
(4) Probable difference in border (which was known to be false).
(5) Peculiar JPG artifacts that arose from combining scanned black text with a coloured background, which is not the same as when scanning text ON the background.
(6) Repeating background pattern not accounted for.
It would be interesting to see what a ‘heat map’ would reveal.
[http://www.tinyappz.com/wiki/Error_Level_Analyser]
July 29, 2008 at 9:33 pm
koyaan
elliewyatt
Why didn’t you print the green pattern on paper, then print text onto the green background paper, then scan it as a whole green/black paper?
I did.
Printed it looked like crap. Scanned it looked even worse. ;)
k
July 29, 2008 at 9:37 pm
koyaan
rayinaus
Yes, I noticed that a repeating pattern was visible when the contrast was increased dramatically. It’s not identical repeating pattern, but it’s certainly enough to ask why a normal looking variation wasn’t there. It’s not the sort of ‘uneven inking’ that can occur in either offset printing of the original background or with laser printers copying it, because the circumference of the rollers involved is larger than the repeating pattern.
Well, keep in mind that I never intended to try and produce something that would pass close scrutiny. Just something that if Janice Okubo took a look at it would say “Oh yeah, looks just like mine.” ;)
k
July 29, 2008 at 10:26 pm
rayinaus
Yes, Janice Okubo’s comparison of the Obama COLB with her own copy from 2007 merely suggests that she was looking at a certificate with the finer cross-hatched border. Her other statement confirmed that it was actually identical – and therefore DID have the finer cross-hatching which people are still arguing about unnecessarily.
There was also something mentioned by either Factcheck or Politifact about someone saying that Obama’s COLB image was “a valid Hawaii COLB”. If that was actually said, then it means someone had checked the records. It is of course not revealing any private information for an official to say that a (facsimile of) a document represents a genuine record.
July 29, 2008 at 11:15 pm
koyaan
rayinaus
Yes, Janice Okubo’s comparison of the Obama COLB with her own copy from 2007 merely suggests that she was looking at a certificate with the finer cross-hatched border. Her other statement confirmed that it was actually identical – and therefore DID have the finer cross-hatching which people are still arguing about unnecessarily.
Again, “identical” was NOT any sort of direct quote from Okubo.
There was also something mentioned by either Factcheck or Politifact about someone saying that Obama’s COLB image was “a valid Hawaii COLB”. If that was actually said, then it means someone had checked the records.
Show me the original source for that statement.
k
July 29, 2008 at 11:25 pm
rayinaus
koyaan wrote:
“Again, “identical” was NOT any sort of direct quote from Okubo.”
Her words were something like “exactly the same” when she referred to another Hawaii Health Dept person checking the Obama image against their own version.
The journalists’ words were “It’s identical” when she did he own comparison with a staff member’s 2007 certificate.
Show me the original source for that statement.
I’ve already done posted the links several times. Posting them repeatedly will do no good.
July 29, 2008 at 11:41 pm
koyaan
Just as an amusing anecdote, I do have some past experience altering birth certificates. Or rather, certificate.
Back when I was 15, my mother was going through some stuff and came across my original birth certificate. And by original I mean it was the actual typewritten certificate.
I later managed to liberate it. I carefully erased two iterations of “60” and using a very sharp pencil, changed them to very convincing 54’s, effectively making me 21 years old.
Then I somewhat nervously took it down to the local California DMV office and used it to apply for an ID card.
All went well and a few weeks later the ID card arrived in the mail.
Needless to say I became the most popular 15 year old at school. ;)
I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 18 and I was living in Nevada at the time. I used a copy of my birth certificate to get it with my proper birth year.
But I later moved back to California and my Nevada license expired (I was 21 by then).
What to do? California DMV still had me on record as being born in 1954.
I decided to take the direct approach.
I went down to DMV, handed the lady at the window my old ID card, told her what I’d done back when I was 15, and said I wanted to get a driver’s license with my real birth year on it.
She looked at me for a moment, raised her eyebrows, said “One moment,” went to the back, banged on a keyboard for a bit, came back and said “Ok, no problem.”
k
July 30, 2008 at 12:02 am
koyaan
Her words were something like “exactly the same” when she referred to another Hawaii Health Dept person checking the Obama image against their own version.
No, sorry, you have it wrong.
Okubo is not quoted saying any such thing. Here’s the relevant quote:
Okubo says she got a copy of her own birth certificate last year and it is identical to the Obama one we received.
Those are all the reporter’s words. No quote from Okubo.
Look, I’ve been interviewed by reporters and read what they subsequently wrote, and let me tell you, there can be some very stark differences between what was actually said and what they report you had said.
The journalists’ words were “It’s identical” when she did he own comparison with a staff member’s 2007 certificate.
Then let’s see that staff member’s 2007 certificate. So far none of the certificates that have popped up, including one issued just before Obama’s and one issued just after, have been “identical.”
By the way, I EMailed Amy Hollyfield back on the 17th, providing her with images of the Obama border and the Michele border, pointing out the differences between the two and asked her if her “newsroom colleague” could say whether her certificate was more identical to Obama’s or Michele’s.
I’ve yet to receive a reply.
k
July 30, 2008 at 1:08 am
rayinaus
[Politifact website];
“It’s a valid Hawaii state birth certificate,” spokesman Janice Okubo told us.
[Politifact]:
“We [….] had a newsroom colleague bring in her own Hawaii birth certificate to see if it looks the same (it’s identical).” [to Obama’s COLB]
——————————————————
[Politifact]:
Okubo says she got a copy of her own birth certificate last year and it is identical to the Obama one we received.
(This sentence indicates clearly that SOMEONE (almost certainly the person they were interviewing (Okubo) told them that was “identical”)
——————————————————
[Factcheck.org]: “Tommy Vietor at the Obama campaign sent a message to us and other reporters saying, “I know there have been some rumors spreading about Obama’s citizenship, so I wanted to make sure you all had a copy of his birth certificate.” A digital image was attached.”
——————————————————
[Official Obama ‘Smears’ website]:
“You can see Barack Obama’s birth certificate for yourself and help push back with the truth at:
http://my.barackobama.com/fightthesmears
——————————————————
[IsraelInsider]: (known liars about Obama)
“Jim Geraghty of The National Review Online, following up on this Israel Insider report, said he had contacted Okubo:
“I spoke to Ms. Okubo late Wednesday afternoon, and she said she had seen the version of Obama’s certificate of live birth posted on the sites. While her office cannot verify the information on a form without the permission of the certificate holder (Obama), she said “the form is EXACTLY THE SAME” and it has ‘ALL the components of a birth certificate’ record issued by the state”
——————————————————
[Israel Insider]: (known liars about Obama)
“the form is the same” is not contested, here or elsewhere.”
——————————————————
July 30, 2008 at 1:14 am
rayinaus
koyaan wrote:
By the way, I EMailed Amy Hollyfield back on the 17th, providing her with images of the Obama border and the Michele border, pointing out the differences between the two and asked her if her “newsroom colleague” could say whether her certificate was more identical to Obama’s or Michele’s.
I’ve yet to receive a reply.
You won’t get a reply either because it’s insulting to a journalist to imply that she is clueless about the meaning of the word “identical” at any time — let alone at a time when the utmost care was being taken regarding an alleged forgery.
July 30, 2008 at 1:27 am
rayinaus
koyaan wrote:
“I went down to DMV, handed the lady at the window my old ID card, told her what I’d done back when I was 15, and said I wanted to get a driver’s license with my real birth year on it.
She looked at me for a moment, raised her eyebrows, said “One moment,” went to the back, banged on a keyboard for a bit, came back and said “Ok, no problem.”
It would have just been another waste of the state’s resources to prosecute you for a false declaration that apparently had no major illegal intent behind it.
July 30, 2008 at 10:23 am
elliewyatt
Backing away from a quote attributed to her [Janice Okubo] that the image on the campaign site was “valid,” she told the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times in an article published yesterday: “I don’t know that it’s possible for us to even say beyond a doubt what the image on the site represents.”
Okubo can’t “even say beyond a doubt what the image on the site represents” because she is not allowed access to Barack Obama’s personal records. State law prohibits it.
http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/12944.htm
Janice Okubo is Director of Communications for the Department of Health. Does she have any experience or knowlege at all regarding how to determine a genuine COLB from a fake? Has she even seen any COLBs besides her own? Perhaps it looked “the same” to her, having a square border, name, birthdate, etc.
Okuba says, “When we looked at that image you guys sent us, our registrar, he thought he could see pieces of the embossed image through it.”
The registrar, presumably having more experience with COLBs made no pronouncement of it being genuine, only that he “thought he could see” invisible embossing.
In the end, the Hawaii Department of Health has NOT said that it is a legitimate COLB.
July 30, 2008 at 10:26 am
elliewyatt
se~
If you alter your BC again to show birth in 1968, will you be able to pick up more chicks?
July 30, 2008 at 9:14 pm
rayinaus
[Politifact website];
“It’s a valid Hawaii state birth certificate,” spokesman Janice Okubo told us.
July 31, 2008 at 12:51 am
rayinaus
[Politifact — (St.Petersburg Times, Florida)]
“It’s a valid Hawaii state birth certificate,” spokesman Janice Okubo said June 13, 2008, after we e-mailed her our copy.”
August 11, 2008 at 12:18 pm
polarik
Koyaan:
The reason the Kos COLB is screwed up and Michele is not is because the forger used PD’s COLB for the template.
You can get a copy of PD’s COLB on her daughter’s Valleehill Genealogy website. The “D” stands for “DeCosta.” Need any more hints?
OK, it should be patently obvious that this COLB document was scanned with the top off (or the top was flimsy) because the image shows the two dep folds in the document.
Those folds are key because they cause the height of the border to be shorter than it really is. With the height effectively short, we no longer have the same aspect ratio as every other COLB that has been scanned from a COLB document placed flat against the glass.
Someone created this animated GIF, who like youself, thought that the Kos image is genuine because PD’s COLB is genuine. This, they reasoned, is why the Kos image is genuine.
Here’ their GIF:
AH…not so fast, Grasshopper.
Look at it carefully and what do you see??
Remeber what I said about the COLB being scrunched together because of its two large folds as it sat against the scanner glass?
I said that it was these folds that made the height of the PD COLB image to come out a lot shorter than normal.
There is only one other COLB image with the same exact aspect ratio, the same exact border location, the exact border thickness, the same placement of the text, and the same location of the masthead.
Ecetera,
Ecetera .
That COLB is the Kos COLB image!!!
Screetch! That’s the sound of your theory making a panic stop.
The Kos COLB image looks like it was LAID FLAT AGAINST THE SCANNER GLASS.
The Kos COLB imag has only one, thin fold in it, so not only did it have less folds than the PD COLB, or any other COLB in existence, this fold had no effect on the scanning of the document.
I’ll say it again.
The Kos COLB image looks like it was LAID FLAT AGAINST THE SCANNER GLASS.
HOW DOES A COLB IMAGE THAT WAS ALLEGEDLY LAID FLAT AGAINST THE SCANNER GLASS PERFECTLY MATCH ONE THAT WAS RAISED OFF THE SCANNER GLASS?
HOW DOES A COLB IMAGE THAT HAS THE SAME ASPECT RATIO AS ONE WHOSE ASPECT RATIO WAS SEVERELY COMPROMISED BY THE FOLDSIN THE DOCUMENT?
AND, THE REASON WHY MICHELE’S COLB DOES NOT HAVE THE SAME ASPECT RATIO AS THE KOS COLB IMAGE, IS BECAUSE MICHELE’S COLB IS TOTALLY REAL, WHILE THE KOS COLB IS TOTALLY FORGED FROM PD’S COLB.
That’s it, Koyaan. There are no other explanations for why all of the printed elements on the Kos COLB totally match the same, printed elements on the PD COLB.
Unless you can also bend Space-Time, you have no other alternatives left, but the most parsimonious one — that the Kos COLB is a knock-off, a fake, a forgery, a fraudulent image.
BTW, as you may have gathered, I have a much different take than TechDude’s.