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2007-08-02 Home Front: WoT

Researcher's Analysis of al Qaeda Images Reveals Surprises

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Posted by Delphi 2007-08-02 11:03|| || Front Page|| [5 views ] Top
File under: al-Qaeda

#1 So he can spot photoshops. Big deal! Stupid nerd.

Posted by gromky 2007-08-02 14:45|| 2007-08-02 14:45|| Front Page Top

#2 why do you think it's stupid...
I would find a ghost image that could give clues to the original scene interesting.

Posted by 3dc 2007-08-02 14:51|| 2007-08-02 14:51|| Front Page Top

#3 The image shows al-Zawahiri sitting in front of a desk and banner with writing on it. But after conducting his error analysis Krawetz was able to determine that al-Zawahiri's image was superimposed in front of the background -- and was most likely videotaped in front of a black sheet.

Yawn. Took me about 30 seconds to see that they had superimposed Zawahiri in front of another backround. The one I saw had a fancy studio type backround, the light level and resolution on his face gave it away. Easy to do, you can buy the software anywhere and run it on a laptop. Course, I'm just an old AFRTS maintainer, not a security consulant. What do I know.

Posted by Steve 2007-08-02 15:48|| 2007-08-02 15:48|| Front Page Top

#4 Adam Gadahn photo added above for reference.

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2007-08-02 15:58|| 2007-08-02 15:58|| Front Page Top

#5 No goats?

Gotta have goats in the background...

Posted by john frum 2007-08-02 16:11|| 2007-08-02 16:11|| Front Page Top

#6 No goats?

The goats were photoshopped out so they wouldn't be recognized and stoned to death.

Posted by gorb 2007-08-02 17:22|| 2007-08-02 17:22|| Front Page Top

#7 ... al-Zawahiri's image was superimposed in front of the background -- and was most likely videotaped in front of a black sheet.

BO-RING. If they're going to all that trouble they should at least have him doing something cool like flying through the air on a magic carpet or such.

Posted by xbalanke 2007-08-02 17:59|| 2007-08-02 17:59|| Front Page Top

#8 2 reasons why this is of interest:

First, although humans can identify altered photos in some cases, it's valuable to have an automated tool that can do so against thousands or millions of images on the Web.

Second, we've got some decent AI tools to identify steganography (embedding messages within digital images by changing selected bits). This new tool might be helpful in identifying messages sent by a different way of modifying photos, i.e. those in which specific visual elements are added in order to send specific signals to jihadi groups. Again, an automated tool that might do this against large numbers of photos found online or on a computer we capture would be useful.

Posted by lotp 2007-08-02 21:23|| 2007-08-02 21:23|| Front Page Top

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