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Putin on the Ritz

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Re: Putin on the Ritz

#41

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

rmc wrote: post #34
TeMPOraL wrote: post #2

The main angle of the post (dressing exactly the same all the time) is a very interesting one, but the end points are somewhat scary. Think of it: if it's so easy to fake color photos so that people won't notice, isn't it easier to fake black&white photos? How do you know this is real: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Yalta_Con... ? I don't. If we routinely don't trust colour pictures in newspapers,…

We could rewrite the history for next generation and no one would likely notice it. Nearly all tellings of history have a bias, and people nearly always mistell history, espeically history about their tribe/country/ethnicity/country. This is nothing new.

They say history is written by the winners of wars.

Re: Putin on the Ritz

#42

Post by rmc »

jmnicolas wrote: post #31

What never cease to amaze me is how secret services around the globe waste so much time on trivial things like that. I read somewhere that the US president always traveled with its own toilets in fear of spies analyzing his "production" oO Meanwhile people are still dying of hunger ...

Some of these security reasons make sense. I've heard whenever a US embassy needs equipment (e.g. a photocopier), they get it delivered from the USA, rather than use a local supplier. The USA used to set up fake local suppliers and was able to get a compromised photocopier in a Soviet embassy.

Re: Putin on the Ritz

#44

Post by ronaldx »

edoloughlin wrote: post #28

However, the biggest clue appears when we apply a basic color histogram to the picture Can anyone explain what this means? It doesn't match my understanding of what a histogram is (i.e., a graph of values vs frequency of occurrence).

I can't see the images in the article but you have it right - the histogram is color values against frequency.

You can then use the histogram to identify and highlight particular color values in the image. This would identify the simple artefact described in the text.

Link to Photoshop example use: http://www.ephotozine.com/article/using-the-histogram-in-ado...

Re: Putin on the Ritz

#46

Post by bluedino »

rmc wrote: post #42
jmnicolas wrote: post #31

What never cease to amaze me is how secret services around the globe waste so much time on trivial things like that. I read somewhere that the US president always traveled with its own toilets in fear of spies analyzing his "production" oO Meanwhile people are still dying of hunger ...

Some of these security reasons make sense. I've heard whenever a US embassy needs equipment (e.g. a photocopier), they get it delivered from the USA, rather than use a local supplier. The USA used to set up fake local suppliers and was able to get a compromised photocopier in a Soviet embassy.

And the USA snuck a printer into Iraq in the first Gulf War with a virus on it, or was that a hoax?

Re: Putin on the Ritz

#47

Post by coldtea »

>Kim Jong Il rarely appeared in digitally altered photos. Instead, he did a different type of misdirection. In almost every photo of him, KJI wore the same clothing. It's as if he only owned one set of clothing (or a closet full of the same discount gray suits). This wasn't because KJI had no taste. Instead, it allowed his counter-intelligence people to publish any photo of him over the decades as if it were a recent photo. People couldn't just look at a photo and identify when it was taken.

And that's a feature we intended to get by wearing the same clothes because?

How is the ability to publish any old photo as recent relavent at all?

Re: Putin on the Ritz

#48

Post by GotAnyMegadeth »

coldtea wrote: post #47

> Kim Jong Il rarely appeared in digitally altered photos. Instead, he did a different type of misdirection. In almost every photo of him, KJI wore the same clothing. It's as if he only owned one set of clothing (or a closet full of the same discount gray suits). This wasn't because KJI had no taste. Instead, it allowed his counter-intelligence people to publish any photo of him over the decades as if it were a recen…

If you were ill and worried that a political rival might take the chance to over throw you, you could publish photos of you looking fine, doing dictator stuff, and they'd never know...

Re: Putin on the Ritz

#49

Post by the_french »

coldtea wrote: post #47

> Kim Jong Il rarely appeared in digitally altered photos. Instead, he did a different type of misdirection. In almost every photo of him, KJI wore the same clothing. It's as if he only owned one set of clothing (or a closet full of the same discount gray suits). This wasn't because KJI had no taste. Instead, it allowed his counter-intelligence people to publish any photo of him over the decades as if it were a recen…

As the author said "counter-intelligence". It allows Kim to post pictures of him visiting a factory in one city when he is really at a completely different one. The less any one knows with certitude about him the safer he is.

Re: Putin on the Ritz

#50

Post by [deleted] »

coldtea wrote: post #47

> Kim Jong Il rarely appeared in digitally altered photos. Instead, he did a different type of misdirection. In almost every photo of him, KJI wore the same clothing. It's as if he only owned one set of clothing (or a closet full of the same discount gray suits). This wasn't because KJI had no taste. Instead, it allowed his counter-intelligence people to publish any photo of him over the decades as if it were a recen…

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