7 ms·
Putin on the Ritz
- edoloughlin 13y agoHowever, 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).
- ronaldx 13y agoI 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-adobe-photoshop-lightroom-4-21589 http://www.ephotozine.com/article/using-the-histogram-in-ado...
- TeMPOraL 13y agoThe 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_Conference_%28Churchill%2C_Roosevelt%2C_Stalin%29_%28B%26W%29.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Yalta_Con...? I don't. If we routinely don't trust colour pictures in newspapers, why should we trust historic photographs? We've reached a point in time when we can start actually faking history. The only way to check if something happened now would be to find original copies of old photographs and books. But it's only matter of time before they'll be gone forever, or stuck deep in museum vaults, to be accessed by selected few. We could rewrite the history for next generation and no one would likely notice it.
- yoha 13y ago> isn't it easier to fake black&white photos Stalin did use black and white photo montages. Check out the Wikipedia article [1]. > The only way to check if something happened now would be to find original copies For now. Consider fine-grained 3D printing in the future. > We could rewrite the history for next generation and no one would likely notice it. It is actually a fairly practical problem in medium-term future. The only plausible solution seems to have resilient duplicated information on trusted peers. But with time, even trust rusts. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_manipulation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_manipulation
- rayiner 13y ago> We've reached a point in time when we can start actually faking history. It has always been possible to fake history, inadvertently or intentionally. There was a narrow stretch of time when photography became widespread which made it a bit harder to fake history, but photographs were being faked and staged long before we had computers to do digital editing of them. And before we had photographs, it was possible to fake manuscripts, etc.
- seren 13y agoAnd the further back we go in time, the less independent reporter we can find. For example, how much can you trust Caesar's account of its campaign in Gaul ?
- manimalcruelty 13y ago...and that brings us to The Holy Bible.
- tormeh 13y agoWe know the Bible has been edited multiple times and disagreeable stuff chopped off. I also hear it isn't even internally logically coherent. Of course it's not reliable, but it's some of the best stuff we have from that time period.
- voidlogic 13y agoNo more than I would trust a Bill Clinton or George W. Bush autobiography- but all these types of works provide fascinating insight into the psychology of the people involved, just maybe not the facts of events :) Although, even from Ceasers time we can find accounts by other Romans, Greeks, etc and use archeology to see where he is likely bending the truth. The problem now days is accounts of events, due to ease of communication, while more plentiful are less independent.
- mathattack 13y agoYes - if anything the internet makes it easier to keep alternatives to the official fictions alive.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rmc 13y agoWe 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.
- TazeTSchnitzel 13y agoThey say history is written by the winners of wars.
- thearn4 13y agoI think that there are just as many counter examples of this as there are confirmations. The Mongols are probably the best counter example.
- mortenjorck 13y agoHistory is written by the writers with the most popular narrative. Military hegemony is the most common way to ensure your narrative's popularity, but it's not the only way.
- rmc 13y agoCounter-examples: The Vikings. Most of the history of the Viking was by Christian monks in England and the like, who were the victims of the Vikings.
- anigbrowl 13y agoWe've reached a point in time when we can start actually faking history ...again. We're always getting better at faking history, because our creative tools are always a step ahead of the forensic tools. A few centuries ago it was easy for a skilled craftsman to make fake Roman antiquities/medieval manuscripts/whatever, and not so easy to detect the fraud by analysis of the pigmentation in paint or ink, for example.
- yoha 13y agoThe author has up a website [1] that gives an overview of what forensics can do with photos. [1] http://fotoforensics.com/ http://fotoforensics.com/
- xenonite 13y agoThe one table leg being longer can be easily be attributed the lens distortion. One would expect that, being in a room, a fisheye lens has been used in the original picture. But that would have led to a barrel distortion. Instead, a zoom lens was used. This has an interesting side effect: Putin, sitting at the border of the photo, then appears larger.
- xentronium 13y agoRussian contemporary novelist Victor Pelevin explored a similar theme in his "Generation P" book (1999). The idea was that there were no "real" politicians, because all of them were fabricated digital images to sell more ads. Quite an entertaining read. On goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9667484-generation http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9667484-generation / http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/337672.Homo_Zapiens http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/337672.Homo_Zapiens (translated version)
- noel82 13y agoIMHO even the one with Gheddafi could be a fake, the light is not the same on the subjects..
- artumi-richard 13y agoPutin died three years ago, fact. Maybe.
- return0 13y agoI think the storywriter's distortion lens is always more powerful than some altered digital photos.
- bayesianhorse 13y agoOn a very long list of Russian transparency problems, faking photos of diplomatic meetings is one of the least objectionable. Not everyone can take a selfie with Obama!
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Grue3 13y agoHuh, I live in Russia and I never noticed that Putin always wears the same clothes. Fascinating. I certainly wouldn't put using Communist-era photo-op tactics past him.
- TazeTSchnitzel 13y agoPutin admires the USSR and used to be part of the KGB. More likely than unlikely!
- puppetmaster3 13y agoras-Putin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRWiqjgOyX0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRWiqjgOyX0 You can thank me later.
- milliams 13y agoI'm not sure about that rainbow colour-scheme used. http://www.research.ibm.com/people/l/lloydt/color/color.HTM http://www.research.ibm.com/people/l/lloydt/color/color.HTM
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- almosnow 13y agoI don't get the connection between Putin wearing the same clothes and the photo manipulation explained at the end. Looks like he wanted to write about two different things but smashed them into just one without coherence...
- freehunter 13y agoI think the implication he failed to properly address is that Putin wears the same suit specifically so it's easier to photoshop him in to other pictures. That was my interpretation. Another interpretation that requires less guesswork on my part is that his interest was piqued by noticing that Putin wears the same suit, and that was what led him to start investigating other pictures of Putin, culminating in his analysis of this doctored photo.
- thearn4 13y ago` PCA measures JPEG artifacts.` Just for some clarification - how does that work, exactly? If you decompose an image using PCA/SVD and find a cliff in the spectrum, is that a fingerprint of JPEG compression?
- Havoc 13y agoThe name doesn't ring a bell, but judging by the pic its this stuff: http://29a.ch/2012/4/15/image-error-level-analysis-with-html5 http://29a.ch/2012/4/15/image-error-level-analysis-with-html...
- sp332 13y agoAll the chunks of a JPEG image should be saved with the same quantizer. If part of an image is pasted in from a different JPEG, there will be a difference in the level of compression.
- sz4kerto 13y agoHaha, the modified photo appeared in a satirical post on Index.hu, there's nothing to see here people, move on. :) http://index.hu/szarvas/2014/02/11/ader_alair/ http://index.hu/szarvas/2014/02/11/ader_alair/ Here're the other posts from the same series: http://index.hu/szarvas/ http://index.hu/szarvas/ All entries are simple montages, they're only funny for people who know Hungarian politics, but for them they're quite obvious. Edit: the man in the middle of the photo is the Hungarian President of the State, and well, he probably won't kneel when signing an agreement -- even if Putin's there. :)
- az0xff 13y agoAmazing how language barriers can create this kind of confusion.
- sz4kerto 13y agoThat's not just the matter of language barriers -- that's basically a situation where you have some information and you try to draw conclusions without trying to get some context. Quite common with people who know a very narrow field very well which gives them the false sense of competency in other issues.
- rmc 13y agoSo a bit like someone reading The Onion and not knowing it's fake? :)
- sz4kerto 13y agoIt's a bit like being a well-known expert in finance, reading The Onion, and writing a post on your personal blog on ft.com on why the government should not dump dollars into the giant money hole. :D
- wozniacki 13y agoPRESIDENT OBAMA ON PUTIN: I don't have a bad personal relationship with Putin. When we have conversations, they're candid, they're blunt, oftentimes they're constructive. I know the press likes to focus on body language and he's got that kind of slouch, looking like the bored kid in the back of the classroom. [1] Putting Russia-United States relations aside, I thought that was a spot-on description of Vladimir Putin's body posture, that he uses to great effect, when he wants to be perceived as not being terribly interested in what's going on. It is quite funny. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewUXm_gqzrU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewUXm_gqzrU http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/09/us-usa-russia-obama-idUSBRE9780XS20130809 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/09/us-usa-russia-obam...
- robmcm 13y agoDidn't Steve Jobs always wear the same outfit? Perhaps that's so if he's in a photo now they could say it was taken years ago!
- PakG1 13y agoThe cool digital analysis aside, what if people who do this aren't pulling a Kim Jong Il, but rather are pulling a Steve Jobs? http://gawker.com/5848754/steve-jobs-on-why-he-wore-turtlenecks http://gawker.com/5848754/steve-jobs-on-why-he-wore-turtlene... No need to feed conspiracy theorists unnecessarily. Always look for the story behind the story too. Now of course, all of that evidence of digital alteration is another thing. And it may very well have been simply a newspaper who wanted some kind of photo, but didn't have the photographer to get a real one (or the opportunity didn't exist). Maybe Putin ordered it. Maybe he didn't. Maybe his people did. Maybe they didn't. Likewise on the Hungary side.
- jmnicolas 13y agoWhat 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 ...
- rmc 13y agoSome 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.
- aleyan 13y agoTrust is something hard to come by and when dealing with foreign sources you have to rely on translators and their issues. What is worse, even if the translators are reliable, alterations can be made after the fact, but verification is difficult because of language barriers. Here is an example that my father found about Putin's person of the year interview with Time. Time published a full transcript [1] in English and Kremlin published the full transcript [2] in Russian. The very first question is different! Kremlin's version includes a question where the reported bungled the Putin's birthday and though he was born in 1946 instead of 1952, but Time omits it. It wasn't a very substantive question, but it did set the tone for the interview and the difference is upsetting. As far as I know this particular issue has not been widely discussed for the past 7 years. If media and/or governments alter the smallest records for reasons of incompetence, what do they do to hide larger errors? [1] http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/personoftheyear/article/0,28804,1690753_1690757_1695787,00.html http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/personoftheyear/a... [2] http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Farchive.kremlin.ru%2Fappears%2F2007%2F12%2F19%2F1607_type63379_154772.shtml&sandbox=1 http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ru&tl=en&u=ht...
- Shivetya 13y agoTruth is hard come by with non foreign sources as well, we just comfort ourselves by thinking its foreigners who seek to deceive us.
- malandrew 13y agoThis is why I really like the points Glenn Greenwald made in his debate with Bill Keller from the NYTimes. His meta point was that there is no such thing as being objective in reporting and any attempts to be objective just functions to obfuscate the bias that is unavoidable. At least when sources are openly biased and wear that bias on their sleeve, it becomes much easier to separate fact from opinion. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation-in-lieu-of-a-column.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation-in-...
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- kyrra 13y agoTotally offtopic, but the title reminded me of: http://putintheritzon.ytmnd.com/ http://putintheritzon.ytmnd.com/ (has audio)
- Jeremy1026 13y agoAre the photos appearing for anyone? Or are we all getting unable to load?
- bergie 13y agoInterestingly, Steve Jobs was also known for wearing the same outfit year-by-year. http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/steve-jobs-is-too-busy-to-change-clothes_b119688 http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/steve-jobs-is-too-busy...
- coldtea 13y ago>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?
- GotAnyMegadeth 13y agoIf 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...
- coldtea 13y agoBut actual people in your circles (including rivals) WOULD know. They don't get their information from pictures, the masses do that.
- sitkack 13y agoDepends on how tight the circles are and the compartmentalization. I would assume dictator dudes have multiple overlapping inner circles that compete with each other. Geodesic thought crime.
- the_french 13y agoAs 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.
- coldtea 13y ago
- stoolpigeon 13y ago"... with some guy in the middle signing papers." His name is in the tags with the photo. He's the president of the country. All that effort but can't be bothered to identify the president.
- ohwp 13y agoSearching for 'putin heineken' gives me images of Putin dressed as an astronaut drinking beer: https://www.google.nl/search?q=putin+heineken&tbm=isch https://www.google.nl/search?q=putin+heineken&tbm=isch So there are your pics and it did happen
- koshak 13y agoHello, Generatin "П". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_%22%D0%9F%22#Conspiracy_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_%22%D0%9F%22#Conspir...
- aaronem 13y agoHuh. So, reincarnation exists, and Robert A. Wilson's spirit speaks Russian now. Who knew?
- sp332 13y agoDaniel Radcliffe annoyed paparazzi by wearing the same outfit every day. They couldn't sell the photos since it looked like they were all taken the same day. http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0051271/ http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0051271/ Video of the interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJT0hq3lHDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJT0hq3lHDE
- tragomaskhalos 13y agoI am currently reading Orwell's 1984 to my daughter. I am able to tell her that it is mostly fiction ...
- karon 13y agoThe middle figure in the picture is János Áder, president of Hungary. The image was created by a Hungarian blogger/artist named szarvas: http://szarvas.tumblr.com/image/76316693473 http://szarvas.tumblr.com/image/76316693473 The news portal index.hu regularly republishes his work, this is where the confusion may have originated from: http://index.hu/szarvas/2014/02/11/ader_alair/ http://index.hu/szarvas/2014/02/11/ader_alair/ you can see the post among other posts here: http://index.hu/szarvas/ http://index.hu/szarvas/ Here is a thread where a commenter points out how photo manipulation is frowned upon by professional photographers on their forum, and they can't believe "how a political journalist can do this while a war correspondent can't draw smoke near an explosion.", linking to his republished image on index.hu. Of course szarvas is not a political journalist, he is a funny guy with a tumblr: http://szarvas.tumblr.com/post/76316693473/nyomomneki-lvnte-regisztralva-vagyok-egy http://szarvas.tumblr.com/post/76316693473/nyomomneki-lvnte-... I wonder how the article talks about clues detectable only by applying filters to the image, yet misses the most obvious sign of retouching: the middle figure's knees, the blur around them can be seen with the naked eye, not to mention the irregular shape. Regarding the other conclusion of the article (the outline around Orban and Putin seen in the histogram image), to me it simply looks like sharpening. I may be wrong.
- anonymfus 13y agoIf you enjoy conspiracies theory about Putin, I heard about two. First is very realistic, that in 2013 he fabricated fishing in Tyva: http://avmalgin.livejournal.com/3926168.html http://avmalgin.livejournal.com/3926168.html Second is that he has multiple doubles, including one mongoloid.
- gadders 13y agoObligatory: http://www.ifmelranthezoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/putin_on_the_ritz.jpg http://www.ifmelranthezoo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/put...
- joebo 13y agoThe whole pose looked off to me. It seemed odd that important papers would be signed kneeling. Is that customary anywhere?