Another Photo-Shop Hoax on Facebook.

[The Doctor.]

Posted by Choppinbroccoli here;

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2260550

They tried to pull http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/10/15/we-are-the-53-using-fake-images-nigerian-dude-living-in-spain-not-really-a-53-percenter/">this one on everyone last month. Somehow I doubt the morons became anymore skeptical and are all over this one too. Now, it's possible I'm wrong, but I doubt it. In this new one, they were careful to cover more of his face to make finding the original photo more difficult. I'm no good with P/S, so I'm not going to try to do the work the guy did on the "Dgangu Mutambe" hoax.

Unless this obviously young man has an unfortunate hand condition, that's not his hand holding the note.

Look Close;





Like I said, I could be wrong and this kid is just really ignorant, but until the rest of the facts come out I'll let you all decide.

[bluestateguy]

1. I'd hate to think that an active duty soldier is doing political advocacy while in uniform

because THAT is illegal.

[The Doctor.]

2. That's why they covered his face this time.

If this image could be found, it could get some young man in a great deal of trouble. They wouldn't be able to sort it out until there was an investigation which would *GASP* reveal the fraud and get the fraudsters in hot water.

It looks pretty blatant to me.

What d'you think?

[dogknob]

3. K/R

[sarge43]

35. Yup.

If that's a true picture, then youngin' should have his butt displaced up around his shoulders.

If it's shopped, then whoever did it should be forceful reminded that members of the armed forces are not theirs to use and abuse. That's their noncom's job.

[Cid_B]

18. Except for when the OWS veterans do it?

...or does it apply then as well?

[MADem]

19. Those kids are not "active duty." They are part of the Veterans for Peace Franchise, which is

an organization of FORMER servicemembers; i.e. veterans who have been demobbed and returned to civilian life. Their use of the uniform is questionable--I certainly would not do it--but they're not currently on active duty.

There are very clear rules about getting political in uniform. It's why so many were annoyed no end when that fucking dipshit started speaking from a pulpit in uniform during the Bush regime. He was "quietly disciplined" but did not get the shellacking he deserved.

[FarLeftFist]

4. A soldier mocking the 99%? Who's he fighting for?!

[phasma ex machina]

11. Soldiers fight for central bankster powers-that-be, whether they know it or not. nt

[Fumesucker]

5. I adjusted the brightness curve to bring out detail in the dark areas..

[The Doctor.]

8. Still doesn't seem right.

It could be he's just another ignorant kid, but you simply can't trust a damn thing put out by these people. The notion of hijacking a soldier's image to promote their bullshit isn't anywhere near the lowest they would stoop.

[pacalo]

12. I think I see what you mean. If you look at the arm, the shadowing effect is way off.

It's as though this photo is actually a combination of two different photos: the arm of an older man holding the written garbage, cut & pasted onto a photo of a Marine.

I agree, the hand is too aged to belong to the young Marine.

Good eye.

[The Doctor.]

14. Huh... in both the original and the enhanced, there appears to be some kind of

pixelation(?) along the edge of the paper on the left. I'm not an expert. Can anyone explain how a normal picture would have that effect?

[mwrguy]

15. Not a Marine

Says "ARMY" on his chest.

[rasputin1952]

38. He's a soldier in the Army, if the tag is to be believed...

:hi:

[pacalo]

51. Sorry about that.

:hi:

[Frank Cannon]

20. My money's on "ignorant kid".

In this country, whenever stupidity may play a factor, you can always safely bet on it.

[MADem]

21. The sleeve looks CRAZY--and what about those pixels along the

right (looking at it) side of the notebook?

That hand looks like it belongs to some angry old codger with rheumatoid arthritis.

There's an odd white spot, and a reddish spot, under the notebook that don't seem to "go" either.

I suppose anything's possible, but if this were a kid holding up a notebook that said Ronald Regan was a dickhead, I suspect those pajama people would be all over it with a pixel count and a thousand reasons why the thing wasn't real.

I must say, real or not, it's wonky enough to LOOK questionable--which dilutes the effectiveness of the thing.

Hell, that Kardashian one (made for humor) looked more realistic!

[The Doctor.]

22. Also, the penmanship...

It's a little odd, but it doesn't look like it was written right-handed.

Again, just a minor quirk.

[Laluchacontinua]

6. I don't understand the "hand condition" thing.

[The Doctor.]

9. How old are ya?

I'm 40. Even with the lighting adjustment by Fumesucker, my hands still look younger. That kid is barely 20.

Unfortunately, without a name or a whole face ( cowardly omissions whether real or fake) we can't know for certain whether this was another fraud. Given their history, it's a fair (possibly even) bet that it's a fraud.

[GReedDiamond]

7. The contorted fingers are pretty creepy...

...and when I attempted to replicate that grip on a spiral bound 5.5" x 8.5" sketch pad, it was actually impossible.

(I don't think the spiral bound pad in the pic is to scale, either.)

Not to mention that the fingers in the fake image look bizarre/fake.

[Duer 157099]

10. This does not look shopped to me at all

fwiw

[HuckleB]

13. I have the opposite opinion.

[The Doctor.]

16. Is the weird pixelation on the right edge of the paper normal for an authentic photo?

(Left from holder's perspective)

I just googled a bunch of images of people holding paper in front of them and haven't found any similar phenomenon.

Is there an explanation? (really, I'm not an expert)

[Duer 157099]

17. OK maybe. I was focusing on the other side, with the hand

Yeah, maybe those edges were messed with, although if it's a low res webcam and if the image were reformatted things like that can happen. But it looks like some cloning was going on for whatever reason. Dunno.

[Bucky]

25. Thank you. It's amazing how people see what they want to see.

When soldiers dissed Dubya, we cheered. When one soldier expresses a concern we disagree with, we hear DUers wail about military personnel getting involved in politics (actually he's only expressing an opinion--it's not the same as being involved) and others start analyzing the pixels along the sleeves and the "old man hands" as if that would be the part of the photograph that would be toyed with in a photoshop job.

This is almost certainly a deluded kid with some conservative views being snarky. I say our troops have earned the right to be snarky, given the way we as a democracy have treated them. He's misinformed is all. It happens.

[The Doctor.]

26. You should probably study the thread a little harder.

Including the more recent comments by the poster you just responded to.

Then, really think about that 'see what they want to see' thing.

[Bucky]

30. I have just now taken your advice. I conclude, upon further study, that you're wrong.

For instance, the only other comment from "DUer 157099" is him saying maybe "some cloning was going on for whatever reason. Dunno."

If you're interpreting that shrug of a comment as him agreeing that the core message of this picture was photoshopped, then you're still projecting onto the world the things you wish were so.

Low rez pictures that get reproduced pick up artifacts. That's not proof of photoshopping. This is a tempest in a teapot, Doc. You're imagining a plot that's not worth the effort of analyzing nor would have been worth the effort of some jerk-off Republican concocting in the first place--all in the service of denying that there's a soldier out there who couldn't possibly have banal conservative political views. Good day, sir.

I said Good Day, sir!!

[The Doctor.]

31. Day just started.

When you 'took my advice', did you start with the OP? Good, I'll assume you did so.

Meanwhile, how is "choosing" to see an authentic photo any different from "choosing" to see a fraud (from people that have done so before)?

If you're going to comment on the silliness of someone's shoes, you should probably look at your own feet first.


Now, what do you mean "Good Day"?

Do you wish me a good day, or mean that it is a good day whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this day; or that it is a day to be good on?

[sarge43]

23. The hand isn't his.

It belongs to a man at least 30 years older and 20 pounds heavier.

[The Doctor.]

24. That's what I'm thinking. The more I look at it...

Especially after Fumesucker took out shadows, the more certain I am.

I understand that could be a case of 'self-reinforcing perspective', but I tried seeing it as his hand and it just doesn't fit.

All that remains is to find the identity of the young man in the pic and ask him whether it was him or not.

[Bucky]

27. Oh please.

Your certainty is absurd. You can barely see the kid's face, let alone his body type. It's a low rez picture. He's in harsh weather conditions. And how many people in your life have you met with hands that are puffy. Certainly some grunts are gonna have well muscled hands. But still you're able to positively assert that the hand isn't his.

Get a little perspective. Every expression of opinion you disagree with isn't the result of a conspiracy, friend.

[The Doctor.]

28. "Some people see what they want to see"

Thanks for the illustration.

:hi:

[sarge43]

32. If we can barely see the kid's face, how do you know his age?

Photoshopping to make a political or propaganda point isn't conspiracy, nothing stealthy about it.

Speaking of taking leaps, from that picture how do you know what the conditions are? For all any of us could know, that could be shopped from a "Hi Mom" taken during boot field training. If so, he hasn't had time to get gnarly or puffy.

We're all guessing and if some of us are more convinced that we may be right, deal with it .... friend.

[diane in sf]

29. I work extensively with Photoshop and the edges of the notebook make it look

like it could be badly selected and pasted in from another picture. It's interesting that the notebook is so unfocused in the spiral area where details could be very telling. The whole image is so low resolution it's hard to tell for sure.

[Sirveri]

33. I'm sure that a small group of the military agrees with this statement.

After all, even Dubya had greater than a 0% approval rating. Idiots always abound everywhere.

[The Doctor.]

34. Agreed. Thing is, this fits the M/O fot the lying scumbags.

And compared to the relative youth of this guy, that hand ain't right.

[JHB]

36. I don't think there's enough information there to call it a fake

I'll defer to someone with real experience in evaluating photomanipulations, but let's remember the RW has never lacked for volunteer assholes simply because it pats them on the head for being assholes.

I haven't had any trouble re-creating the "gnarled hand" grasp (it's not the most comfortable way of holding a notebook, but it works just fine for trying to hold it by the edge (so as not to cover the words with fingers) for the short time it takes to snap a photo), the pixelation matters could be due to the low-res nature (and for the sleeve, combined with the pixel-pattern camo he's wearing).

Yes, he's covering his face. I suspect that may be because if he made his identity clear he'd find his future position was a lot less guaranteed than he'd like.

Until someone can turn up some more-concrete evidence of manipulation (as was the case with the Mutambe hoax), the odds are much in favor of "this guy is an asshole" over "this photo was faked".

[JHB]

37. He seems to feel awfully entitled for a government worker, though...

...doesn't he?

[seabeyond]

39. oh wait... his job is through a socialist program with all those lovely benefits. not privatization.

fool

he really needs that college

[Courtesy Flush]

40. Quick analysis

I ran the pic through a service that makes photoshop changes stand out. Here are the results (nothing stood out). http://errorlevelanalysis.com/permalink/f00e1d9/

Also, I cropped out the letter, and did a Google image search. Yes, Google can search using half an image. All the results showed the same result.

Why is it so hard to believe there are freepers in the military, of all places?

[The Doctor.]

41. It's not.

The point is that these lying sacks of crap have used shopped images before.

So I ran one of those through that service. I'll admit I don't understand the results as there is no defined metric beyond 'appear to be a different color';

http://errorlevelanalysis.com/permalink/c10c7f0/

It doesn't seem that far different in terms of image differentiation.


The service we used also says this;

"If you are unsure how to interpret the results, please do not claim the results of this tool as proof of anything."

[Courtesy Flush]

42. My point: not all of these are fake

If you find a fake one, call them out. Not sure why this particular image was chosen, as there's no evidence that it is fake.

There are plenty of people on the other side of this issue. Many of them have pens and paper.

[JHB]

46. Exactly.

[kctim]

43. Looks real

and his note speaks the truth.

His hand is probably contorted that way so that he can keep the words visible while still holding the notepad.

[bulloney]

44. I wonder if his college education is paid by a taxpayer-funded veterans program?

I encourage vets to go for it. But you know darned well that the 1%'ers are trying to eliminate such programs to give veterans an opportunity to train for the available jobs. The 1%'ers think our soldiers are little more than cannon fodder.

[NYC Liberal]

45. Why does it have to be fake anyway? We know there are lots of idiots out there.

I could be wrong, but it looks real to me.

[Blue_Tires]

47. lol...i hadn't seen the Nigerian one

great takedown...

[SOS]

48. According to his math

98% of Americans want a free handout.

That's not the America I live in.

[JHB]

49. If his math for "the 1% of the 99%" is supposed to mean...

...active duty and reserve military, then he's including all vets, former and retired military in his "want handouts" population. So even by his own narrow definition, he's attacking "his own".

I have a feeling that if he gets ID'd, the future he takes as "guaranteed" won't pan out quite as smoothly as he believes.

[The Doctor.]

50. Then guess what percent he'll be in.

Yep.