Researcher: Bin Laden's beard is real, the video is not

Source: Cnet

On the Friday before the sixth anniversary of 9/11, Osama bin Laden appears in a new video, his first since prior to the US presidential elections I 2004. In analyzing the video, Dr. Neal Krawetz of Hactor Factor said in his latest blogs that the video contained many visual and audio splices, and that all of the modifications were of very low quality. Most striking is bin Laden's beard, which has been gray in recent images. For this video it is black. "As far as my tools can detect, there has been no image manipulation of the Bin Laden portion of the image beyond contrast adjustment. His beard really does appear to be that color." ...

The September 7 video shows Bin Laden dressed in a white hat, white shirt, and yellow sweater. Krawetz notes "this is the same clothing he wore in the 2004-10-29 video. In 2004 he had it unzipped, but in 2007 he zipped up the bottom half. Besides the clothing, it appears to be the same background, same lighting, and same desk. Even the camera angle is almost identical." Krawetz also notes that "if you overlay the 2007 video with the 2004 video, his face has not changed in three years -- only his beard is darker and the contrast on the picture has been adjusted."

More important though are the edits. At roughly a minute and a half into the video there is a splice; bin Laden shifts from looking at the camera to looking down in less than 1/25th of a second. At 13:13 there is a second, less obvious splice. In all Krawetz says there are at least six splices in the video. Of these there are only two live bin Laden segments, the rest of the video composed of still images. The first live section opens the video and ends at 1:56. The second section begins at 12:29 and continues until 14:01. The two live sections appear to be from different recordings "because the desk is closer to the camera in the second section."

Then there's the audio edits. Krawetz says "the new audio has no accompanying 'live' video and consists of multiple audio recordings." References to current events are made only during the still frame sections and after splices within the audio track. "And there are so many splices that I cannot help but wonder if someone spliced words and phrases together. I also cannot rule out a vocal imitator during the frozen-frame audio. The only way to prove that the audio is really Bin Laden is to see him talking in the video,." Says Krawetz.

Read more: http://news.com.com/8300-10784_3-7-0.html?keyword=digital+forensics

That's good.

Even if it assumes Osama was the author. And is still alive. And has a rubber chicken.

:rofl:

الله... Be Praised

Osama is it (along with Islamic fundamentalism)

And why should he be listened to?

Can someone fill me in on this guy?

Dr. Neal Krawetz Bio from http://www.hackerfactor.com/ :

Neal Krawetz holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Texas A&M University and a Bachelors degree in Computer and Information Science from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Dr. Krawetz has a strong background in software research, development, computer security, forensics, profiling, artificial intelligence, networking, and operating systems. His work experience spans small startup companies, academic and university environments, and large Fortune-100 corporations:

The technology is so new that you often have to deal with images which freeze for minutes at a time. My new Betamax camera suffers the same issues.

Is your post a joke?

Betamax, and you have to ask?

:wtf:

Skipped right over the word "betamax" there... not that I know what it means anyway.

Wikipedia says it's old...

I am glad to have a technical person explain, in a major tech information source, in a manner that can be double checked by other techies, just how and where the splicing seems to have occurred. The message content in a few of the videos has been just too perfectly suited to President Cheney's objectives to be believed.

Like the bits about Americans voting for Democrats? :rofl:

Like you, I've had my suspicions that this is just more thug propaganda designed to keep the fear machine running.

But even if it WAS a genuine message from Al Qaida, it makes sense that they'd want the thugs to be in power.

:banghead:

but it's still six years since the core folk that make up al qaida and hide out waziristan and none of them have been apprehended.

they are still dangerous -- and bush has FAILED to copture any of these people and bring them to trial or anything else.

For people with kidney disease, all they have to do to live longer is live in a cold ass cave.