The Hacker Factor Blog

There are some things that just cannot be easily explained without calling someone a liar. For example, what happened to Neda Agha-Soltan?

• Protesters who recorder her shocking death said that she was shot by pro-government Basij militia who were on a nearby roof.
  
  
• However, some reports that blame the Basij militia conflict with other reports. For example, the BBC reported:
  

  That's when she was shot dead. Eyewitnesses and video footage of the shooting clearly show that probably Basij paramilitaries in civilian clothing deliberately targeted her. Eyewitnesses said they clearly targeted her and she was shot in the chest.

  
  The problem that I have is with the phrase "clearly...probably". Either it is certain (clearly), or it is likely (probably), but it can't be both. Using both is like a "definite maybe" and really means nothing.
  
  
• The government-run Islamic Republic News Agency said that Neda was a case of mistaken identity. She looked like the sister of a terrorist. This makes me wonder: is it a standard policy in Iran to kill relatives of criminals? Is it a policy to shoot first and validate later? If this happened here, there would be rioting in the street. Oh wait, Iran's got that. (Unless you follow the government-run media, in which case, there are no riots nor protests.)
  
  
• Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri speculated that the CIA were behind her death. He said, "it could be the CIA". Uh, Ghadiri? The CIA are not that competent.
  
  
• While reports and video show that she was on the street, the government-run Iranian PressTV has decided that she was shot in an alley. This same report claims that there was a clash between protesters and security forces, and that no security forces were present. (Then who were they clashing with?) Quoting directly from the PressTV report:
  

  She was shot dead on June 20 in an alley away from the scene of clashes between security forces and demonstrators in Tehran.
  
  The man who drove her to hospital said in an interview that her death looked "highly suspicious", claiming there were no security forces or Basij members nearby.

  
  
• Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has decided that Neda's death is "suspicious" and called her death "propaganda".
  

  "The massive propaganda of the foreign media, as well as other evidence, proves the interference of the enemies of the Iranian nation who want to take political advantage and darken the pure face of the Islamic republic," [Ahmadinejad] said in a letter to [Ayatollah Hashemi] Shahroudi, according to the [PressTV] news agency.

  
  Wow... it took Ahmadinejad nine days to make a statement and all he can do is call it 'suspicious' and 'propaganda'? That seems like suspicious propaganda to me. You know, it is just a matter of time before Iran claims that her death was suicide, followed by "she's not dead" and "it was filmed in Langley".

There are two many conflicting stories. Someone must be lying. Considering that Iranian government representatives (ambassadors, clerics, and government-controlled media) change their story every other day, I'm going to have to side with the video footage and flood of independent witness reports: rooftop sniper by pro-government militia with a government cover-up.

Sunnyside Up

And speaking of Iranian-run media... Today's Tehran Times has a picture on their front page that I just cannot explain.


Here's the picture:


This version of the picture is too small and too low quality to apply luminance gradient, error level analysis, or other complex analysis algorithms. All results would be inconclusive. The only tools I'm left with are "observation" and "measurement".

Here's the problem: where's the sun? The sun should only come in through one window. The picture has the sun in three windows. The central cameraman only has one shadow. Drawing a line from the shadow to the person goes straight to the middle window's sun. If those were spotlights and not the sun, then he should have three shadows. The Ayatollah (guy sitting down on the right) only has one shadow, and it only aligns with the right-most window.

Another problem is that the cameraman has a very long shadow, but none of the people on the floor have long shadows. Measuring from the camera-stand itself (floor to top of tripod), an object that is 30 pixels tall should have a shadow that is 21 pixels long. The sitting audience are about 30 pixels tall, but they don't have long shadows. Even the people right behind the cameraman are missing long shadows.

I really don't know how this could be possible, unless the image is spliced. Perhaps there is a higher quality version available elsewhere that does not have this problem... Then again, my mom thinks that this is because the Ayatollah is the "Sign of God" and can make the sun do whatever he wants.

It is also worth noting that this picture is not attributed to Getty Images, Reuters, AP, AFP, or any other image company that tries to provide undoctored images. No attribution is given, so that implies that it came from the Tehran Times Political Desk.

Breaking Rules

I mentioned in an earlier blog that I had broken one of my rules about image analysis. A friend recently informed me that my findings just came out.

MUFON is the Mutual UFO Network. This month's MUFON Journal includes some of my image analysis applied to a couple of alleged UFO photos. When I was first asked to evaluate them, I was very hesitant... UFO "true believers" are crazy with bias. They want to believe so strongly that UFOs are real that they will ignore facts that show some photos are fake.

I was seriously concerned. It is very difficult to say that an image is real -- usually the results are inconclusive. If I determined that the images "could not be identified as fake", then I would be called a fraud by anti-UFO people, and the UFO people would call this a confirmation. ('Cannot identify as fake' is not the same as 'can prove it is real' or 'beyond a reasonable doubt'.) In contrast, if I found that they were fake, then the true believers would claim that the government got to me.

Fortunately, Richard Thieme (who will be speaking at Defcon 17) and the MUFON International Director, James Carrion, understood and addressed my concerns.

I was provided the pictures and absolutely no background information. The only question I was asked: "Have these pictures been digitally manipulated?" My initial reply was that these were some of the best forgeries that I have ever seen. I then detailed my findings, much of which was included in the MUFON Journal's article. (I understand that MUFON membership includes a copy of the Journal.)

Full disclosure: I was not provided any compensation for this work -- not even a cup of coffee. This work was strictly a donation on my behalf and it was not influenced by any person or government or anything else.

Finally, this was a one-time donation. Don't expect me to break my rules for other people with suspicious photos.