Moderated Obama birth certificate CT / SSN CT / Birther discussion

[A'isha]

Not even to an old and trusted friend like Gov. Ambercrombie????

No.

"Adobe Acrobat Pro is the most commonly used program capable of creating layers from an automated process such as optimization, but even Acrobat Pro does not always produce layers when optimizing a file. The method and settings applied during the saving process play a factor in whether layers will be automatically generated or not. To be clearer on this point, programs like Photoshop and Illustrator will not automatically generate layers when optimizing a file (regardless of the circumstances). Any layered files generated from these programs are reflective merely of layers manufactured by the user.

The scan of Obama's birth certificate was not done in Adobe Acrobat Pro, Photoshop, or Illustrator, so all of the above nonsense is merely irrelevant obfuscation from Zebest in a (failed) effort at making her sound like she actually knows what she's talking about.

Which she, of course, doesn't.

The metadata for Obama's PDF reveals that a Mac-based program called Preview was used to generate the optimized PDF file.

Double fail. Not only did Zebest not figure out none of the above Adobe programs were used to scan the birth certificate (her initial "analysis" said it was done in Photoshop, and it was only after the metadata was pointed out to her that she backtracked somewhat), she still has no idea what she's talking about.

Preview is just the application used by the Mac OS to display images and PDFs. The actual software tool that generated the scan of Obama's birth certificate was Quartz PDFContext - in other words, when the birth certificate was placed in the scanner, a preview image appeared in Preview, and when the intern or whoever hit "save to PDF" while in Preview, Quartz generated the PDF itself.

And, contrary to Zebest's claim, Quartz PDFContext on a Macintosh does indeed create layers in a PDF from a straight scan of a single document. Because that's exactly what Nathan Golding of NRO did, in the link above.

Zebest's complete bumbling efforts at pretending she knows Big Important Techie Stuff like metadata resulted in one of the most amusing episodes of her getting in way over her head and failing miserably. Back in June of 2011, she and Corsi appeared on the Peter Boyles radio show to talk about her "analysis" of Obama's birth certificate.

See, Zebest managed to completely miss the Mac-related metadata, but tabbed onto the fact that the metadata has the apparently-mysterious notation "Derek's PDF". This led her and Corsi to speculate that they might have identified the culprit in the White House who forged Obama's birth certificate: White House staffer Derek R. B. Douglas.

Unfortunately for our "expert" Zebest, that metadata tag had nothing to do with the identity of any potential forger. It wasn't even the only PDF out there with that tag. See, the ASCII appears as "Derek's PDF", but in Windows encoding, it appears as ƒÂÚÂÎßÛ. A quick Google search of "ƒÂÚÂÎßÛ pdf" reveals hundreds of PDFs with the same "Derek's PDF" tag. I even found a discussion thread from 2010, long before Obama's long form PDF was released, about that very tag appearing in the metadata of PDF's generated with Apple's Quartz engine.

Why is that? Because these PDFs, like the PDF of the President's long form birth certificate, were created on an Apple computer. In 2007, Apple, Inc. acquired the CUPS printing software to incorporate into their computer operating systems. CUPS includes, as its PDF filter, a sub-program called Xpdf. Xpdf was created by one Derek B. Noonburg (scroll down to the "Legal" section). That's why most PDFs created on an Apple computer contain the tag "Derek's PDF", because they were made using Derek's PDF code.

So much for Zebest and metadata.

 

[SpitfireIX]

Based on the subject matter of your request, we searched the records systems most likely to maintain responsive records: The Bureau of African Affairs and the Central Foreign Policy Records System. After a thorough search of these systems conducted by professional employees familiar with their contents and organization, no records responsive to your request were located.

Well, duh, they're obviously covering for their Commander in Chief, because no one at the State Department could possibly have any interest in seeing Barack Obama disqualified from the Presidency.

 

[A'isha]

Oh, yeah. You mean the certified copy that spells the word 'Hawaii" as Huwaii"????

It does no such thing.

The above is an even more ridiculous claim by Zebest in a failed (again) effort to cover for her earlier screwups about the existence of a paper original for Obama's birth certificate.

 

[Bob001]

What do they really think?

I continue to be perplexed by this birther business. I don't understand what the people who do not believe that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii to Stanley Ann Dunham actually believe instead. Do they think that a white teen-age girl traveled to rural Africa in the late stages of her pregnancy in 1961 to bear a child in primitive conditions, then sneaked back into the United States with her baby, creating no records or paper trail in either direction? Do they think Stanley Ann Dunham is not Obama's mother? Do they think a black newborn was kidnapped, smuggled out of Africa and delivered to a white mother in Hawaii to be raised as her own? And Dunham's Kansas-born parents went along with all this for their entire lives? Or do they think Obama first appeared in Hawaii when he enrolled in high school, and lived in some other country with some other family from birth? Or what? If the birthers reject the birth certificate certified by the state of Hawaii, and they reject the contemporaneous birth announcements published in two Hawaii newspapers, and reject the accounts of friends, neighbors and family, what do they believe instead? Rejecting the facts is only half of the issue. What is their complete alternative story, from beginning to end, of where Barack Obama was born, who his parents were, and how he came to the U.S.?

 

[Belz...]

The problem with "Deep Thinkers" is, they perceive themselves as being just to smart to think there could ever believe there is such a thing as a conspiracy.

I can't help but notice that this does not actually address my post, but instead attempts to be clever by mirroring it.

Furthermore, since I do not consider myself a "deep thinker", whatever that means, I don't feel targeted by your post.

Now, if you could find something to answer to my actual post...

 

[Dave Rogers]

I continue to be perplexed by this birther business. I don't understand what the people who do not believe that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii to Stanley Ann Dunham actually believe instead. Do they think that a white teen-age girl traveled to rural Africa in the late stages of her pregnancy in 1961 to bear a child in primitive conditions, then sneaked back into the United States with her baby, creating no records or paper trail in either direction? Do they think Stanley Ann Dunham is not Obama's mother? Do they think a black newborn was kidnapped, smuggled out of Africa and delivered to a white mother in Hawaii to be raised as her own? And Dunham's Kansas-born parents went along with all this for their entire lives? Or do they think Obama first appeared in Hawaii when he enrolled in high school, and lived in some other country with some other family from birth? Or what? If the birthers reject the birth certificate certified by the state of Hawaii, and they reject the contemporaneous birth announcements published in two Hawaii newspapers, and reject the accounts of friends, neighbors and family, what do they believe instead? Rejecting the facts is only half of the issue. What is their complete alternative story, from beginning to end, of where Barack Obama was born, who his parents were, and how he came to the U.S.?

It seems to me that they just think he's black.

Dave

 

[JayUtah]

Rejecting the facts is only half of the issue.

Most conspiracy theories build themselves around the premise that "the official story is wrong" -- and not much more. Hence it ends up being more of a commentary against some unfavored group, rather than commentary for some alternate historical theory. Note comments in this thread such as calling the Democratic Party "pure evil."

What is their complete alternative story, from beginning to end, of where Barack Obama was born, who his parents were, and how he came to the U.S.?

You almost never get this from a conspiracy theorist. That's principally what separates them from legitimate investigators and historians. On the rare occasion that you do get an end-to-end narrative, the detail is pretty spotty. You get good definition around the parts where their pet "anomalies" lay, but the rest tends to be along the lines of "We think this may have happened," or "We could figure out the rest if we only had access to the super secret files held by the Powers That Be."

In other words, they don't seem to realize yet that their hypothesis has to be, on the whole, more credible and explain more available evidence than the prevailing theory. They think instead that once you've impeached some detail of the prevailing theory, the whole thing immediately vanishes in a puff of Superior Logic and Insight and their theory therefore must hold by default.

 

[tsig]

"Adobe Acrobat Pro is the most commonly used program capable of creating layers from an automated process such as optimization, but even Acrobat Pro does not always produce layers when optimizing a file. The method and settings applied during the saving process play a factor in whether layers will be automatically generated or not. To be clearer on this point, programs like Photoshop and Illustrator will not automatically generate layers when optimizing a file (regardless of the circumstances). Any layered files generated from these programs are reflective merely of layers manufactured by the user.

The metadata for Obama's PDF reveals that a Mac-based program called Preview was used to generate the optimized PDF file.

The bottom line, documented in detail within the report, is that an optimized layer pattern will contain only a single layer of 1-bit quality that displays black only. All remaining layers (in an optimized file) are 8-bit -- containing multiple colors. In other words, the optimization process pulls out all the black color onto one (1-bit) layer -- not two (1-bit) layers, not three (1-bit) layers...just one layer, with this 1-bit object code attribute.
Obama's PDF file (as seen in the figure) contains EIGHT 1-bit layers -- all of which fail to reflect a black color. However, the colors presented are a deception. The black is there, but it's hidden in plain sight (as outlined in the report).
Taking into account the multiple 1-bit layers embedded in Obama's file, combined with the associated color-manipulation defined in the report, it is impossible to duplicate these file attributes through scanning or any other argument thrown at the debate..."


-- Mara Zebest

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/07/new_obama_birth_certificate_forgery_proof_in_the_layers.html

If it's impossible to duplicate these file attributes then how were they made in the first place?

 

[000063]

...Anomaly hunting, no different than every other conspiracy theory that purports some kind of expert analysis. The pseudo-expert states categorically what properties an authentic example of the evidence in hand should exhibit, observes departures from that standard, and then attributes the discrepancy by default to whatever accusation is appropriate to the conspiracy theory....

I disagree. I've seen many CTs who were entirely unable to explain what the "real" evidence should look like, and dodged any inquiries into that matter. It's like they were literally unable to comprehend or imagine a world where they were wrong. Not that what you describe doesn't happen often, of course.

 

[JayUtah]

The Constitution is quite clear on the requirements for the office of President.

Sorta quite clear. The Constitution didn't define "natural born Citizen," so we've had to do that by statute a couple of times in our history.

From the Framers' writings we learn that the motivation for the natural born citizen requirement was to prevent deposed European aristocrats in the late 18th and early 19th centuries from rising too high as elected executives in the United States and re-establishing their aristocracy. When the topic was most lately revisited in the late 1800s, the danger was still considered real enough to leave it there.

I believe the Constitution should be amended to change those requirements to something similar to the requirements to be a US Senator or Representative...

I think the original rationale is moot. I think there is motivation for requiring the President to have shown some significant allegiance to the United States by being a long-time resident and citizen, more so than for a member of Congress (whose power as individuals is limited).

 

[000063]

Not quite an exact replication of what is produced by the layers in the Obama COLB.
There are many anomalies. Here's one not dealt with by the above video -- the presence of white space surrounding most text in the O certificate.

Appeal to impossible perfection.

As someone with ten+ years of image editing experience, that "white space" would most likely sample as a very light grey. Not enough to tell by eye, but enough for a machine to recognize it as "not white". It has to do with the aliasing of the letters and the sampling the scanning and PDF software does.

Are you just throwing out random arguments now? There are several questions on the table regarding your existing arguments. Please try to stay on the ball.

Ah, yes, the Clayton Moore method.

...
So much for Zebest and metadata.

Chances of Prey responding to this post in any substantial way: slim.

 

[gnome]

Once again, RP, no interest in my question? I really did try to make it easy for you.

 

[JayUtah]

(her initial "analysis" said it was done in Photoshop, and it was only after the metadata was pointed out to her that she backtracked somewhat)

Since Zebest makes her living writing books about how to use Adobe Photoshop, it's no wonder that's what she talks about regardless of what the evidence says. When all you have is a hammer, etc.

she still has no idea what she's talking about.

Indeed, she keeps assuming "layers" in PDFs mean the same thing as "layers" in Photoshop. Semantically in PDFs they are different things and Zebest doesn't seem to understand this.

In fact, programming a good PDF renderer is a non-trivial task. Even a good PDF exporter is hard. Back when I was actively programming high-end CAE tools, PDF output from modelers and renders became a desirable feature. Our CAD component (as they all do) used layers to represent different elements of a 2D design, and translating that in our exporter into a viable PDF that would make all those early renderers happy was quite a chore.

Zebest's complete bumbling efforts at pretending she knows Big Important Techie Stuff...

She doesn't really know much about the nuts and bolts of computers. She writes passably useful books on how to get the most out of Adobe Photoshop, but her knowledge is essentially limited to what you can do with that tool. Naturally her "analysis" of the Obama birth certificate PDF departs from the assumption that it was created in Photoshop. It's not an analysis -- it's a fantasy narrative. She begs the question over and over again.

That's why most PDFs created on an Apple computer contain the tag "Derek's PDF", because they were made using Derek's PDF code.

This reminds me of a consulting contract I had a long time ago with a small division of a large company that was putting together a thin-client desktop based on the BSD flavor of Unix. Their various little applets consulted the classic BSD password file to populate the metadata in documents. But they ran into a snag where allowably empty password-file fields resulted in disallowed empty metadata fields. Because I was in a particularly jovial mood the day we discussed this, I suggested that the "User Name" field, if empty in /etc/password, be populated for purposes of metadata conformity with the name "Tony, the Wonder Llama." We all laughed, and the programmers programmed it that way.

Through the inevitable and unpredictable derivative of this little software stack eventually become the official desktop for the IBM Netstation V1RX and was distributed to thousands of customers as a Very Professional and Very Businesslike system. Unfortunately, if you didn't go in and set up your user profile correctly at some point, and sent e-mail or created a document, you'd have things such as

Created by:  some_executive_vp@ibm.com <Tony, The Wonder Llama>

And this somehow made it through innumerable rounds of IBM quality assurance testing. Never mistake Easter eggs for real data.

 

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Not even to an old and trusted friend like Gov. Ambercrombie????

I absolutely love how this particular lack of corruption in a government official is seen by Robert Prey as suspicious.

 

[Cleon]

Kenya Birth Records from Lady Grigg Maternity Wings of the Coast ProvincialGeneral Hospital... "Missing"
Who in the world would have a motive to steal birth records from Kenya?????

"....intelligence reports have suggested he [Obama} might have been born in Mombasa t the Lady Grigg Maternity Wings of the Coast ProvincialGeneral Hospital...Howeveer, there is no evidence within our records that supports this position, the information we in the ministry have is that some documents have been removed by unknown persons....from the birth registry records."

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=808&pictureid=6470[/qimg]

Baloney.

 

[Robert Prey]

If it's impossible to duplicate these file attributes then how were they made in the first place?

Manually.

 

[elbe]

Manually.

Why would someone do all that just to mock up a document?



I was thinking of just asking "Why?" but that seemed like it would easily lead back to the beginning of the birther circle of insanity if Robert was being disingenuous. Of course I wouldn't want to think that.

 

[Robert Prey]

No.

The scan of Obama's birth certificate was not done in Adobe Acrobat Pro, Photoshop, or Illustrator, so all of the above nonsense is merely irrelevant obfuscation from Zebest in a (failed) effort at making her sound like she actually knows what she's talking about.

How do you know it was a scan???

 

[A'isha]

How do you know it was a scan???

Because Hawaii sent Obama two physical paper copies of the document, and the stork doesn't bring PDFs.

So, to become a PDF, one of the two hard copies had to be scanned in.

 

[Robrob]

Oh, yeah. You mean the certified copy that spells the word 'Hawaii" as Huwaii"????

Oops, caught in another lie. How embarrassing for you...

Kenya Birth Records from Lady Grigg Maternity Wings of the Coast ProvincialGeneral Hospital... "Missing"
Who in the world would have a motive to steal birth records from Kenya?????

"....intelligence reports have suggested he [Obama} might have been born in Mombasa t the Lady Grigg Maternity Wings of the Coast ProvincialGeneral Hospital...Howeveer, there is no evidence within our records that supports this position, the information we in the ministry have is that some documents have been removed by unknown persons....from the birth registry records."

Begging the question because you are too afraid to be debunked? And once again, for "evidence" you provide a document from Jerome Corsi without a shred of validation. For example, where is the raised seal, why is the date in American rather than European syntax and most hilariously - what is security level (confidential, secret, top secret) is "classified?"