TBR News Maaay 8, 2016
The Voice of the White House
Washington, D.C. May 8, 2016: “Preventing data theft and casual hacking
Lock code
You can use either a four-digit number (a “simple passcode”) or a longer “complex passcode” of case-sensitive letters, numbers, spaces, and characters. And if you prefer, you can activate a feature where entering a passcode incorrectly 10 times will wipe the phone. The iPhone 5S has the same passcode features, with an added Touch ID fingerprint scanner.
Lock screen features
This is important. iOS can give you access to some features without entering your lock code. Though sensitive personal information is not accessible, you can use some functions of Siri, such as placing a voice call or sending a text message, as well as reply to a missed call with a canned text message. Though you might find those shortcuts convenient, your handset will be more secure if you turn them off. Go to Settings > General > Passcode Lock.
Similarly, you’ll also need to turn off access to the Control Center and the Notification Center from your lock screen. To get there, go to Settings > Control Center, and Settings > Notification Center.”
The Müller Washington Journals 1948-1951
At the beginning of December, 1948, a German national arrived in Washington, D.C. to take up an important position with the newly-formed CIA. He was a specialist on almost every aspect of Soviet intelligence and had actively fought them, both in his native Bavaria where he was head of the political police in Munich and later in Berlin as head of Amt IV of the State Security Office, also known as the Gestapo.
His name was Heinrich Müller.
Even as a young man, Heini Müller had kept daily journals of his activities, journals that covered his military service as a pilot in the Imperial German air arm and an apprentice policeman in Munich. He continued these journals throughout the war and while employed by the top CIA leadership in Washington, continued his daily notations.
This work is a translation of his complete journals from December of 1948 through September of 1951.
When Heinrich Müller was hired by the CIA¹s station chief in Bern, Switzerland, James Kronthal in 1948, he had misgivings about working for his former enemies but pragmatism and the lure of large amounts of money won him over to what he considered to be merely an extension of his life-work against the agents of the Comintern. What he discovered after living and working in official Washington for four years was that the nation¹s capital was, in truth, what he once humorously claimed sounded like a cross between a zoo and a lunatic asylum. His journals, in addition to personal letters, various reports and other personal material, give a very clear, but not particularly flattering, view of the inmates of both the zoo and the asylum.
Müller moved, albeit very carefully, in the rarefied atmosphere of senior policy personnel, military leaders, heads of various intelligence agencies and the White House itself. He was a very observant, quick-witted person who took copious notes of what he saw. This was not a departure from his earlier habits because Heinrich Müller had always kept a journal, even when he was a lowly Bavarian police officer, and his comments about personalities and events in the Third Reich are just as pungent and entertaining as the ones he made while in America.
The reason for publishing this phase of his eventful life is that so many agencies in the United States and their supporters do not want to believe that a man of Müller¹s position could ever have been employed by their country in general or their agency in specific.
Thursday, 20 January 1949
Today, Truman is to be inaugurated here at a great ceremony. I was invited to attend but have made my excuses. From what I have seen of American parades, compared with German ceremonies, they always seem very amateurish. Besides, I have to go over literally thousands of pages of paper, some mine and some theirs, dealing with communists and I simply cannot spare the time.
There was also a large official function last evening, also to which I did not go although one of my General friends offered to get me a ticket. I have no interest in meeting with famous Americans at this point and besides, my English is not so good yet. Perhaps later when I learn to speak with less accent. I am hiring a speech teacher who thinks I am a Swiss national, which in fact I suppose I am although the German is certainly not the same.
Cold, very clear and windy. I took a pleasant walk through the streets of Georgetown and noticed all of the very old red brick buildings, built like Dutch houses, almost up to the street and very narrow. Attractive enough and how interesting to compare these old and historic buildings with the awful Negro slums in other parts of town. We would never have permitted such disgusting living areas in Germany but this is a democracy, as I am constantly being told, and people can largely do as they like.
A little later, I heard the roar of military aircraft over the city and went up on the roof just to be certain that the Russians weren’t attacking. American planes, part of the ceremony. It takes a very long time to get the sound of bombers directly overhead out of one’s mind.
Friday, 4 February 1949
Our dear friend Comrade Josef does not want to come to visit Truman in the United States because his doctor won’t allow him to! No one dares tell Stalin what to do. I understand that he wishes to meet Truman in Czechoslovakia instead. Two reasons for this: One, Stalin dares not leave Russia because he is terrified of a coup and second, he hates Truman who has consistently thwarted his expansionist plans and will make some kind of an attempt to kill him in the safety of one of his slave countries. Probably blame it on priests or the Benes faction. I have given my own opinion on this where it should do some good but have been told that Truman detests Stalin, sees him for what he is, a lunatic murderer, and will not go.
Weather has been cold and very clear. There is a garden here that has gone to seed and perhaps in the spring, something creative can be done. I should have Papa come over and work in it but that certainly will not be. Things seem to be going as well as can be expected at home. The family is still being bothered by the Amis but I think they can survive. They are looking in the wrong place for me after all. Do these idiots think I am hiding in the attic or creep into the house disguised in a wig and false beard?
After the war, Müller’s family all lived in a small house in the Munich suburb of Pasing. His father, wife, daughter and son, a recently released prisoner of war, were quite poor and ostracized because of Müller’s position in the Gestapo. Müller’s father, Alois, had never been a great success in life, having tried his hand at a number of occupations; policeman, church restorer and professional gardener. He failed at all of these projects and certainly instilled a greatly heightened sense of ambition in his only son.
Thursday, 10 February 1949
More paperwork, endless paperwork. I was given a fine shepherd dog today as a guard animal. A male, about a year old, black and tan and very intelligent. He has some enormously long name on his papers but I will call him Maxl. My wife hated dogs but I do not and I think we will get along very well indeed. Well-trained, just like Hitler’s favorite bitch was. Schopenhauer was right about people and dogs. On the other hand, Herta is still stuffing herself like a sausage and the cook is complaining that she invades his kitchen at all hours and disrupts his planned meals. I have spoken with H. about this eating problem several times and I will have to get rid of her if she does not stop. I do not like people to ignore my suggestions and her problem is not physical. Also, I do not like fat women and she is moving quickly in that direction.
Irmgard has arrived, is not happy with my domestic arrangement and I assured her it would change soon. My excuse was that H. had been assigned to me!
After finally meeting the President, some of my impressions. I never knew Roosevelt but this one must be a welcome change. A dynamic man, friendly but also firm. Not well versed in European politics and very suspicious of the military. He understands domestic politics very well, having been a legislator for some years. I think basically an honest man and I can see why Stalin loathes him. Truman comes directly to the point and cuts through the diplomatic nonsense. As I thought, he is of two minds about the communist business, also a little frightened about its extent and probably would like to push it aside. We talked about Duggan and he does not feel he was a communist and said “poor man” several times. He asked me what I thought about Hitler and so on. Intelligent questions. He will officially hear nothing bad about Roosevelt but in private does not speak well of him. This is a small town farmer in thought and the sophistication of the American intellectual establishment very much annoys him. They, of course, hate him because they all loved Roosevelt and his ways. Truman said that Roosevelt had to “put him on the ticket” because he was forced to…that R. wanted crazy Wallace but couldn’t get him. In revenge, R. never told Truman anything at all and completely ignored him! And this when R. knew he was dying! T. also said Roosevelt “couldn’t tell the truth to save his soul.” That I can believe. He also told me that the White House was “a pigsty” when he moved in and that Mrs. Roosevelt and the family lived like “poor white trash” in what he called the People’s House.
Mrs. R. used to bring her lady friends into the building, even when the President was there, but refused to allow him to bring any of his lady friends around. And Truman said the cook belonged in the kitchen of a penitentiary and that State dinners were avoided like the Black Death.
Another historical footnote: When R. died, his old friend (who I know hated him) Churchill, refused to attend the funeral. I told T. that C. was a drunken, fat little fairy and I actually got the President to laugh. He told me that he heard I liked to play the piano and that I must visit with him at home and we could play duets! My God, I will have to fortify myself with schnapps first! They tell me his unattractive daughter thinks she is a wonderful singer but sounds like a cat was being run over by a truck. That will be an evening I could do without, believe me. The term “monkey love” is often very applicable.
The wall hangings have come down from New York and I will have them put up over the weekend. They will join the Goeblens already in the hall. Every time I see these, I recall them hanging in the new Chancellery. The Vienna Museum is no doubt still looking for them. If Peiner had finished his projected pieces, they would have been returned to Vienna and I would have bare places on my walls.
I am to have some of my associates in for dinner next week. Someone told me that I am supposed to have a “wonderful wine cellar,” but this was from someone who was at the New Year’s party and drank the swill! (The same General who threw up in the pantry). I am supposed to have lunch with Wisner but I will put it off as long as I can. I cannot abide him; he drinks far too much, is terribly arrogant without any visible reason for it and appears to me to be more than half-mad. I mentioned my opinions of him to the President but he is not sufficiently in control to do much about such assholes as Pash and Wisner.
The tapestries mentioned were on loan to Hitler from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna while Werner Peiner, a German artist, was working on an original series of hangings, which depicted scenes from German military history. This series was never finished and the old tapestries vanished at the end of the war.
Monday, 14 February 1949
I need to devote more time to these personal records but the amount of work I have laid out for myself makes it difficult. For obvious reasons, I cannot have my secretary transcribe them (I think I have found a job for her at the Treasury Department.) She hates Maxl, who now sleeps in my room, and he detests her in turn. Dogs always know about such things. Herta is available but too difficult. She said last week that either the dog goes or she does. She leaves next week and Irmgard will take her place. If I am careful about what I say, I might be able to get I. to write up these notes.
Interesting situation here with Agnes Smedly, a communist agent, and Anna Strong, another one. Meisinger exposed the Sorge ring in Japan during the war and Smedly was involved. Just recently, MacArthur released some background material on the ring and Smedly threatens to sue! This seems to be the standard communist tactic. First, deny everything and then sue anyone who even hints that they were an agent. This works with weak people and makes them retract but has become very obvious as a legal tactic and we ought to find ways to circumvent their legal remedies. Now to more interesting comments.
Have finally met with Colonel Hoover! He wouldn’t come here so we met on neutral ground. He insisted on bringing three men with him so I countered with six! The result was that we went off privately and had a surprisingly amiable conversation. He is angry because he doesn’t really know who I am and keeps hinting that he has “certain information” about me. I know I have real information about him but since I have to work with him, I kept my mouth shut. I was fully warned and was properly pro-American and very laudatory of his efforts, “even from the earliest days” to alert America to the “Red Menace” as he calls it. He is a strict disciplinarian and seems to be very competent but is the sort which is either highly dictatorial or very subservient. In my case, he poked around to see if I was a potential rival. I convinced him that I was not although he occupies the same position in this country that I did in Germany. I confess I would like his job but he has been in place for years and the game would not be worth the candle.
We fenced with each other for nearly two hours but it was not unprofitable for either one of us and I am sure we can work together. One always has to defer to him but not out of ignorance or weakness. He will exploit both. He knows Truman doesn’t like him so I made him happy when I told him that I had praised him to the President and hoped that he would achieve the recognition from the new leader which he once had from the last, great one. I must say that he didn’t like Roosevelt either and told me at least ten really terrible anecdotes about the man.
Better to be a live dog than a dead lion.
I will invite Mr. or better, Director Hoover over for dinner one of these days. I don’t know if he is a fairy or not; I suspect not. He lives with his mother, they tell me, and is very pure of thought and deed. Probably asexual which in the end gives him more energy to direct to his work. He made a sly reference to my secretary going to the Treasury and I told him, in all innocence, that I would send her to work for him if he wished. I stopped short of mentioning some of her attributes because he made a very sour face. At least she could get fat and he wouldn’t care. The problem is to get Hoover to cooperate by sharing his files. The President told me he could order this but I prefer to have it voluntary. I see several ways to accomplish this in a friendly way so we will follow that path and see where it goes.
There will be a very high-level strategy meeting next week and I would like Hoover to attend. The President will either come or send a top aide. The question: How far are we to go? Hoover says that the State Department people are heavily infiltrated with “Reds” and cites Harry Dexter White. I made him happy when I told him all I knew about White, who was a Russian-born communist. I told Hoover that it was unfortunate that White had a fatal heart attack last year, or we could use him to extract more of Hoover’s “Reds” from the department. I made a tentative comment about heart attacks and how easy they were to achieve and he did become very interested! More on this for him later.
Like many of the officials here, Hoover is quite anti-Semitic and comments often about how many of the known (and proven) traitors were Jews. He claims that all the communists are Jews but I did not find this so in Germany. In this matter, Hoover is almost as brutal as Wisner who would have fit in well in Germany. I would never have allowed W. inside the Gestapo but Schellenberg could have put him to use. I never permitted any of my people in sensitive positions to drink like Wisner does. One warning and out they went!
Harry Dexter White was born in the United States but his parents were Russian in origin. White was one of the top aides for Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau. White was the man who conceived the basis of the so-called “Morgenthau Plan,” heartily endorsed by General George Marshall and President Roosevelt, to reduce both the population and production of a conquered Germany to a series of small, pastoral states. Truman shelved this savage program after he became President and White was later exposed as an active Soviet agent. He died of a sudden heart attack after having been accused of espionage. As this happened before Müller came to the United States, he cannot be held to account. Neither was he involved in the rapid descent of Laurence Duggan from his office window to the pavement below.
Frank Wisner, Sr. (Junior was U.S. Ambassador to India during the Clinton Administration and had been rumored as designate Director of the CIA) head of the CIA’s clandestine operations, drank to excess, and was fond of using Eastern Europeans with histories of barbaric behavior. He filled the ranks of CIA operatives with such people who were also found in astonishing number in the CIA-controlled Gehlen organization.
Don’t change your passwords too often, UK intelligence says
May 7, 2016
RT
Security experts are often advising computer users to change their passwords to safeguard against hacking. However, the UK’s intelligence agency is advising the public to do exactly the opposite, as new passwords are likely to be forgotten or written down.
UK intelligence and the Communications-Electronics Security Group (CESG), which is part of the security organization GCHQ, has advised those using a computer to ignore previous advice every couple of months
“The problem is that this doesn’t take into account the inconvenience to users – the ‘usability costs’ – of forcing users to frequently change their passwords. The majority of password policies force us to use passwords that we find hard to remember,” CESG said on its website.
If a person is constantly changing their password, the chances are that it will be written down because of the difficulty in remembering it. However, this makes an account vulnerable to being unlawfully entered should the password fall into the wrong hands.
“It’s one of those counter-intuitive security scenarios; the more often users are forced to change passwords, the greater the overall vulnerability to attack. What appeared to be a perfectly sensible, long-established piece of advice doesn’t, it turns out, stand up to a rigorous, whole-system analysis,” CESG stated.
One of the problems CESG says with changing a password at regular intervals is due to the fact that the public become complacent about the new password they pick. This can be something similar to their old password or one that has been used for another account.
Speaking in April 2015, former National Security Agency contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden recommended using “passphrases” instead of passwords as he said it takes a computer less than a second to crack any eight-character password.
“The best advice here is to shift your thinking from passWORDs to passPHRASES,” Snowden recommended. “Think about a common phrase that works for you. It’s too long to brute force and also make them unlikely to be in the dictionary.
Comment: The British intelligence agencies suggest not changing passwords so often because it makes their spying on their own, and other peoples’ computers more difficult. Both the British and their American handlers regularly spy on Russian and European agencies, leaders and citizens with great regularity.
What lies below: swarm of earthquakes detected beneath Mount St Helens
Scientists suggest volcano is restoring its stores of magma as rate of earthquakes has been ‘steadily increasing’ and reaching nearly 40 located per week at its peak
May 7, 2016
by Alan Yuhas
The Guardian
A swarm of more than 130 earthquakes has been detected beneath Mount St Helens over the last eight weeks, according to the US Geological Survey.
Since March, the rate of such earthquakes under the Washington state volcano has been “steadily increasing”, the USGS reported. At its peak, nearly 40 earthquakes have been located per week.
Most of the quakes have occurred about one to four miles beneath the active volcano, and most have been extremely weak at magnitudes of 0.5 or less, the largest a 1.3-level quake.
The USGS said there have been many more earthquakes that have been too small to be felt at the surface or precisely located. A 0.7-level quake “would not be felt if you were standing on the surface above it”, the seismologists wrote.
The quakes do not mean the volcano is any more likely to erupt in the near future, the USGS said, describing the earthquakes as common, “volcano-tectonic in nature [and] indicative of a slip on a small fault”.
They do though suggest the volcano is recharging its stores of magma, the scientists said. As the molten rock rises to fill the volcano’s magma chamber it presses against the colder rock around it, increasing stress. This push and pull creates quakes.
The USGS noted that similar swarms caused minor convulsions beneath Mount St Helens in 2013 and 2014, and that earthquakes swarmed in the 1990s with more energy and at much higher rates.
The seismologists said they had detected “no anomalous gases, increases in ground inflation or shallow seismicity” and “no signs of an imminent eruption”.
“As was observed at Mount St Helens between 1987 [and] 2004, recharge can continue for many years beneath a volcano without an eruption,” they wrote.
Mount St Helens last erupted in 2008, after a surprise reawakening in 2004 and several years of sporadic activity. Swarms of earthquakes before the 2004 eruption averaged between magnitudes of two to four.
On 18 May 1980 it erupted to devastating effect, a column of ash reaching 80,000ft and pyroclastic flows of boiling ash, gas and rock cascading off its slopes. Part of the volcano collapsed, ash fell as far away as New Mexico and 57 people died as a result of the eruption.
The volcano is now one of the most closely monitored in the world. Researchers at three universities have placed thousands of sensors around the volcano, to investigate its bowels.
“It’s telling us [that] years to decades from now St Helens will erupt again,” Seth Moran, scientist-in-chief at the Cascades Volcano Observatory, told local KOIN news.
“Our best long-term forecast is that the next eruption will be a lava dome building eruption, which will have some explosivity to it, but nothing as catastrophic as St Helens in 1980.”
Erik Klemetti, an assistant professor of Geosciences at Denison University, noted in Wired magazine that recharging magma can take years.
“It might have been five years between the big recharge event in 1998-99 and the 2004 eruptions,” he said.
The swarms are normal volcanic activity, Klemetti wrote. Magma rising up within the sleeping volcano will have a long path through the remains of past eruptions before it can load Mount St Helens for a new one.
Why the Ben Rhodes profile in the New York Times Magazine is just gross
Absurdity, self-regard, hypocrisy, chumminess between writer and subject — it’s all there.
May 6, 2016
by Carlos Lozada
The Washington Post
I just don’t know anymore where David Samuels begins and Ben Rhodes ends.
Samuels’s massive New York Times magazine profile of Rhodes, President Obama’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, is already prompting debates over the administration’s truthfulness in promoting the Iran nuclear deal, as well as over the disdain with which Rhodes regards the Washington press corps, the U.S. foreign policy establishment — basically anyone who is not himself, President Obama, or fellow West Wing narrative pushers.
So the piece, posted Thursday and titled “The Aspiring Novelist Who Became Obama’s Foreign-Policy Guru,” is, in straightforward terms, a real talker, a success. Even if it is, as a piece of nonfiction writing, kind of gross.
The grossness emerges on several levels and on multiple occasions.
It is the knowing chumminess of a journalist finishing sentences for a White House official who is mocking other prominent Washington journalists for getting so easily spun – and then quoting himself as he finishes the sentence, even letting us know that he did so with a chuckle. (It takes a special kind of journalist to quote his own chuckle.) It is the blindness of a writer who declares that Rhodes is “not an egotist” while offering countless examples of that subject’s gargantuan self-regard, and not bothering to note the contradiction. It is letting a speechwriter colleague praise Rhodes for giving “zero [expletive] about what most people in Washington think,” when the entire exercise in which the writer, subject and source are engaged – a lengthy and access-heavy profile portraying Rhodes as the “Boy Wonder” of the Obama White House and revealing Rhodes’s contempt for the Washington foreign-policy establishment – proclaims precisely the contrary.
The grossness is also evident in the profile’s literary pretentiousness. Don DeLillo is a frequent reference point, from the first paragraph of the story, in which the horror of 9/11 becomes a convenient inflection point in the arc of Rhodes’s professional aspirations (from wannabe fiction writer to guy who wants to “try to write about international affairs”), to the bizarre exchange later when Samuels and Rhodes wonder who would best write the novel of Rhodes’s experiences. “I don’t know how you feel about Don DeLillo,” Rhodes suggests. “I love Don DeLillo,” Samuels responds.
Also, we are told not once but twice that Ben Rhodes is something like Holden Caulfield of J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye.” Once it is Samuels who thinks so (Rhodes is “an only slightly updated version of what Holden Caulfield might have been like if he grew up to work in the West Wing”), and next it is Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who “volunteers” the comparison, Samuels emphasizes. “He hates the idea of being phony,” she says to Samuels, “and he’s impetuous, and he has very strong views.” Never mind that Caulfield is one of the most overused literary references for every brooding, self-involved young man. It’s that the work of spin and manipulation that Rhodes performs every day – and that Samuels appears so enthralled by – takes phoniness to an art form.
It is one thing for a journalist to let his subject reveal himself, in his own words and terms, and let readers make up their minds. But there is plenty of room between that and an uncritical, almost credulous approach to a story. You don’t even have to fight over whether the communications strategy surrounding the negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal deserves pride of place over the, you know, actual diplomacy. Just look, for instance, at Rhodes’s critique of the press covering foreign policy. “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.” This from someone who has been writing speeches for Obama since he was in his late 20s, and surely understands that age and insight can have a nonlinear relationship. Yet, the only word that Samuels is able to summon to describe Rhodes’s own lack of the usual credentials for his lofty position? “Startling.”
The absurdity and self-absorption of some of the quotes and anecdotes are a lot to take. Like when Rhodes describes himself as an “individual who finds himself negotiating both vast currents of history and a very specific kind of power dynamics.” As Obama once said to Richard Holbrooke when the diplomat spoke in overly dramatic tones about Obama’s policy decisions in Afghanistan: “Do people really talk like that?” (Apparently they do. Even “the master shaper and retailer of Obama’s foreign-policy narratives.”)
Or, in my favorite moment in the profile, when Samuels reports on Rhodes’s daily commute to work. “When his wife takes the car,” the journalist writes, “he rides the bus, which offers him a touch of the anonymity he craves.” What? First, Rhodes is not exactly monopolizing the cover of US Weekly; I doubt he is getting mobbed walking around the District or around what Samuels describes without a trace of irony as Rhodes’s “unpretentious Washington neighborhood.” Second, wouldn’t taking your car render you more anonymous than taking the bus, where other people might actually see you? No, the bus is a metaphor for the common touch – that of a man who can take a break from navigating history’s vast currents to avail himself of public transportation.
The essay makes much of the “mind meld” between Rhodes and Obama. “Nearly everyone I spoke to about Rhodes used the phrase ‘mind meld’ verbatim, some with casual assurance and others in the hushed tones that are usually reserved for special insights,” Samuels reports. But the journalistic trope of the master wordsmith channeling his political boss is an old one – almost as old as that of the journalist profiling a subject with such admiration that he loses perspective.
There was more than one mind meld in this story.
Conspiracy Theories
by Harry von Johnston, PhD
TWA Flight 800
Whenever a disaster happens that, unlike a volcanic eruption or a huge forest fire, cannot be immediately explained, a great gathering of self-serving individuals begin to spout forth theories, plans, tales of “secret documents,’ and “confidential communications” with unnamed “experts.” The purpose of expounding these weird tales generally is to draw attention to the expounder. That no reputable segment of any media bothers with discussing these theories is always attributed to control by an irate Government who are furious at the brilliance of the theorist and who spend endless hours spying on them, opening their solicitations from NAMBLA and installing microphones in their desks at the local Humane Society.
As a case in point, let us consider a well-known tragedy. First come the actual facts and then the actual fictions.
On July 17, 1996, TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747-131 registered as N93119, took off from John F. Kennedy International Airport (New York) enroute to Charles De Gaulle International Airport (Paris).
The aircraft was flying more than eight miles off the cost of East Moriches, New York (part of Long Island) when the fuel tank exploded. The aircraft banked and the front part of the aircraft broke off. The wind pushed the aircraft into a climb. Then, the aircraft went into a dive, causing the wings to break off the aircraft. Pieces of the aircraft plummeted down into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 230 passengers on board.
After what has been billed as the longest and most expensive accident investigation in American aviation history, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation found that the flammable fuel/air mixture of the center wing fuel tank probably ignited due to electrical failure in the center fuel tank, causing the plane to explode in flight. The FBI agreed that there had been no criminal act after examining all the plane’s wreckage that had been recovered. In May of 1997, mechanics discovered a fuel leak in a Boeing 737-200 that they believed was caused by the kind of electrical arcing suspected of causing the TWA Flight 800 fatal explosion. NTSB investigators believed that the same kind of arcing from the wiring in the center fuel tank of TWA Flight 800 sparked the explosion that brought the plane down. As a result of extensive and very through testing, the NTSB issued an “airworthiness directive” requiring the immediate inspection of the wiring of older 747s. In April, it recommended further inspections and design changes in the wiring of 747s and in Boeing 707s and C-130 transport planes, as well.
Eight years after the crash, in February 2004, the FAA indicated that it would start the process of ordering airlines to install a fuel tank inerting system in most of their aircraft. It was stated that the order would probably actually be issued within two years, and then the airlines would be required to install the devices over the subsequent seven years. The FAA stated that, including the TWA Flight 800 crash, there had been three fuel tank explosions in airliners over the previous 14 years (the two others having occurred on the ground),
Various groups and individuals continue to maintain that the plane was downed by a bomb or missile, and that there was a subsequent cover-up to disguise the real cause of the crash.
The “terrorist theory” was, as usual, one of the first to be mentioned, especially due to the fact that the accident happened during the Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, where a bomb exploded ten days later. In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks, these alternate explanations have been revisited, as some officials and commentators have mentioned this disaster among lists of terrorist attacks. Cmdr. William S. Donaldson, a retired naval officer who conducted an independent investigation, disagrees with the official theory. According to Commander Donaldson, “jet airliners built by the American aerospace industry have logged at least 150 thousand years of flight time. Not once has there ever been a spontaneous fuel tank explosion on any fuel tank while airborne” (Letter to NTSB 11-14-97).
Donaldson concluded that the airplane was “shot down by missiles.” He interviewed hundreds of witnesses and said he reconstructed the flight paths of these missiles by triangulating the eyewitness accounts. Soon after, a photo that a passenger of a North American Airlines plane arriving at JFK supposedly took, seemed to support the missile theory because the “photo” showed a “missile” missing the NA Airlines jet narrowly.
The late Pierre Salinger, a former White House press secretary to President John F. Kennedy and ABC News journalist, prominently and repeatedly claimed he had proof that the flight was downed by a missile from a U.S. Navy ship. The documents on which he relied were later found to be vague rumors that had been distributed over Usenet, with attributions only to many “unnamed experts”. Some people briefly gave the name of Pierre Salinger Syndrome to the tendency to believe things that one reads on the bloggers of the Internet.
One such theory has the US Navy conducting tests of submarine-to-air missiles, accidentally hitting Flight 800, and then covering up the fatal error. After initial denials, the U.S. Navy later admitted that USS Wyoming (SSBN-742), commissioned only days before, was conducting sea trials in the area, and that USS Trepang (SSN-674) and USS Albuquerque (SSN-706) were conducting unspecified operations in the area. It should be noted that all three of these submarines lacked any surface to air missile armament as part of their standard munitions loadout (as do all submarines). It is possible that any of the three subs could have been carrying MANPADS missiles. However all three subs were more than 50 miles (80 km) away from the crash site, very far outside the range of any MANPADS missile in the world. One suggested possibility is that the type of missile involved may be classified.
Another possible alternate theory involving the US Navy is that a missile was fired from the USS Normandy (CG-60), operating 185 nautical miles (340 km) south of the TWA 800 crash site. This is well outside of the range of currently deployed Standard Missiles carried by US ships, almost double the range of the current Block IIIB versions, and just within the future Block IV ER versions. Even if this were a test of a Block IV version, although there is no evidence for this, at the extreme range in question the engine would have long burned out and the warhead would be gliding. This contradicts the main claim that a missile was involved, which is a number of eyewitness accounts claiming to have seen “a missile trail almost vertical under the explosion site.” Furthermore, inventories of USS Normandy’s missile complement immediately following the crash of TWA 800 showed no missiles missing from the inventory, according to the US Navy
Regardless of the very faint possibility of any number of missiles and missile launch platforms being in the vicinity of TWA 800 at the time of the accident, no evidence of any kind of a missile impact exists within the recovered wreckage, according to a study conducted by the Department of Defense’s Office of Special Technology
However, at least one individual involved at higher levels with the FBI’s portion of the recovery operations has stated publicly that he saw during his involvement predominant evidence in the state of the wreckage, the form of the wreckage field, the state of the victim’s remains, public and confidential actions by the airlines, investigation officials, and the Navy following the event, and other factors that convinced him the crash was the result of an “accidental missile strike.” Unfortunately, they have neglected to produce their evidence, claiming that the FBI and the CIA broke into their apartment and stole it, along with certain magazines, a picture of Matt Drudge in a leather thong and a six pack of warm beer.
One of the usual “reliable eyewitnesses” was a Malvina Tidwell of Long Island who claimed she and her husband, Oscar, (since desceaed) “positively identified” an Arab submarine, firing rockets, from their vantage point of the beach where they were looking for driftwood. “I knew it was an Arab sub,” Tidwell said, “because they had men with beards running around the deck and a green flag with Arab writing on it.” Mrs Tidwell is legally blind and her husband, who also gave a long interview to the alternative media, was suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s Disease and believed that he was the illegitimate son of Harry Truman.
For instance, the following affidavit, dated January 2003 (and which looks very much like blogger information that was passed around the internet shortly after the crash), is being listed as one of the “articles of evidence” in recent FOIA suits pressed by Captain Ray Lahr against the National Transportation Safety Board: This document states he viewed “radar tapes” and took part in “phone conversations” which convinced him Flight 800 was a victim of friendly fire, and that he later passed on this information to Pierre Salinger (Note such anomalies as the doubling of every statement in the affidavit, the second half being a reworded version of the first half).
Elaine Scarry, in a number of articles in the New York Review of Books, has raised the possibility of ‘electromagnetic interference’ being responsible for the accident. It has also been suggested that an electronic death ray developed by the brilliant Nicholas Tesla and utilized by a mysterious group calling itself the Hidden Hand brought down the plane in furtherance of a plan that no one seems to know about. The Hidden Hand was supposed to have detonated an atomic bomb over Houston, Texas on Christmas Day of 2004 but apparently was unsuccessful as Houston, unfortunately, is still intact.
A number of strange “alternate theories” surrounding TWA 800 relied on so-called eye witness accounts as collected by the FBI. However, very few of the witnesses were within five miles (8 km) of TWA 800 at the time of the accident, according to a witness map provided by the NTSB. The vast majority of the witnesses were too far away from the accident scene to discern any significant details, and some witnesses describe events that are well beyond the visual acuity of humans
Ex- CBS Investigator Kristina Borjesson, (email: FKLB@aol.com) and co-workers (including Oliver Stone) were on a documentary project for ABC, until it was aborted. Ms. Borjesson’s “documentary” involved the scores of the usual “eyewitnesses” who were desperate for their fifteen minutes of fame and who claimed they saw “something streaking from the ocean toward the plane.” This documentary was for a show, Declassified, that was being produced by Oliver Stone and slated to air on ABC. But the Stone connection grew controversial, and ABC canceled the program. CBS also immediately dissociated itself from Ms. Borjesson. Josh Howard, a senior producer at 60 Minutes, said, “Her official relationship with CBS ended before she pitched that story. (About mythic ‘rocket fuel’ being found on a strip of cloth alleged to have come from one of the passenger seats on Flight 800) She had maybe a month to go on her contract. She was anxiously looking around for other projects to prolong her employment.”
The 800 flight number was retired and replaced with flight 924 after the crash, although TWA continued to operate flights between New York and Paris. In Spring 2001, TWA merged with American Airlines. Of the exposers of the Real Truth, throughly discredited Pierre Salinger has since died and Ms Borjesson has slipped into professional oblivion, along with many others.
Comptroller irate over leak of his damning Gaza war report
Yosef Shapira demands explanation from PM as to how classified document ended up in hands of the media
May 6, 2016
Times of Israel
State Comptroller Yosef Shapira on Friday accused senior officials of leaking his secret report on the 2014 war with Hamas in Gaza, which the Hebrew media said points to major flaws in the government’s handling of the conflict.
Earlier this week, Shapira sent the highly classified draft report to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and other government officials.
The Israeli media began reporting on the content of Shapira’s draft text on Thursday, and published attacks by anonymous sources described as close to Netanyahu and Ya’alon.
This infuriated Shapira who demanded explanations, his spokesman Shlomo Raz said.
He particularly asked that “the prime minister and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to examine how the draft, classified top secret, was leaked by one of those reviewed,” said Raz.
The draft report accuses Netanyahu and Ya’alon of failing to update the security cabinet in real time of the imminent threat of war with Hamas, and not discussing the grave threat of the terror group’s attack tunnels, according to Hebrew media sources who read it.
Maariv newspaper said that among those hit hardest in the draft was then-IDF chief Benny Gantz, “who is exposed as a weak chief of staff who was out of touch with reality.”
Netanyahu, it added, “is depicted as having no crisis management abilities.”
Yuval Steinitz, a senior Likud minister loyal to Netanyahu, said Friday the reported findings of the report “bore no relation” to the report’s true content.
Gantz on Friday slammed the leak of the report, saying he had only received it for review once it had been handed to the press. “I regret the fact that the comptroller’s report reached me 24 hours after it reached the media,” he said.
The former army chief also appeared to reject the reported findings, saying that, “Operation Protective Edge was directed by the prime minister, defense minister and in a considered, responsible and balanced manner.”
Yediot Aharonot newspaper said the draft finds that during the conflict “the security establishment did not have a comprehensive plan for dealing with Hamas’s offensive tunnels.”Hamas, the terrorist organization that has ruled Gaza since a bloody 2007 coup against Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, has an extensive network of tunnels inside the Strip, including some that reach into Israel and Egypt.
It has used tunnels in the past as firing positions, shelter from Israeli attack, storage of weapons and at times to enter Israel and capture soldiers.
Their destruction of the tunnels was cited by Israel as one of its primary goals during the devastating 2014 war, known in Israel as Operation Protective Edge.
It has used tunnels in the past as firing positions, shelter from Israeli attack, storage of weapons and at times to enter Israel and capture soldiers.
Solomons sinking: Five Pacific reef islands swallowed by rising sea levels
May 7, 2016
RT
Five reef islands have disappeared from the Pacific’s Solomon Islands and six more have been severely damaged due to rising sea levels and coastal erosion, according to new research.
Studying the relationship between sea level rise and wave exposure in the “global sea-level rise hotspot,” a team of Australian researchers found rising waters are taking a significant toll on the islands.
“At least 11 islands across the northern Solomon Islands have either totally disappeared over recent decades or are currently experiencing severe erosion,” according to the study published in Environmental Research Letters.
Focusing on two areas with the highest density of exposed reef islands, two researchers, Isabel and Roviana, examined 33 islands using aerial and satellite imagery dating from 1947 to 2014.
Their findings confirm anecdotal accounts coming from scientists and locals of the islands’ extreme shoreline changes over the past decade.
“Shoreline recession at two sites has destroyed villages that have existed since at least 1935, leading to community relocations,” the study said.
The study also warns that Taro, the capital of Choiseul Province, is set to become the first provincial capital in the world to relocate its residents and services due to the threat of rising sea levels.
Researchers found rates of shoreline recession were significantly higher in areas exposed to high wave energy than more sheltered regions.
“This provides a bit of an insight into the future,” senior research fellow at the University of Queensland and lead author, Simon Albert, told AFP. “There’s these global trends that are happening but the local responses can be very, very localized.”
Ten houses from one of the badly eroded islands were swept into the sea between 2011 and 2014. The five islands that disappeared were all vegetated reef islands with areas up to five hectares (12 acres), which were not populated, but occasionally used by fishermen.
“They were not just little sand islands,” Albert pointed out.
Rates of sea-level rise in the Solomon Islands over the past two decades have been amongst the highest globally, according to the study.
While overall population density is low on the islands, low-lying coastal areas are popular with the inhabitants, and those parts of the reef islands are becoming increasingly densely populated.
The study emphasized that it was of critical importance to gain an understanding of the relationship between projected rising sea levels, other global climate changes such as waves, and local tectonics, if the social impact of erosion is to be minimized.
Solomon Islands National Disaster Council chair Melchior Mataki said that the response to the erosion and rising sea level “ultimately called for support from development partners and international financial mechanisms”.
“This support should include nationally driven scientific studies to inform adaptation planning to address the impacts of climate change in Solomon Islands,” he told ABC News.
Last month, the government of the Solomon Islands joined 11 other small Pacific Island nations in signing the Paris climate agreement in New York.
The first-ever legally binding global climate deal aims to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (34.7 Fahrenheit). It is due to come into force in 2020.
Canada fire rages for seventh day, evacuees brace for long wait
May 8, 2016
by Rod Nickel and Liz Hampton
Reuters
GREGOIRE LAKE, Alberta A wildfire ripping through Canada’s oil sands region blazed for a seventh day on Sunday as officials warned almost 100,000 people who fled the area that they would not be returning home soon.
The fire, which started at 6 p.m. eastern (2200 GMT) last Sunday near the town of Fort McMurray in northern Alberta, spread so quickly that the town’s 88,000 inhabitants barely had time to leave. Large parts of the town no longer exist.
Officials said that, even though the fire had largely pushed through Fort McMurray and was heading quickly northeast through dry boreal forests, the town was still too dangerous to enter.
“Within the community itself I expect over the next coming month or two that they’re going to be able to get a very good handle on the fire situation,” Alberta wildfire prevention chief Chad Morrison told reporters on Saturday.
Thousands of evacuees are camped out in nearby towns but stand little chance of returning soon. Provincial officials said displaced people would be better off driving to cities like Calgary, 655 km (410 miles) to the south, where health and social services are better.
Some residents are complaining about the lack of news from the town, fire chief Darby Allen said in a video posted online late on Saturday.
“We know from all the calls that you’re getting frustrated because you don’t have any information on your homes. We’re really working hard on that, it’s a complicated process,” he said.
The inferno looks set to become the costliest natural disaster in Canada’s history. One analyst estimated insurance losses could exceed C$9 billion ($7 billion).
Fort McMurray is the center of Canada’s oil sands region. About half of the crude output from the sands, or one million barrels per day (bpd), had been taken offline as of Friday, according to a Reuters estimate.
An Alberta government statement issued on Saturday night said the fire had consumed 200,000 hectares (494,000 acres) – an area the size of Mexico City – and would continue to grow.
Where does the money come from? Erdogan children’s immeasurable wealth questioned by German Bild
May 8, 2015
RT
The German newspaper Bild has raised questions as to how Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s children amassed their vast wealth, including one fortune worth tens of millions, when their father only earns some €50 thousand a year as head of state.
“While their father [President Erdogan] earns some 50 thousand euro per year, his children bathe in luxury. Where does it come from? There is no official data on that account,” the newspaper states.
The article then cites data published by Turkish opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet, which stated that everyone in Erdogan’s family, including his younger daughter, appear to be into business, dealing in such spheres as cosmetics, instant foods, the shipping industry, and jewelry.
The German newspaper notes that the net worth of one of Erdogan’s sons, Ahmet, amounts to some $80 million, with conflicting rumors concerning how he got this money. “A question is in order: does he get support from the [Turkish] government,” Bild writes.
The paper adds that the President’s younger son, Bilal, often appears in media headlines “in connection with shady and criminal deals.” Indeed, Bilal Erdogan was recently tried in Italy over claims that his estate may be connected to a massive political corruption scandal involving Turkey’s ruling AKP party that broke in 2013, rocking the Turkish political establishment. He now lives in Italy, allegedly to finish his dissertation. Along with his sister, he is suspected of corruption and bribery.
Bild also took note of last year’s discoveries published by the British news outlet, The Guardian, which uncovered information indicating that Turkish businessmen are actively involved in various deals with Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS) terrorists, such as illegal oil smuggling.
One of them according to [The Guardian] data is Bilal Erdogan,” Bild points out.
Meanwhile, the Turkish government might soon see one of Erdogan’s family members join their family at the helm.
The current Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is effectively stepping down from his position. Davutoglu had championed closer links with the EU and was in favor of introducing visa-free travel for Turks, which was a key part of a deal between Brussels and Ankara to reduce the amount of migrants reaching the EU from Turkish territory.
Davutoglu is seen in Europe as the more liberal face of the government in Ankara, while Erdogan is often blamed for creating a powerful executive presidency that his critics slam as authoritarian.
Bild cites opinions that “in Erdogan’s view, Davutoglu has too much influence in the country due to his role in negotiations with the EU and his criticism of the presidential system which Erdogan is building.”
Erdogan has yet to appoint Davutoglu’s successor, but as the President will no doubt want his replacement to be more malleable, it is speculated that Erdogan’s son-in-law, Energy Minister Berat Albayrak, might have what it takes.
Albayrak’s appointment as the government’s leader would benefit the whole Erdogan family, especially Bilal, who has been accused of involvement in illegal oil smuggling in Syria and Iraq.
Bild states that Albayrak might be “that firm part of the clan” that the Turkish head of state wants to see by his side.
President Erdogan’s Authoritarian Tilt Threatens Visa Deal With Europe
May 6, 2016
by Slison Smale and James Kanter
New York Times
BERLIN — The increasingly authoritarian tilt of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and the ouster of his prime minister this week have European leaders newly questioning their reliance on him and the viability of an already divisive deal struck this spring that has largely halted the flow of migrants to Europe.
The widening gulf in democratic values — combined with Mr. Erdogan’s deepening intransigence — has now run up against provisions in the deal that would allow Turks visa-free travel to Europe. All this is threatening even to undo the deal.
The gap between the sides and the growing pressure on the accord became clear this week when the European Commission called on Turkey to narrow its application of antiterrorism laws and bring them in line with European Union standards — one of more than 70 conditions it has set for visa-free travel.
Turkey has very broad terrorism laws, which the Europeans fear are being used by Mr. Erdogan to crack down on his opponents. In fact, Mr. Erdogan recently said the government should widen the definition of terrorist to include journalists and academics who are deemed by the authorities to have provided support for terrorists.
But on Friday, Mr. Erdogan proclaimed with typical defiance that Turkey “will not change its antiterror law for the sake of a visa deal” that would allow the 75 million Turks easier access to Europe for three months at a time.
“We will go our way,” Mr. Erdogan said. “You go yours.”
The episode was a fresh reminder of the political costs of holding together a deal that has helped the European Union to avoid a replay of the chaotic tide of migrants that nearly collapsed its system of open borders last year.
In return, however, Turkey has been promised up to 6 billion euros over three years to meet the costs of sheltering refugees from Syria and Iraq, as well as the possibility of the visa-free travel arrangement and fresh consideration of talks to enter the European Union.
But the continuing viability of the deal was called into question this week with the ouster of the Turkish official who has been most closely associated with it: Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. He was pushed out on Thursday by Mr. Erdogan, in what was widely interpreted as a move by the president to tighten his hold on power.
Two weeks ago, Mr. Davutoglu was the only Turkish leader who accompanied European Union officials as they visited Gaziantep, on the Turkish-Syrian border, to see how the deal was working.
“It is clear that Davutoglu was the decisive man for the deal,” said Sylke Tempel, editor in chief of Internationale Politik, published by the German Council of Foreign Affairs.
Echoing that thought, the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung noted Friday that “this means that the success of the deal will now be even more vulnerable to Erdogan’s whims.” European leaders should be “on red alert for rocky relations with Ankara in the future,” it said.
Carl Bildt, the former Swedish foreign minister, appeared to be pessimistic about the future of the migration pact now that Mr. Davutoglu has resigned.
Mr. Bildt wrote in a post late Thursday to his Twitter account that, “prospects for progress on EU-Turkey deal and relations have now dimmed considerably
No European leader has a greater stake in making the deal work than Chancellor Angela Merkel, who took the lead in negotiating it with Mr. Davutoglu.
On a visit to Italy, the chancellor noted cautiously on Friday that “we have made good progress with the deal with Turkey. The European Union — at least Germany and Italy — is ready and stands by its commitments. We hope of course that that is mutual.”
Whether Europe and Turkey can continue to work closely together may now rest on whether Mr. Davutoglu’s replacement also embraces a vision of Turkey with one foot in Europe or Mr. Erdogan’s authoritarian bent, said Volker Perthes, a Middle East expert and director of the government-funded German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
“For now, I don’t think the costs are actually higher for Merkel” than for other European leaders, Mr. Perthes said, although “she is more personally involved in a deal which pro forma is between the E.U. and Turkey, not the member states.”
Under the deal, Turkey has already begun taking back refugees who had made their way to Greece, and the flow of migrants has virtually stopped.
The aim of robbing smugglers of business and preventing refugees risking their lives across the Aegean has thus been achieved, noted Ms. Tempel of the German Council on Foreign Relations.
But the other aspect of the deal — influencing Turkey’s internal development through conditions for travel and eventual European Union membership — is much more fragile, Ms. Tempel suggested.
NATO aims to ‘destabilise’ Caucasus with Georgia drills: Moscow
May 6, 2016
AFP
Moscow (AFP) – Russian foreign ministry on Friday accused NATO of seeking to destabilise the Caucasus region with upcoming joint exercises in Georgia, where US soldiers will train together with Georgian forces this month.
“We view this consistent ‘development’ of Georgian territory by NATO soldiers as a provocative move, aiming to deliberately destabilise the military-political situation in the Caucasus region,” it said in a statement.
Moscow and Tbilisi fought a brief war in 2008 due to a dispute regarding South Ossetia, a separatist region of Georgia which is funded and backed by Russia.
After the war, Russia recognised South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway Georgian territory, as independent states and stationed permanent military bases there.
Georgia regards these regions as under occupation and accuses Russia of continuing to take over more area by moving South Ossetia fenceposts deeper into its territory.
The Russian foreign ministry accused Washington of “indulging Tbilisi’s revanchist drive.”
Moscow has accused NATO of seeking to counter it militarily in Eastern Europe with increased forces and drills, but the alliance argues it is responding to Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
The exercise in Georgia, called Noble Partner, will involve about 1,300 participants from US, Britain and Georgia and take place at the Vaziani base outside Tbilisi for two weeks this month, starting on May 11.
It involved the US shipping its M1A2 main battle tanks across the Black Sea to Georgia for the first time this week.
Georgia, an ex-Soviet mountainous country, has bid to join the alliance, infuriating its former imperial master Russia, which bitterly opposes NATO’s expansion into former Soviet republics.
The country is not however on a formal path to eventual membership
Faked Conspiracy Photos
This photo was alleged to have been developed from a camera found in the rubble of the WTC.
by Robert D. Fiete, ITT Industries
Introduction
Like it or not, fake images are everywhere and have become a part of today’s culture. Thanks to the popularity of digital cameras and the availability of desktop imaging software that allows users to easily manipulate images, fake images have become commonplace, especially on the Internet. We see many images that defy common sense and it is natural for us to question the authenticity of these images. Most of have seen images that are obvious fakes, such as the 80-foot grasshopper climbing the Empire State Building, but we naturally assume that these images are fake and know that they were created simply for our amusement. Unfortunately there are too many times when a fake image has been created but it is advertised as real, challenging us to decide for ourselves whether the image is real of fake.
A fake image can be defined as an image of an object or scene that wasn’t captured as the image would imply. In general, fake images are created to generate a deception, but not all fake images are bad. The motivation may be simply for harmless entertainment, which accounts for most fake images generated today. Fake images can be generated for research and development purposes, e.g. to understand image quality issues with different camera designs. The fake images that concern us most are those that are created to perpetuate a lie. Some people will generate fake images for profit, such as a picture of an alien, a ghost, or an alien ghost of Elvis that they can then sell to a tabloid. Probably the most dangerous motive for generating fake images is to alter the public’s perception of truth for political reasons. It would be nice a reliable method existed for determining if an image is real or fake, but unfortunately none exists. We can hope to catch most of the fake images, however, if we understand how fake image are made and what characteristics to look for.
Creating Fake Images
Although generating fake images historically originated with darkroom tricks, today almost every fake image is made using a computer. Even though it is getting more difficult to discern a real image from a fake image as image processing software improves, image analysis can still be used to detect traits that can expose many of them as fakes. To understand how fake images can be detected we must first understand how they can be made on computers. The two most common methods today for generating fake images are to “paint” a new image outright or to alter an existing image that has been captured by a camera.
A digital image is essentially a grid of numbers, where each number represents the brightness of each picture element, or pixel, in the image (An 8-bit image can have 28=256 gray-level values, with a value of 0 representing black and a value of 255 representing white. A color image is made by combining a red image, a green image, and a blue image. Adding together different gray-level values from the red, green, and blue image produces the various color values.
Since a digital image is simply a grid of numbers, it is conceivable for an artist to create a computer-generated image by “painting” a grid of numbers to represent any object or scene that could be captured with a digital camera. For a 24-bit color image composed of an 8-bit red, green, and blue image, there are almost 17 million possible colors for each pixel. A 4″x6″ image at 300 dpi (dots per inch) will have over 2 million pixels, thus there are over 36 thousand billion numbers that can be considered to make the color digital image. Realistically all of the possible numbers do not need to be considered by the artist, but serious thought does need to be put into the values that will be used, especially when illumination and edges are considered. If the computer generated image is to look like a real photograph, then the image must be consistent with all of the laws of physics applicable to generating a real image.
Many of the classic painters, such as Leonardo Da Vinci, had an amazing talent to incorporate the proper shading, texture, tone, and color into their paintings that were consistent with the real world thus adding an amazing amount of realism to their work. However, their paintings do not look like modern photographs because they do not contain sufficient detail to match all of the physical properties associated with photographic imaging. (Actually, most artists probably would have been quite unhappy if their works of art looked like a modern photograph.)
In order to create a digital image that looks like a real photograph, the correct brightness values must be determined on a pixel-by-pixel basis to match the physical imaging properties, which could take months to years, depending on the image size, without the aid of computer software to perform the calculation. This problem was solved with the development of computer graphics software, designed to generate images of 3D objects with realistic illumination conditions. A rendering operation adds lighting, shading, colors, and texture to a mesh form of the object that is created by the artist. Ray tracing models produce the best quality by projecting many rays of light and modeling all of the physical qualities between the light and the objects in the scene, including reflection, refraction, transmission, scattering, absorption, and diffraction. The artist must simulate enough rays of light to cover every pixel in the image, which can be very time consuming if many rays of light are used. We have all seen the impressive results of computer animation in many feature films, creating dinosaurs or aliens that come to life on the screen. However, generating impressive detail in fake images using computer graphics, especially in a movie sequence, is still very difficult due to the complex calculations that need to be performed and the software is not accessible to the average PC user.
The most common method of generating a fake image, due to its simplicity, is to alter an existing image that was captured by a camera. The image can be altered by changing the context of the image, such as claiming that an actual image of a lampshade is actually an image of alien spaceship, or the image can be altered by changing the content of the image, such as superimposing an image of a cow onto an image of the moon
Creating a fake image by altering the context of an image has historically been the preferred method for creating hoaxes because it requires no alterations and the image is an actual image captured by a camera; hence the image, and the film negative if it exists, will pass the scrutiny of scientific tests. A famous example of a faked image by altering the context is the “Surgeon’s Photo” taken in 1934 by Robert Wilson who claimed it was a photograph of the Loch Ness Monster The image fooled many experts until an accomplice confessed in 1994 that the monster was nothing more than a toy submarine with the model of a serpent head attached.
The Cottingley Hoax is another example of fake images created by altering the context In 1917 16-year-old Elsie Wright and her 10-year-old cousin Frances Griffiths took photographs of winged fairies near their home in England. Inspection of the images showed no alterations and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, famous for creating the master sleuth Sherlock Holmes, deemed them authentic. Sixty years later the girls admitted that the fairies were paper cutouts held in place with hat pins.
Altering the content of an existing image most likely originated when early photographers were compelled to touch up the photographs of their paying customers to remove wrinkles and blemishes. Many people in the 19th century were accustomed to having flattering portraits painted of them and were not very tolerant at seeing the way they looked to the camera, which could not tell a lie. As dark room processes advanced, adding and removing people from images became a standard trick. When photographers were unable to get an entire family together for a family portrait, they would set up the subjects such that the missing individuals could be added at a later time (see Figure 5). Altering images became routine for many political regimes in the 20th century, especially for propaganda. It was not uncommon for some governments to remove people from historic photographs when these people fell out of favor with the ruling party.
Today, altering the content of an image does not require dark room tricks but merely a PC with image editing software. Desktop software is readily available and easy to use, allowing anyone to quickly and creatively alter images. The easiest approach is to simply cut a section from one image and embed it into another image (see Figure 6). The desktop software allows the creator to modify the extracted image to the appropriate size and rotation. The software on the market today is so easy to use that that pre-school children have little difficulty creating impressive altered images.
Identifying Fake Images
If an image is deemed suspicious, then we can first look for clues by visual inspection and then proceed with scientific inspection if necessary. The first line of defense for detecting a possible fake image is our own perception. We have a keen ability to sense that something is wrong with an image and trusting our common sense works most of the time. If an image looks unbelievable, then it probably is unbelievable and is a fake If an image looks real and similar images are easily obtained, then it probably is real since there would be no motive to warrant the time and effort to create the fake image. Unfortunately life isn’t that simple. There are examples of fake images that we believe are real because they do not draw suspicion (see Figure 8) and there are examples of unbelievable images that are in fact real images. These real but unbelievable images are the ones that fascinate us but also make it harder to discount the images that we suspect are fake. Images that we believe to be real but are in fact fake are bothersome because they unfairly manipulate our sense of truth.
Using computer animation software to create a fake image works well in movies but generally does not fool the public when used to pass off a fake image as real. Our perception is very sensitive to subtle details in the composure and texture of objects in an image, especially when viewing images of people. Most computer-generated scenes, especially those involving people or animals, have a “cartoon look” about them when scrutinized. People generally look like mannequins and subtle details are missing. Images that circulated on the Internet claiming to be actual satellite images of the space shuttle Columbia exploding in space could easily be recognized as the work of computer animation when viewed closely (see Figure 9). The ability to generate realistic computer generated people is improving dramatically over time as software technology and mathematical models progress.
A fake image created by altering the context is the hardest to positively identify as fake since the image is real and will pass scientific tests on the validity of the image itself. Most fake UFO images cannot be immediately discounted as fake because they are indeed real photographs of objects that the viewer cannot properly identify, leaving the image subject to interpretation. The key to identifying a fake image when the context is altered is to identify aspects of the image that are inconsistent with the image description, i.e. catch the perpetrator in a lie. For example, the time and date claimed may be inconsistent with the sun’s position or the known weather conditions for that date.
Photographs published in 1932 reportedly showing scenes from WWI dogfights were amazing due to their sharpness and clarity But the amazing clarity was a clue that the images were probably fake because they appeared too sharp given the relatively long exposures required from cameras at the time and the amount of motion and vibration on the airplane. The images were not proven to be fakes until 1984 when the model airplanes used in the images were discovered.
When the image content has been altered, we focus on the aspect of the image that makes the image unbelievable. Images that have had their content altered will usually have physical inconsistencies in the image that may be apparent under visual inspection. Unfortunately, these inconsistencies are not always apparent in the image and the image may not be proven to be fake until the original unaltered image is discovered
The physical traits of the image that can be assessed include the illumination conditions, edge sharpness, resolution, tone, relative scale, and noise characteristics. Many of the computer animated scenes created for movies and electronic games do not adhere to the laws of physics, but this is usually intentional to save cost and to make the scenes more entertaining.
A common inconsistency found when the image content is altered is the mismatch of radiometric or illumination conditions between the altered part and the rest of the image. The altered part of the image may have shadowing that is not consistent; indicating that is was illuminated under different conditions from rest of the image. This is commonly seen when an object captured at one time of the day is added to an image that was captured at a different time of the day. Also, the light illuminating the altered part may not be consistent with the diffuse or specular light illuminating the rest of the scene. This effect is commonly seen when an object captured with a photographic flash is added to an image that was acquired with outdoor or studio lighting. Color, contrast, and tone will also vary for different illumination conditions, thus creating a mismatch of these characteristics between different images
An image claiming to be a satellite image of the Northeast blackout in 2003 circulated on the Internet shortly after the blackout occurred The image was quickly identified as a fake because the blackout area is pure black compared to the other areas with no light sources. Other clues to this deception include the false satellite name, the unlikely lack of clouds anywhere over North and Central America, and the fact that the blackout was not total over the Northeast. The original image is a composite of many DMSP satellite images acquired between 1994 and 1995
One must be very careful when analyzing the illumination characteristics of the scene. The shadows and illumination conditions can be misleading, especially if the three-dimensional aspects of the scene are not taken into account. The Apollo 11 moon landing images appear to contain “anomalies” that some people use to argue that the moon landing was staged in a studio. These “anomalies” include shadows on the lunar surface that are not parallel and objects that appear illuminated even though they are in the shadows, both suggesting that there were light sources other than the sun, as well as the lack of stars in the black sky, suggesting that a black back-drop was used on a studio set. Of course, all of these so-called anomalies are exactly what we expect to see in the images if we truly understand the imaging conditions on the lunar surface. The shadows are not parallel as seen in the images because the lunar surface is not flat and the objects are not necessarily parallel to one another in height, the shadows are illuminated from the light scattering off of the lunar surface, and the stars do not appear in the images because the camera exposure was set for the brightness of the lunar surface.
Creators of fake images usually ignore the known physical properties of creating an image with a camera. The most significant camera effects are edge sharpness, influenced by the lens diffraction, focus, and motion blur; perspective geometry; and noise properties, usually from the detector and compression. Computer animated images are usually created without any camera effects since this will degrade the image quality and make the images less appealing to the audience. This, however, results in images that are physically impossible to capture with a camera in the real world.
When an object is added or deleted from an image, an edge is usually created that has a sharpness that is inconsistent with the rest of the image. Even an in-focus image will exhibit some blurring due to the diffraction of light from the camera aperture. The behavior of the blurring in the image is well understood and can be mathematically modeled if the camera design is known. Even if the camera design is not known, measurements within the image can produce a relatively accurate mathematical model of the camera that can provide reasonable predictions. Cutting an object from one image and inserting it into another image will create a sharp edge at the boundary of the inserted object that is sharper than physically possible. This sharpness is easily seen and creates an obvious sign that the image has been altered, so smudging tools in image processing software are usually used to reduce the visibility of these edges This smudging, however, will usually produce blurred edges around the object that are inconsistent with the rest of the image.
Most images will exhibit some amount of noise, primarily from the detector or from the image compression that was applied. The noise characteristics of an altered portion of an image can be inconsistent with the rest of the image. Magnifying digital images will generally exhibit graininess due to the detector noise and artifacts from the compression algorithm, depending on the level of compression. When images have been altered, the creator usually blurs the edges or other portions of the image to blend in the object, but this changes the noise characteristics, allowing the alteration to be detected
Finally, an understanding of how image processing alters the image characteristics can lead to signs of alteration. For example, when the image contrast is enhanced, the resulting gray-level histogram of the image will usually display “holes” or gray-level values that contain are no longer present in the image. An object from one image that is inserted into a second image may exhibit a different histogram that will indicate that it was not originally part of the second image. However, if an image has been enhanced using an adaptive processing algorithm, then the image characteristics, such as the gray-level histogram or the edge sharpness, can change locally even though no other alteration have been made. Adaptive processing should not be used on real images if the integrity of the image is to be preserved. Unfortunately, if the image is processed after the alteration has been made, such as compressing the image, then the holes in the histogram may be filled in and the histogram will no longer look suspicious
The Difficulty of Detecting Fake Images
Most of the people generating fake images know little or nothing about the physics of the image chain, yet lots of fake images fool us because they seem to have properties that are consistent with real images. How is this possible? Images with altered context are actual images; hence image analysis will not show that the image itself is inconsistent with physics, only that the perpetrator is being untruthful. Images with altered content will usually show signs of alteration if the image is created quickly and carelessly. The anomalies created in an altered image can be reduced by having an understanding of the imaging chain properties and taking the time and effort to ensure that the entire image is consistent at the pixel level, but this is rarely performed due to the knowledge and time required.
The simplest method to reduce the detection of the anomalies in an altered image is to degrade the quality of the image of the alteration. The most common methods are blurring the edges, adding random noise, reducing the size of the image, or compressing the image, all of which will cover up telltale signs of the manipulation. Many fake images have such poor quality that accurate measurements cannot be made to determine if inconsistencies exist. Admittedly, most creators of fake images do not reduce the quality with the intent of making image analysis more difficult, but instead reduce the quality by resizing and compressing the image simply to reduce the file size. However, reducing the image quality to hide the inconsistencies may reduce the impact that the creator of the altered image had hoped for. For example, inconsistent edge blurring can be reduced in altered images if the image is sub-sampled to a smaller size, but this could lead to unsatisfactory aliasing artifacts.
Image steganography offers a method for embedding hidden information into an image. Information pertaining to the unaltered image can be encoded and embedded into the image such that it is not visible. The information can also be encrypted, requiring a key to decode the embedded information so that unauthorized users cannot alter the information. The embedded information can withstand most alterations and processing such as scale, rotation, compression, and cropping. As an example, an edge map of the image can be created, encoded, and embedded into the image itself. If an image is suspected of being altered, then the embedded information can be extracted using the key and compared to the image. Any differences between the edge map of the current image and the edge map embedded in the image can prove if the image was altered
Although image analysis tools can help detect many fake images, currently there is no way to stop somebody from spending the time and resources to make a fake image that is not detectible. All one can do is hope that an inconsistency can be found, thus indicating that the image is fake. Methods currently being developed, such as image stenography and control coding in printers, can aid in the prevention and detection of altered images that are passed off as real images. Two great references for checking the authenticity of images being distributed on the Internet are The Museum of Hoaxes and Urban Legends Reference Pages.
For further reading on fake images, a good reference is Photo Fakery, by Dino Brugioni.
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