bin Laden tape reliability

[Trei, Peter]

> From: 	Talley Anonymous Remailer[SMTP:nobody at talley.remailer.org]
> Sent: 	Friday, December 14, 2001 6:47 PM
> To: 	cypherpunks at lne.com
> Subject: 	bin Laden tape reliability
> 
> Have any of the cypherpunks run across useful analyses of the recently
> released bin Laden videotape?
> 
> Mainstream media seems ready to question the accuracy of the translation -
> but I'm curious if the tape has any basis in reality at all.
> 
If it's a fake, it's a damn subtle one. I've read the transcript, but not
seen
the tape. The contents do not unequivocally prove UBL to be behind the
9/11 attacks, but it's a very reasonable inference. It does clearly show 
that UBL claiming to have foreknowledge of the attacks. If you want to go 
beyond what I consider reasonable, you could argue that UBL is taking
credit for someone else's work.

I find it difficult to believe that someone would go to the trouble of 
producing a fake,  and not use it to show UBL categorically taking
responsibility for the crime.

I'm inclined to believe the tapes reality.

> Purportedly, it was discovered by unidentified parties in an abandoned
> house in Afghanistan, then delivered to the CIA for processing before
> release by the Defense Department.
> 
> How do we know it wasn't manufactured in order to mislead?
> 
> Perhaps it was left in the abandoned house as a deliberate red herring -
> something like that would take some budget, which would seem to 
> suggest it was produced by the intelligence arm of at least a moderate-
> sized nation. (Like Israel. Or the UK. Or the USA. Or ..?)
> 
> Perhaps it wasn't found in an abandoned house at all, but was born
> somewhere in the DC suburbs.
> 
> If someone intended to make a distracting fake, it seems like they might
> follow one of two paths - they could find (or help create, with some
> Hollywood magic) a bin Laden lookalike, and have him interact with some
> other Afghan/Arabic-looking folks. Or, they could go digital, and 
> create a wholly artificial animation model of bin Laden.
> 
> The first method is probably easier, but also probably easier to detect,
> if analysts are inclined to compare things like facial geometry or
> voice characteristics. (It's a shame the tape has such poor quality.)
> 
Facial geometry would be an interesting test. The folks claiming to be
able to spot baddies by facial recognition systems could do an interesting
demo - feeding known pictures of UBL into their system to build a profile,
then seeing the the UBL on the tape matches. I gather the sound is pretty
poor, so voiceprints may not be doable.

> The second method would likely allow the creation of near-undetectable
> fakes, especially if they overlaid the animated creation on top of 
> a physically constructed set with natural lighting, etc (though lighting
> and shadow might be good places to look for evidence of forgery, or
> lack thereof.)
> 
Near-undetectable? I don't think so. Convincing human faces are just 
about the hardest thing to do in CGI animation. Humans are 
hardwired to recognize and differentiate between faces, and we're 
very sensitive to fakes. Look at Pixar's efforts, or the recent video 
game based movie (Final Fantasy???) No one is going to watch 
the humans in either of those for more than a few seconds without 
realizing that they are not real. CGI humans are still like dancing
bears - which are applauded not because they dance well, but
because the dance at all. 

> Maybe the tape is exactly what it purports to be - hard to say. But
> the media's not even asking the interesting questions. 
> 
Perhaps, but I'll take the position it's real until more evidence appears
to the contrary.

Peter Trei





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