I am tracking a score sheet for features explained versus objections raised.
August 28 A sad day as I have decided to no longer allow Hermitian to submit comments on this blog as he has now, several times accused me of behavior for which he has no evidence (hinting that I may be the forger, work for Obama, that I withhold data or manipulate data and other non sequiturs). I feel saddened because, despite his short comings, he did serve a useful purpose. I wish him well and will continue to address issues he raises, to help him understand better why the Xerox workflow stands unassailed. Thank you Hermitian for your efforts to debunk the work flow, helping further strengthen it.
August 26 Hermitian, now continues to explore his earlier failures to properly understand, and has returned to such trivially wrong claims as: The 7655 does not produce the same Quantization Matrix (it does), or decompressing a FlateDecode encoded image somehow changes the ‘image’ when in fact it is a trivial experiment to show that saving in Preview does not cause preview to rewrite the JPEG (DCTDecode) object but just copies it. Trivial and minor details that just outline how much our friend has yet to learn about PDF. Speaking of that, has he managed to finally extract the JPEG from the FlateDecode\DCTDecode object :-). The one that shows the YCbCr comment?… The same comment Preview politely leaves in place when rewriting the PDF… Well, at least our friend now considers that the 7535 is a better candidate for the ‘forger’ so at least he helps supporting the Xerox Workflow, although I believe he has yet to understand why I concluded Xerox 7655 as the most likely candidate. He also continues to fail to understand how one can determine the orientation of the document when originally scanned. I encourage his continued questions, even though they have become mostly irrelevant, as it helps strengthen the explanatory power of the workflow. So, has he given up on trying to debunk the work flow?
August 22 Hermitian is struggling with the hierarchy of objects in the PDF document, something which could be quickly evaluated using a proper parser. He also appears to be obsessed by me ignoring his color fringes comment since we do not need to look for this to understand the orientation of the document when it was scanned.
August 21 Hermitian is now focusing on minor spelling mistakes about ppi and dpi and insists that I scan at 1200 ppi on a Xerox WorkCentre, even though the maximum ppi is 600. His claims about 16×16 bit alignment at 300 ppi have been destroyed by his own data. Surely he must have some real objections to my findings…
August 20 We have halos… Two more PDF’s and the last one had some beautiful halos. Seems we are all done. Hermitian is running out of objections and we should soon have helped him understand his latest follies. Seizethecarp at the Freerepublic appears to understand my contributions. The ‘Cold Case Posse Supporter’ is banking his hope on Reed Hayes. Even though noone has seen this report yet… Butterdezillion is in full denial mode and soon will probably argue that me showing that Xerox did all this, is evidence that it didn’t. So when will a birther dare to look for him/herself?
August 19 More PDFs have been found, again they match the details found in the WH LFBC, such as 8 bit alignment, presence of the YCbCr comment tag and quantization matrix. It is fascinating how these findings continue to strengthen the Xerox Workflow hypothesis. A minor issue has been detected by Hermitian, who observed that the Preview pdf’s are scaled 96%, which is the default behavior of Preview. I will redo some of the preview documents at the 100% level as well.
August 18 Today has been another great day. Two new PDF’s were found that were scanned on Xerox. They show the YCbCr comment and align at 8 bit boundaries. Hermitian appears to not understand the workflow that created the edge erase and clipping mask. Hermitian’s earlier claims that the 7535 documents do not align at 8×8 bit boundaries remains unsupported by any data. His claims, trying to dismiss the YCbCr comment, have been rejected as he has failed to show any examples that are not Xerox WorkCentre related. So far, the evidence is growing the strength of my workflow.
August 17 Hermitian so far insists, against the evidence so far, that my images do not align properly with 8×8 bit boundaries. Let’s see if we can help him locate his errors. I will see if I can help him further but it is somewhat frustrating that we get entangled in simple misunderstandings rather than meaningful objections.
August 16 Another disappointing day as Hermitian continues having problems with getting details right about alignments and sizes. Needless to say, Hermitian is still ignoring how so many features all match. Instead he prefers to share with us his skills at moving the goal posts.
August 15 Hermitian has yet to raise any challenges to my workflow. He has made some ‘interesting’ claims that were easily corrected.
August 14: So far, our friend Hermitian has challenged the alignment, even though I have shown that they consistently align with 8 bit boundaries, and he has been unable to recreate the simple workflow to extract the YCbCr jpeg comment, and instead has suggested that it was somehow ‘forged’.
So far, a single, straightforward workflow continues to beat other hypotheses without any problems, mostly because here are no other viable hypothesis presented other than a ‘forger’ who did exactly what he did and ended up mimicking a Xerox workflow.
Native and Natural Born Citizenship Explored 
Would it be possible to create a video showing someone going through the exact steps, from scanning to rotating and saving as a JPEG and show how the artifacts compare with what the CCP said couldn’t be done without the involvement of a forger?
It would take a lot of the confusion out of explaining the finding.
Yes, it would but at the moment, I have no interest or ability to do so
The only files that you have released are the Xerox 7535 scan to PDF and the Preview print to PDF. Neither image satisfies the modulo eight or modulo 16 conditions. I have checked both files for both modulo conditions and they both fail to satisfy even the 8 x 8 blocks.
Moreover the dimensions of the background image page are different between the two files. The dimensions for the Xerox 7535 scanned PDF are:
W = 8.5042 in. ; H = 11.1104 in.
Likewise, the dimensions of the Xerox 7535 / Preview background image are;
W = 8.5333 in. ; H = 11.0933 in.
You obviously don’t have configuration control on your trial scans.
You haven’t released any files from your Xerox 7655 scans.
So again we find that the Xerox forger just doesn’t have the right stuff.
And yet I have shown otherwise, so I suggest you do you homework.
Still whining about what you do not have… I understand my good friend, I understand, the evidence has become quite hard to rebut.
You really should keep up to date with my postings as you are as usual, far behind.
From the actual files
7535
/XIPLAYER0 12 0 R 1280 x 1664 798.72 614.40 -3.36 -1.20
Preview
0 798.72 -614.4 0 613.2 -3.36 cm /Im1 Do Q
Both have the same size
Come on Hermitian, you are sloppy
Perhaps Hermitian can benefit from a remedial math introduction?
Sigh
I note that the difference is approximately 1 point height difference and 2 points width difference. The (mis)use of rulers could account for the discrepancy. Also, shouldn’t the width and height be swapped on the non-Preview file?
The numbers just do not make much sense…
That’s because you set your origin to the artboard origin, rather than the appropriate corner of the background image. NBC tried to tell you several times where he was measuring from, but you ignored him each time because he used a different method than you used.
And you have to know which sides will be the ones aligning. I have presented all my numbers… Hermitian has done nothing to show them wrong
Why are you allowing Hermitian to continue to waste time here? He has been wrong on every single point and is too incompetent to even figure out he is wrong or he is just to stubborn to admit it. Either way he doesn’t deserve the time of day.
Because he makes my workflow look so good. But you are right, he has so far contributed nothing to reject my findings.
One vote here for letting Hermitian continue to make a fool of himself. I get great enjoyment out of reading the rebuttals of folks who really know their stuff and its good that this forum and Doc. C’s provide birthers with the rope to hang themselves while birther sites censor and ban divergent opinions.
I don’t favor banning Hermitian. I just object to him being the central focus. He contributes nothing.
That’s odd because he claimed that he used Adobe Illustrator. I used two methods to verify my results. First I calculated the results and then I verified then graphically by means of Adobe Illustrator CS6 and CC.
However NBC never answered my questions regarding the rulers origin point but he still clings to the false claim that both the Xerox 7535 scan to PDF and the Xerox 7535 / Preview print to PDF both satisfy the same modulo conditions.
For all of my work (to show that the WH LFCOLB PDF meets the modulo conditions) I used the global rules with rulers origin point set to the upper-left corner of the background image page.
It’s important that NBC truthfully answer my questions regarding his setting of the origin point before I will accept any of his results. There are steps that one must take regarding the positioning of the origin with respect to the grid.
Also he needs to explain why he carried out all of his analyses on the Xerox scan to PDF files and not on the Preview print to PDF files. The fact that he has not analyzed the final image is suspicious. He also needs to state which version of Illustrator that he used.
The larger page size of the Xerox 7535 scan to PDF image is a show stopper for NBC’s Xerox forger claim. The reason is that the Xerox page size does not meet the minimum page size of the WHLFCOLB. Also his page size is considerably larger than the WH LFCOLB page which directly affects the White border width for an 8.5 in. x 11.0 in. artboard.
Moreover, NBC has admitted that no two Xerox scans are the same. However, he has not addressed the methodology that Xerox uses to set the page size. Consequently, the Xerox page size could be variable from scan to scan. To date he has not addressed this variable page size issue.
Which was it, the upper-left corner of the background image, or the upper-left corner of the page? Those are two different points, and I suspect the method you used is dependent on the origin of the ruler. The method NBC used is independent of the origin of the ruler. However, based on his description and the numbers shown, I can deduce that the origin he used happened to be the upper-left corner of the page. But don’t forget to account for the offset of the background image! Also, after Preview, you need to look at different corners (again, remembering to take into account the corner of the background image).
Actually, I figured it out months ago:
1) Initial raw raster image set by right-most and bottom-most pixel of scanned image
2) Edge erase applied to raw image, setting the outer edges to pure white
3) Raw image converted to jpeg, with right and bottom edges increased to mod 8 criteria at 300 ppi [or mod 16 at 600 ppi] (added pixels pure white)
4) JPEG compressed to 150 ppi.
Note that somewhere before step 4, the JBIG2 extraction occurs, with the pixels underneath being changed (either to pure white or the negative of the JBIG2). Personally, I suspect that this happens before step 3, and the added mod 8 criteria might actually be due to the method used to do the JBIG2 extraction.
I believe you have confused the page and the artboard. My method is based on a origin point in the upper left corner of the background page. I verify my results by setting the major and minor grid lines so that the edges of 8 x 8 pixel blocks or 16 x 16 pixel blocks are congruent with the major grid lines. Then all pixels are congruent with minor grid lines. The readout of the x,y coordinates and the rectangle dimensions W and H are then verified graphically. You can read about the method here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/151738307/Analysis-of-Rectangular-Object-Boundaries
Unlike you and NBC I post the evidence rather than just the words.
But Dude ! If you move the origin point then the coordinates x, y change ! Hence x and y only have meaning relative to an origin point.
There really aren’t any methods that are independent of the ruler. If the origin point is not at the corner of the page, then one must account for the offsets for x and y. These offsets then depend on the relative position of the page and the artboard and the relative size of the page and the artboard.
Of course it helps if you know how to set the rulers origin point and the position of the origin relative to the major grid lines. Since I know that neither you nor NBC know how to do that then I don’t accept your object boundary placement results.
My guess, reading your comments between the lines, is that NBC used the default ruler origin which is the upper left corner of the artboard. Most likely he read off the x,y and W,H numbers from the layers info panel and added x and y offsets to the x and y readouts. He then input all these numbers into a spreadsheet to calculate the absolute distance between the origin point and the sides of each rectangular object boundary.
The problem with this is that one has to maintain the relative position between each rectangular object and the artboard for the total duration required to record the offset and size of each rectangle. If one is not extremely careful one can accidentally move a single object or all the objects (if Select All has been invoked). Thus,when relying entirely on the readouts of x,y and W,H then it’s wise to frequently check Edit/Undo to detect any accidental moves.
The other problem with this method is that NBC’s results have not been verified graphically within Illustrator.
“However, based on his description and the numbers shown, I can deduce that the origin he used happened to be the upper-left corner of the page.”
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I think you mean the upper-left corner of the artboard rather than the page.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
“But don’t forget to account for the offset of the background image!”
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
With my method there are no offsets. The x and y values are referred to the upper-left corner of the background page.
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
“Also, after Preview, you need to look at different corners (again, remembering to take into account the corner of the background image).”
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Wrong! After Preview, NBC needs to look at different corners. I’m not about to do his work for him. He hasn’t posted the object boundary data for any Xerox / Preview image. Consequently, we must conclude that his Xerox forger just doesn’t have the right stuff.
You seem to have missed that step. In fact, you haven’t even posted the words. NBC has at least posted the numbers and an image…
So is this going to be your excuse? That NBC must have moved each object to be in the mod 8 condition? Of course, those of us who know how to read PDF code can quite easily see that his measurements are correct.
And yet, all the numbers add up whether you use illustrator or the PDF data
Of course there are, it’s called distance measurements…
Did you really miss all my postings on this? Again our poor friend it letting ignorance lead him to conclusions.
I am not just claiming this, I am showing this…
Perhaps Hermitian has, once again, failed to follow my findings…
Even Hermitian agrees with me in his Scribd document
Note how they all obey the 8 mod 0 condition since they divide to an integer number.
compare with for instance the Xerox 7655 Preview saved
You yourself have already addressed this by understanding that the page size can be variable, within of course 8×8 bit aligned boundaries as Xerox appears to pad them. Simple.
I didn’t accuse NBC of moving anything. Ibelieve what I said was that it is easy to accidently move objects (especially if the direct selection tool is being used to select an individual object.
What I did accuse him of was ignoring my questions regarding how he set the rulers origin. And he never did answer that question. Hence we can assume that NBC didn’t set the rulers origin because he doesn’t know how to set it.
Anyone who can read PDF code can see for sure that his measurements are for a particular page size which he claims was set by the Xerox forger. Because this page is larger than the WH LFCOLB page I am skeptical that the Xerox would always set the same page size. I am skeptical because the WH LFCOLB is a minimum page size which is both larger than 8.5 in. x 11.0 in. and satisfies both modulo conditions for the mostly text image layer. Consequently we know for sure that the Xerox WC does not compute the minimum page size.
You both have admitted that the Xerox WC does not produce the same scan twice. You also reported that the PDF filesize varies between scans. Because file size is closely tied to the page size then most likely the page size varies between scans. So how do we know that the next scan will satisfy the modulo conditions.
So how about all of those repeat scans that you say that NBC has performed ?
Did all of these satisfy the modulo conditions ?
Distance measurements are less precise than taking measurements from a fixed origin point. Each distance measurement requires that two points be selected. Whereas the distance from the fixed origin requires only one point to be located for each measurement. The origin point need only be placed once for a series of measurements.
So if you haven’t figured that out yet then I am skeptical that you used Illustrator for the measurements.
The selection of each point involves both the “snap to” radius setting and the Zoom factor. Because these WH LFCOLB PDF object boundary measurements are pushing the ultimate dimensional accuracy of Illustrator the “snap to” radius should be reduced to 1 to 1-1/2 pixels and the zoom factor set to the maximum (6400 %). Then repeat measurements should be taken to verify measurement repeatability.
You can read all about my findings for the WH LFCOLB here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/151738307/Analysis-of-Rectangular-Object-Boundaries
You seem to not understand that it is your mission to match the WH LFCOLB. At this point you seem to want to maintain at least two degrees of freedom for each deficiency that I have identified. So let’s get it right Dude ! Come back when your results exactly match those of the WH LFCOLB. At this point in time you are not even close.
Please note that what is referred to as an Artboard in Illustrator is called a Page in the PDF format. So using the word ‘page’ rapidly becomes confusing when you call the background image the page (which is not correct in Illustrator or the PDF format) and I call the Artboard a Page (which is not correct in Illustrator). So I will use the terms “Artboard” and “image” (unless specified otherwise, image is the background jpeg) to keep things clean.
The image of each scan is indeed variable. However, the automatic size detection of the Xerox sets the page size of the Artboard to a standard size, in these instances 8.5″x11″.
NBCs measurements take into account that the image is a different size than the Artboard. The offset that he mentions is specific only to the file he is measuring at the time. The math is the same, but the values change according to each file, and are the specific offset of the corner of the image from the corner of the Artboard. To be precise, they are the offset of the relevant corner of the image from the default ruler position, which is at the upper-left corner of the Artboard.
Of course, doing it your way, if you place your origin point improperly, all your measurements are FUBAR. And we know that you screwed up your measurement of the 7535 non-preview background image dimensions. So that probably means that every thing you measured was also screwed up.
No pictures. No discussion of the 7535 boundaries. Where is all this evidence you were bragging about making available?
Yeah… 🙂
Perhaps I will upload my calculations based on the information in the PDF file… Funny how they match up.
So far we have nothing from Hermitian, other than claims that are clearly contradicted by my numbers.
As I explained, the origins of the ruler do not matter, you measure the coordinate of the corner and determine the coordinate of the parallel side x, or y depending on he side and calculate the difference.
I do not care about your measurements, I have shown that you and I agree and that 8 bit alignments are present. You keep claiming, without any supporting evidence, the contrary.
I see Hermie continues to insist that I am the world’s best hacker. Prove me wrong, Hermie. Come back when you can make two scans that exactly match.
Did the screenshots help? ROTFL.. You really need to get somewhat up to date with your own tools my friend… Sigh… Perhaps I too get to call myself an expert now?
Psst… typo in the August 17th entry…
So far I am spending more time correcting your mistakes, errors, confusions and trying to educate you on such trivial issues as text encoding, 8 bit alignment and whatever else you have tried to raise as objections, with zero success so far.
Well, that’s of course the problem with everything in life. How do we know that next time it will behave the same as previous times. A diligent person would therefor look if the sizes are multiples of 8 in 300PPI, as they understand the relevance.
You yourself could have figured this out as well. If you believe that the Xerox WorkCentre will fail to behave as I have documented, then I suggest you find such a scanner and do the experiments yourself. But somehow I doubt that you are up for it.
And that makes us different.
John was going to do his own experiments. To date I have seen nothing from John. I think he decided to wait on Mike Zullo to debunk all of this Xerox stuff. He may be in for a long wait.
Not only that, but the files have been downsampled to the point that I don’t think you can determine the color fringes. Certainly not visually.
Excellent point.
NBC has never explained why the page size of the background layer of the Xerox scan to PDF files are always larger than the artboard dimension of 8.5 in x 11.0 in.
He mumbled some nonsense about “Xerox padding the page”.
nd he has avoiding his obligation to explain why all the Xerox images are larger than the WH LFCOLB image.
Of course the WH LFCOLB image is the minimum page size that is both greater than 8.5 in. x 11.0 in and the images align with 8 x 8 blocks.
It’s probably time to compile a list of everything that we don’t know about the Xerox forger.
But one thing that we do know for sure is that Xerox 7XXX doesn’t have the right stuff.
ROTFL…
Oh, but I have. But you may not have understood as this may be a bit more complicated than staring at a PDF through Illustrator. Hint, PDF padding…