2ND UPDATE AT BOTTOM
UPDATE - THIS STORY MAY BE FALSE.
THE CONSERVATIVE TREEHOUSE IS A PRETTY WELL-KNOWN BLOG AND I DO NOT RECALL THEM PUTTING OUT FALSE INFORMATION BEFORE.
HOWEVER, NONE OF THE IMAGES SHOW UP AND THE TRAIL LEADS BACK TO BEFORE IT'S NEWS, WHICH IS A SITE I DON'T GENERALLY TRUST.
HMM.
Hat tip: Conservative Treehouse
via GatewayPundit comment to: MISSING #MH370: Australia Detects Distress Signal in Southern Indian Ocean
The image was indeed taken from an iPhone 5 on March 18th 2014 at 8:48:41 pm (20:49:41) and the embedded location shows the image was taken in the South Indian Ocean at/around a U.S. military base on Diego Garcia.
2ND UPDATE - Nico writes to say:
Just saw the post on IBA about the IBM guy getting kidnapped and heroically sent some image with a voice recorded message.
I followed the links and saw that the folks had based all their arguments on EXIF data being "extremely hard to change" and if it is changed "it ALWAYS leaves traces unless you're some sort of a hacker". Well, uh, that is BS.
I already knew this was BS because of a couple of things:
1) I have personally obtained and changed metadata from JPEG files as part of a class in computer science that I took a year ago. I did that programmatically but there's no reason programs can't be created to read and edit that data. The guy on one of the websites says that it is so hard to change EXIF data, and to prove how hard it is he asks people to open the JPEG file in Notepad...Well of course its going to look like gibberish.
Let me give you an example: In programming, sentences like "Hello Pasto" are known as "Strings". In Java, for example, Strings are known as Objects. If you try and print out an Object in raw form, even if it is a String saying "Hello Pasto", it is going to come out as gibberish. The reason for that is that everything is turned into assembly and then machine code for the computer to read. Assembly code is mostly in Hex values, aka, gibberish. For things to be human readable, they have to be put through different methods/functions.
Anyway, a long winded way to just say that the guy was basically BSing or has no idea what he's talking about.
2) ANY data, literally, any data on computers can be changed. It can be extremely easy to extremely hard depending on what one is trying to change but computers and data stored on them, at the end of the day, is just 0s and 1s. EXIF's are no different. There's no unwritten law that says that software changing EXIF has to leave traces. EXIF is just a standard agreed to by folks to be able to easily read and share location, camera, lens etc information, nothing else. Just like JPEG is a standard, or PNG is a standard, or even PDF is a standard.
Anywho, based on these assumptions I thought I'd do some investigative work. So I took my Xbox 360 controller (its covered in dust because I haven't had the time to play it in a while lol) and took a picture of it using my iPhone 4. Then I downloaded some easily and freely available software and changed some, not all because I just couldn't be bothered. Uploaded the image to 4chan (because most legit websites strip the EXIF data from images to protect people's personal data from being exposed) and then used the same website used by Conservative Treehouse to extract EXIF information. Here's the link to what I uploaded. You should find it extremely interesting:
http://www.findexif.com/?l=UScWkLdPSHw#results
Notice some things here. First the location. If you zoom out of the map, you will see me sitting right there in the middle of the ocean off the coast of California. Then the Date/Time says March 31, 1914. The brand of the device is Banana. And the model is iPhone 28. I could have also changed the OS which is 7.02 but I didn't really bother with it because iPhone 28's 7.02 is awesome!
Anyway, so according to this image and its EXIF metadata, I went back in time, took my iPhone 28 made by Banana with me, took a picture of an Xbox Controller from back then (sitting on a wooden table, mind you), while floating in the middle of the ocean off the coast of California.
6 comments:
Link to update?
The update - the capitalized word - is all just my commentary.
I looked up the post at Conservative Treehouse and at the Jim Stone website (primary link at the top of the article) and all the photos have been deleted, and do not come through.
Something is wrong.
I don't like conspiracy stuff, but I will say this: the intelligence community COULD have deleted them.
Or, it could be that the originator of the story (whoever he is) could have realized he had it wrong and deleted the story in the first place.
Whoever originated the story made the photos undownloadable. So everyone who included photos hotlinked them (essentially stole them by copying the photo and pasting it rather than putting it on their own server (which I always do).
I don't know if this makes sense or not. I'm trying to be as clear as possible.
By the way, if the false flag is based on questions about Wood's alleged employment w/IBM Malaysia, there is another factor to consider. But before mentioning it, I also have family members that are fond of one color and their wardrobe is limited to that color.
Notice when examining a variety of sites posting photos of passenger Wood, notice his wardrobe consists exclusively of black UnderArmour shirts. . .several images look like the sole identical garment in nearly every photo.
video 1 w/multiple images
ABC.net.au Facebook photo
Again, it could be nothing, but there is some question about whether his CV is accurate.
**********
Perhaps worth another mention . . .
Agony of the wife whose husband gave her his wedding ring and watch before boarding missing flight MH370 'in case something should happen to him'
*Paul Weeks was on the missing flight as he made his way to new job
*Before leaving he had taken 'lots of photos' of his family, his wife has said
*She said he left her his wedding ring and watch in case something happened
Yup, hoax.
EXIF information can be changed without a problem or a trace. You can change it programmatically and/or through various programs that are available. There is no requirement for programs to leave a mark saying that the image was modified by using that program etc. That's a load of crap.
Google's Picasa leaves its name next to Author but you can easily delete that and Picasa does that for marketing, advertising purposes, not because of some legal requirement.
EXIF is just an agreed to standard to share camera/lens/device/location etc information between photographers etc, it is not a regulated or legally binding standard. In other words, changing EXIF tags is 100% legal as long as you are chaining those tags on your own images and not on someone else's (such as to make it seem like your own property).
I can personally debunk everything the doofus on Jim Stone Freelance says. The guy either doesn't know computers or thinks no one else knows anything about computers.
Sent an email to Pasto proving how easy it is to change EXIF tags.
Some of us technically challenged readers appreciate the plain speak clarity of Nico's explanation in the second update. Thank you. :D
Thanks for posting that Pasto.
Just in case people don't know this, what makes the EXIF location tags on my image even funnier is that I took the image in my apartment in Buenos Aires, Argentina...
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