OOPS! Certificate may be a fake

[HeyBub]

This should silence up the birthers:

> > --- begin quote > Posted by Dan Pfeiffer on April 27, 2011 at 08:57 AM EDT > > In 2008, in response to media inquiries, the President's campaign > requested his birth certificate from the state of Hawaii. The state > sent the campaign the President's birth certificate, the same legal > documentation provided to all Hawaiians as proof of birth in state, > and the campaign immediately posted it on the internet. That birth > certificate can be seen here (PDF). > When any citizen born in Hawaii requests their birth certificate, they > receive exactly what the President received. In fact, the document > posted on the campaign website is what Hawaiians use to get a > driver's license from the state and the document recognized by the > Federal Government and the courts for all legal purposes. That's > because it is the birth certificate. This is not and should not be an > open question. The President believed the distraction over his birth > certificate > wasn't good for the country. It may have been good politics and good > TV, but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the > many challenges we face as a country. Therefore, the President > directed his counsel to review the legal authority for seeking access > to the long form certificate and to request on that basis that the > Hawaii State Department of Health make an exception to release a copy > of his long form birth certificate. They granted that exception in > part because of the tremendous volume of requests they had been > getting. President Barack Obama's long form birth certificate can be > seen here (PDF). Correspondence with the Hawaii State Department of > Health can be seen here (PDF). > At a time of great consequence for this country - when we should be > debating how we win the future, reduce our deficit, deal with high > gas prices, and bring stability to the Middle East, Washington, DC, > was once again distracted by a fake issue. The President's hope is > that with this step, we can move on to debating the bigger issues > that matter to the American people and the future of the country. > > Dan Pfeiffer is White House Communications Director > > > > Long-form birth certificate >

One enterprising soul opened the supplied PDF (above) and did some simple forensic testing. Turns out the proffered PDF is a "layered" PDF, not a photograph. That is, various parts (background, pre-printed material, etc.) are layers, the sequence of which builds a final document.

Look here:

We may have another "Bush National Guard" document that gets someone fired.

Come to think on it, why did the White House release a PDF? - I know of no camera that can produce a PDF file.

[Steve B]

Oh, now, come on. It's a document, and we all know that they are all official, even those manufactured every day by those assisting aliens. They work because they fulfill the requirement of law of identification, and they certainly worked to get this unqualified inexperienced half educated dimwit asshole into office. I DO NOT think he has the mental capacity to pull it all off. It was his handlers who still pull the strings.

Steve, who knows dogshit when he sees it.

[Kurt Ullman]

Can I have some of what he is smoking.

[A. Baum]

Took me all of 5 minutes and $3.50 to get a certified copy of my Certificate of Live Birth.

[Hell Toupee]

No, he didn't. He did some simple goofing. He's not a forensic documents expert. Thus, his opinion don't mean diddly.

Turns out the proffered PDF is a "layered" PDF, not a

It's quite common to create pdfs from image files. Take a digital photo of the document and embed it within a .pdf. The .pdf then cannot be altered, which is important when working with documents. Taking a photo of the document is also the fastest way to make a copy.

Anybody who does research or works with researchers is familiar with this. Which the so-called forensics examiner would know if he actually was one, instead of just being a bullshit artist.

[trader4]

What is your explanation for the issues he points out in the video? In particular, when you look at the breen safety paper margins compared to the area where there is text, it sure looks like a visible transition, suggesting one document was laid on top of another.

Note that I'm not even sure what the significance would be. He shows one document which is the one scanned by AP that he doesn't have issues with. The other, provided on the Whitehouse website is the one he claims was assembled. Where did the AP get the birth certifcate they scanned if not from the Whitehouse? Apparently the info on both is exactly the same, so if what he's saying is true, why would the Whithouse have "assembled" a doc with the same info as one that was not assembled?

to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."

[aemeijers]

HP digital senders do it all day long. Reads the document like a copy machine, and e-mails a .pdf to whatever address you typed on the keyboard. We have about 50 at work- the end-users love them. As easy to use as a fax, with resolution approaching a commercial copy camera. Almost everyone turned in their desktop scanners. I'd not be a whit surprised if that is how State of Hawaii sent the document to the White House. With the right software load, you can even send the document and attachment PKI encrypted and authenticated via CAC as being from a known source.

[RicodJour]

Wait a minute...you mean the White House didn't have an intern use his cell phone to take a picture of the birth certificate?! ;)

There are quite a number of higher end copiers (never heard the term digital sender before) that create a PDF directly from a scan. An obviously superior solution.

R

[krw]

A layered PDF?

[HeyBub]

Good points. But the use of a PDF - especially this one - opens up the possibility of a manufactured document. Why would the White House want that tsoris?

I agree. Almost all conspiracy theories are bunk, but sometimes, maybe rarely, they are true.

The most recent example was Bush's National Guard letter, done with Microsoft Word and Times New Roman font, neither of which existed in 1972. This document was passed off as real and fooled Dan Rather and everybody else at CBS.

[HeyBub]

One explanation is the way in which Illustrator or Photoshop treats PDFs. The programs scan the document in an attempt to CREATE layers, one for the background, another for character recognition, and so forth. These "layers" can then be treated separately by the software for manipulation and enhancement. That is, the original document could have been precisely two-dimensional but when input to an image-manipulation program, it was that image-manipulation program that created the "layers."

[aemeijers]

The units we have are a first cousin to that, just without the printing part. Scan and email, or scan and store to a LAN drive, is all they do. Expensive (about $3500 a pop), but very slick. Beats the hell out of a fax machine, as long as person on the other end has email. I think they may even be able to send to fax machines, if you enable the right software toggle and hook up a phone line, just like the fancy copiers. We don't do that, since feds don't like stuff attached to LANs and phone lines at the same time. But these things are MUCH easier to use than the fancy copiers, which we also have a few of. They crunched the numbers, and they actually save money, since you can eliminate buying and supporting a couple dozen 'occasional use' desktop scanners with each one. The few steps down the hall to the digital sender take less time than the multiple attempts it often takes to get a usable result from a cheap (non- production) desktop scanner. The HPs just work- type in enough of the address for it to match it to the list in its head, and press start. No aligning the paper just so, or running the output through tweaking software to clean it up. I'm not a fan of most of HP's other recent products, but they nailed this one.

[Robert Green]

]

It's pretty obvious that some "Birfers" believe he has a time machine.

[trader4]

You have an amazing knack to do exactly what you accuse others of doing. In your defense of Obama, it isn't enough for you to say he has a respectable IQ. No, you have to go slam Bush. But it does show what I and others have said here. That some people's judgement of how presidents were treated is very selective. You Bush bashing above, is a good example of the treatment he regularly received from many. The only difference is when anyone makes similar attacks on Obama, you play the race card.