Would any so called expert conclude anything definitive from copies?
The reaction of the perpetrators leaves no doubt they didn't trust the authenticity.
That was exactly my thought when I was reading his article.
"4. Overall inconsistency of the characters goes well beyond what one would expect from photocopying and digitizing and indicates that they were produced using an inconsistent (i.e., 'mechanical') process."
The only proof that he offers for this statement is is a small close up of a picture that was printed, photocopied, and scanned, but evidently only once. He also didn't mention what equipment was used for this "experiment". I have a feeling that it was fairly high end. Notice the other samples are scanned at 4200dpi. A high end scanner set to 300dpi will produce very differant results from a 300dpi fax.
As far as inconsistancy from a digitizing process? I bet Dr. Hailey would be suprised at noise that is added to a signal from low sampling rates and quanitization. Additionally, at some point in time documents created digitally are still subject to a mechanical process. There are a lot of moving parts inside printers and faxes.
But I'm glad that his education background in technical writing gives him such authority to set the record straight.
His resume: http://imrl.usu.edu/Hailey/content/topic01.html
Notice how his thesis research qualifies him for document analysis: "The Objective Metaphors: An Examination of Objects as Metaphors and Metaphors as Objects; 1994"
People like this make me wonder why I'm bothering with grad school at all.
-paridel