PDF Layers in Obama’s Birth Certificate ( NRO: Much ado about nothing)

http://www.nationalreview.com/ ^ | April 27 2011 | Nathan Goulding

[Para-Ord.45]

We have received several e-mails today calling into question the validity of the PDF that the White House released, namely that there are embedded layers in the document. There are now several other people on the case. We looked into it and dismissed it.

The PDF is composed of multiple images. That’s correct. Using a photo editor or PDF viewer of your choice, you can extract this image data, view it, hide it, etc. But these layers, as they’re being called, aren’t layers in the traditional photo-editing sense of the word. They are, quite literally, pieces of image data that have been positioned in a PDF container. They appear as text but also contain glyphs, dots, lines, boxes, squiggles, and random garbage. They’re not combined or merged in any way. Quite simply, they look like they were created programmatically, not by a human.

What’s plausible is that somewhere along the way — from the scanning device to the PDF-creation software, both of which can perform OCR (optical character recognition) — these partial/pseudo-text images were created and saved. What’s not plausible is that the government spent all this time manufacturing Obama’s birth certificate only to commit the laughably rookie mistake of exporting the layers from Photoshop, or whatever photo editing software they are meant to have used. It’s likely that whoever scanned the birth certificate in Hawaii forgot to turn off the OCR setting on the scanner. Let’s leave it at that.

UPDATE: I’ve confirmed that scanning an image, converting it to a PDF, optimizing that PDF, and then opening it up in Illustrator, does in fact create layers similar to what is seen in the birth certificate PDF. You can try it yourself at home.

[popdonnelly]

People are really obsessed with proving Obama doesn’t have a birth certificate. Is that really healthy?

[NoLibZone]

100% false.

No OCR or scanning app creates layers in any form or fashion.

[Arec Barrwin]

If there was solid evidence that Obama was born somewhere else, it would be worth investigating further. For example:

1. Is there any evidence Ann Dunham flew to Kenya?
2. Is there any evidence Ann Dunham gave birth to Barack Obama in Kenya or anywhere else?
3. Is there any evidence, upon returning to Hawaii, that she submitted a bogus claim of birth?

You can’t give credence to some crazy old grandmother back in the Kenyan serengeti and then, with a straight face, say that the entire State Government of Hawaii is in on the scam.

[maxwellsmart_agent]

Something appear a little funny to everybody? A man and a political party spend more than 1 million dollars trying to keep from having to show that this guy is elligible when it could be this simple? Reserve judgement. There are still things wrong. Wait! I have a feeling there is more coming. Why would he and a political party spend more than three years and all that money trying to keep from having to do something this simple? It doesn’t add up and I don’t trust them. If somebody (WITH A GENUINE RIGHT TO KNOW ASKED TO SEE MY BIRTH CERTIFICATE UNDER CIRCUMSTANCES LIKE THIS, I WOULD HAVE PRODUCED IT IN A HEARTBEAT, I WOULD NOT STONEWALL FOR MORE THAN THREE YEARS AND THEN ACCUSE THE OPPOSITION OF SILLINESS), This man is a bafoon. He’s playing the Democratic playbook right to the wire.

Where is the real birth certiccate with the foot prints and the seal like we all have from that era? Don’t be snowed. If he had one like that which proved he was born in the US, you’d have seen it by now. The man simply is not elligible to be president. If he was, you’d know. Keep pushing. And vote accordingly in 2012.

[Longbow1969]

You can’t give credence to some crazy old grandmother back in the Kenyan serengeti and then, with a straight face, say that the entire State Government of Hawaii is in on the scam.

Oh yes they can. There is no level of craziness someone wed to a conspiracy theory won't stoop to. Once a person becomes emotionally invested in a conspiracy theory there is absolutely nothing you can do to convince them they are wrong. Human nature is what it is. Even otherwise rational, intelligent and thoughtful people can fall prey to this sort of thinking.

[Jeff Winston]

What's telling in this image, about the nature of these layers, is all of the little stray letters left behind. Virtually every kind of visual element that you or I would consider a cohesive whole is split up.

"None" is split into "Non" and "e." The "D" splits off of "Dunham." The bottom signature is split up, too. Both date stamps at bottom are split into different layers, though in different places. The "R" is split out of "BARACK." In the tiny print you can catch split-out bits of words. "add" "Co"

All of this speaks to a machine driven process, not something that a human being has designed from elements cut and pasted together.

Sorry to all who thought this was the smoking gun.

[Jeff Winston]

Or, to put it another way: It would take a LOT of time for a human being to split an image up in this way and then reassemble it into the image we see. And there would be no reason to do it that way. Why spend 50 hours cutting a document into all kinds of crazy little pieces? Especially if you were trying to create a forgery? Just doesn’t make any sense that way.

[SouthernmostFreeper]

It’s so bad it’s laughable.

[Cobra64]

On another thread, there was a link to a great You Tube video that you did on this matter. I can’t find the link to the video.

[cartan]

No OCR or scanning app creates layers in any form or fashion.

No OCR. But PDF software that applies MRC compression does.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Why spend 50 hours cutting a document into all kinds of crazy little pieces? Especially if you were trying to create a forgery?

---

Perhaps because if there is one word or date that was altered for political reasons, it’s change is hidden in the seemingly machine-made chaos.

[rdcbn]

exactly

[reegs]

The PDF layer issue is a dead end. I've verified it myself. I printed the PDF as supplied by the White House. At my place of work, we have copiers that can scan a document, save it as a PDF and email it to yourself. After scanning the print out and sending it to myself as a PDF, I opened the PDF in Adobe Illustrator.

As you can see from the image below, the scanning software DID seperate elements as can be seen by the Illustrator handles. These would be picked up as separate layers. I was able to move these elements including the black type. Moving the type did leave a white area beneath it.

[calex59]

Here's the way I see it. Yep, it is probably a forgery, but at the same time this is a huge victory for our side. Trump is calling it a victory and for good reason. We forced the SOB to produce a long form BC, even if it is a fake, despite his best effort to never produce one. We know he is hiding something, otherwise why spend millions on court costs in order NOT to release something he had all the time?

Proving this is a forgery is probably not possible, the government has had 2.5 years to work on it, so the best thing to do is declare a victory, and start pushing for his other records to be produced(school records, etc.).

[Jeff Winston]

Okay, that’s plausible. It probably doesn’t fit Occam’s Razor, but it IS plausible.

Plausible doesn’t get us very far, though. It’s plausible that the Director of Hawaii’s Department of Health conspired with the Obama administration to produce a totally fake birth certificate. But I know of no one who has any actual PROOF to that effect.

Suppose Mr. X is dead. Mr. Y was known to dislike him. Mr. Y was in the same city that night. But there’s no DNA evidence, no witnesses, no proof of any kind. It’s plausible that Mr. Y killed Mr. X, but we can’t convict and hang Mr. Y without some actual convincing PROOF.

In fact, when it comes to the layers, it would’ve been a lot easier for them to just produce a fake certificate and scan a flat image than it would have for them to go to the lengths you describe. So that leaves the scenario you describe probably quite unlikely. If they were going to fake it, why not hide the changes in a flat image? Far, far easier, and fewer questions asked.

[EscapedDutch]

Right there is the screen cap that proves this thing at best has been manipulated and at worst has been forged.

[gusty]

What is scary is that they are on our side. Conservatives used to pride themselves for not falling for the tinfoil hat theories like those on the Left. You know 9/11 truthers, JFK assassination conspiracies, UFO’s, George HW Bush flying in a SR-71 an oldie but goodie. Its distressing that some on our side are sounding like callers to the Art Bell show. This issue is dead, let it rest in peace. The more our side keeps trying to revive this corpse, the crazier we will be perceived.

[FLAMING DEATH]

What I don't understand is that some of the characters on the birth certificate seem to have "dithering", i.e., they are made up of a bunch of different colors or shades, like the "1" in your example above. At least I think that's correct terminology. Every document that I've seen straight out of a scanner looked like this.

Some letters in the birth certificate, however, don't. Some are very "flat" and look like they've been desaturated and the contrast has been increased. But why would some be that way and others not, unless the contrast on the original was "pushed" somehow, and then extra letters with dithering were added later? And if that was so, it seems like it would completely wash the light background out when they pushed the contrast on the original text.

I'm an amateur photographer, and I've worked with lots of different types of scanned images, and different types of image manipulation. I have NEVER seen two characters side by side scan so differently.

Usually, right out of the scanner, text looks like it does on the left, that is, black and white with shades of gray that the computer adds to represent smoother curves. To improve readability and copy-ability, though, you can push the contrast so that it looks more like that on the right. But, you simply don't get both results in the same document without manipulation, ESPECIALLY two characters side by side. If someone can do it, I'd be delighted to see the results.

[snowsislander]

It’s likely that whoever scanned the birth certificate in Hawaii forgot to turn off the OCR setting on the scanner. Let’s leave it at that.

That would be sloppy indeed.

When I dissected the PDF (try "pdfimages -j"), I was very surprised to find the separate parts. While it's conceivable that an OCR setting perhaps created those, it's certainly not the first explanation that came to mind.

Whoever at the White House decided to use a PDF for a simple image made a major error. Releasing this particular PDF, which clearly is not a clean one, was an incredible blunder, no matter how the various parts were inserted into it.

Next time, I hope the technology dunces at the White House stick with something like a simple JPEG. What they released here just adds fat to the fire from a forensic viewpoint.

[FLAMING DEATH]

I don’t think perception enters into it. The other side hates us already and nothing’s going to change that. In my opinion, it is long past due that Conservatives came up with the backbone to pester this man the way the Left has pestered every Conservative for the past 30 years. For heaven’s sakes...the Left carried around signs advocating for the assassination of George Bush. None of them condemned their own for that.

It’s time for the gloves to come off and face the opposition on terms they can understand, i,e., repetition of tired phrases and hammering them relentlessly on the anvil of irrationality. Use their tactics against them. The Left doesn’t police it’s loonies, and I’m for damn sure not gonna police ours.

I don’t have a problem with any of it. Anything to undermine the legitimacy of this traitor is A-OK with me.