Toward Identifying The Font Used in The Bush Memos (POOF That they are real....NOT!)

Interactive Media Research Laboratory ^ | Unknown | David E. Hailey, Jr., Ph.D.

[OSHA]

The following evidence from a forensic examination of the Bush memos indicates that they were typed on a typewriter:

1. The specific font used is from a typewriter family in common use since 1905 and a typewriter capable of producing the spacing has been available since 1944. 2. The characters “e,” “t,” “s,” and “a” show indications of physical damage and/or wear consistent with a well used typewriter. 3. The characters that are seldom used show no signs of damage or wear. 4. The quality of individual characters is inconsistent throughout the memos beyond expectations from photocopying and/or digitizing but quality is consistent with worn platen and variations in paper quality.

[Snip]

6. Critical indicators of digital production or cut and paste production are missing.

Implications are that there is nothing in this evidence that would indicate the memos are inauthentic. Furthermore, from the point of view of the physical evidence in the documents (excluding any rhetorical evidence or external evidence, which is not examined in this study) no amount of additional research on the part of CBS would have lead them to exclude the documents from their 60 Minutes report.

[Snip]

First, The documents are not Times New Roman, or any similar font, nor are they produced with word processing software (or at least, were not printed using contemporary printing technologies). The documents are almost certainly printed using an impact printer (typewriter or daisy wheel) and are not digitally produced for the following three reasons:

[Snip]

None of the fonts available on the Internet seem to be exact matches, however. It is unlikely that a digital typeface could have produced any of these memos. Specifically, the quality of strike between characters is inconsistent, and the effect caused by photocopying and digitizing are inadequate to explain the differences.

[Swordmaker]

Maybe I am missing something from the "professor's" analysis but exactly what part of the memos is being picture in this example he uses to point out similar wear patterns? Where in the memos is the word "meeterer(?)" or "mem le sec(?)""???

Figure 13. The upper right shoulder of the “e” shows signs of damage throughout the memos. (Image scanned at 4200 lines/inch).

Perhaps these are just random samples taken from words and merely pasted together into a pastiche. If so, a proper analyst would indicate from where each sample was taken so that other researchers could duplicate his work.

He also seems to think, because he "scanned at 4200 lines/inch", that a scan of a low rez scan will improve the image if scanned at a higher rez. This is not useful information because we do not know what level of scan was done at each step of the original copying process, what level of compression was used in the PDF files he downloaded, or what level of reproduction his printer used.

I also note the "good" doctor's sloppiness... there are TWO Figure 13s in his document.

It appears to me that his evidence of "wear" is more likelly evidence of pixelization of the printing/scanning/copying/repeatedly process. Note that in the word "meetere..." the "consistent" wear supposedly shown in the 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd and 5^th "e's" is NOT CONSISTENT in the 4^th "e"!!!

I think his analysis is flawed.

He may have demonstrated that the forger was a little more thoughtful than we gave him credit for. The professor's work seems to me to indicate that the forger downloaded the "Typewriter" font and used that to attempt to spoof a typewriter of the early '70s... with the same font metrics as Times New Roman. He himself pointed out that many of the Typewriter fonts were created from copy scanned from REAL (shall we say "worn out") typewriter copy.

[Swordmaker]

"2. The characters “e,” “t,” “s,” and “a” show indications of physical damage and/or wear consistent with a well used typewriter."

Check our my post just above this... Post 81

[Paradox]

This actually answers a question that I had about the forger. What kind of idiot would just type it up in MS WORD and use the default Times Roman?

So it looks like this guy might have thought the same thing, then because he/she wanted it to look authentic, went out and got/downloaded a font called "typewriter", thinking it would look like an old fashioned typewriter, but instead, they got a proportional font that looks very very much like Times Roman....? Awww heck, probably not..

[spodefly]

Previously posted here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1228013/posts

The article was written by this guy:

Contributor	Occupation	Date	Amount	Recipient
HAILEY, DAVID RICHMOND,UT 84333	UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY/ASSOCIATE PRO	5/25/2004	$250	Kerry, John

But I am sure he doesn't have an agenda. He is a professional educator and would never let his political inclinations influence his scholarly work.

Actually, I did look at his web site and he is a good interface designer. Nonetheless, he is suffering a recto-cranial inversion if he believes that you can overlay and match letter for letter 1972 typewritten docs and 2004 default settings computer generated docs.

[BJungNan]

Guess that Means I need to get rid of My " KUK FERRY " plates

Remember, the article is not intended to change the minds of the educated. It is to fool the fools.

[steve-b]

This is not stupidity, but deception.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

[RWingWhacko]

Well, to be honest, isn't that what freepers tried to do to Clinton? And were pretty successful, in fact, considering about 50 mil of taxpayer money was spent on it?

[RWingWhacko]

Well, but wait a sec. Are you saying Bush DID show up for the physical? Or that the thrust of these memos is wrong? Remember, the secretary who said she did not type them, nevertheless agreed that they did reflect the opinions of her boss, who supposedly wrote them. I read the article, and his analysis that the printed characters display evidence only seen with mechanically produced text seemed fairly persuasive. The guy doesn't say he's sure of anything, but he's got 30 years of text analysis at the Univ. of Utah (hardly a liberal school). There's a lot behind these memos that we're not aware of, but there's not much doubt that back then, Pres. Bush was indeed irresponsible, and may well have been doing some kind of chemicals that made him leery of having a physical. Do you want Bush supporters to seem shallow and uncritical, which is what I think it looks like when you are so quick to call these memos fake with very flimsy analysis, and thus ignoring the flaws in Bush that is their subject. You should read what this guy has to say. I think about 75% of it is pretty credible. The rest is open to question, which he himself says.

[Texasforever]

The only refutation required is CBS and its decision not to release the results of its own investigation until after the election.

[Freepdonia]

If you can't tell the difference between the Clinton scandal (which was undeniably true) and the CBS memos (which are undeniably false), don't be surprised if you start to smell ozone soon.