TA-ANALYSIS: 'Code' Found in Latest bin Laden Video Could be Hoax

Originally posted by ghostship
Valhall,

when I said

I wasn't talking about sueing you. I was talking about bringing legal action against the Northeast Intelligence Network if I can obtain the proof that will hold-up in a court of law that they intentionally doctored the video or otherwise made false claims about the "codes". I'm sorry I wasn't writing clearly enough for that distinction to be made. I really don't care who you think I am.

I've got you loud and clear now. No problem and sorry for the mistaken identity...at this point I can see why it might be upsetting .

Welcome to ATS.

Okay didn�t Sherlock homes say the game is a foot? We seem to have all the players on the board, I want to know where the still shot (for the lack of better terms� the code�) come from?
Jill did you capture it?
Did Laura capture it?
Did NEIN capture it?
Did tweus capture it?
external image
where did this shot come from Originate from

heck did Tim Bin-laden capture it?

[edit on 28-7-2004 by Sauron]

This is my understanding,

1. Jill found the video
2. Jill contacted Laura because she was unable to open the .rar file.
3. Laura was able to download the video, that Jill found, the one Jill could not open
(Side note: This would discredit Doug Hagmans Email to me and which was posted by him at freepers.
4. Since Jill had not seen the Video, but 'assumed' it needed to be translated (considering these videos are never in "English" she asked Laura to translate it.
5. Jill did not know at the time that the video already had subtitles, because she did not see it.
6. Upon Laura Looking over the video, as Doug Stated, She stopped the video at a certain point for a "capture" to post on NEIN, upon at which time she found the assumed code.

NOW
7. I understand that the video that was posted on Jills site, was not the same one that was downloaded by Laura.(which at this point makes it seem that the "code" had been edited into a .jpg)
8. If there are 2 videos, why and who released the same exact video minus the code? It does not make sense to me....

I wish that everyone would just keep the talk to the origin of this "code" and its authenticity. The only way NEIN is involved in this, at this point, is that THEIR Analyst claimed the code There is no use attacking each other because it gets away from the "Truth" of the video.

Ghostship: I have not seen you post ANYTHING that would deny this. You say you are not convinced, but yet your defending everyone and their Mom, and have been bringing things out that were not even mentioned here.
Instead of just posting "theories", please come with some hard evidance to descredit our claim. The original video has NOT been made available to us, untill Jill metioned it above. If in fact the "code" is in the video, I for one would be making sure anyone and everyone who questioned it would HAVE IT. Yet untill now, it had not been available to us. This leads me to believe that this "code" does not exist in the video, or else at least :30 seconds of it would have been made available. I'm not taking anything out on "YOU", just want you to put yourself in my shoes for a second.

If no one has anything to say in regards to the actual video and code itself, please do not respond here. I personally will see to it that the discussion remains on the Video and code itself, In my time here at ATS, I have found this board to be unlike any other, in that WE do not attack members, visitors or other sites, There is a stong professionalism that I have seen in the search to find "Truth" in anything any of us have encountered on or off this site. Let us Remain at this professionalism. I am including MYSELF in this.

TRICK

I didn't realize that, by registering and posting to this site, my purpose was to either deny what has been posted or to post the 'party line'. What I have done is to first ask questions, then defend myself from wild accusations, and finally point out fallacies of logic. Remember, before I started posting and "bringing things out that were not even mentioned here", you guys were ready to put this investigation to bed.

You have a banner on the front page that claims "'Code' Found in Latest bin Laden Video Shown to be Hoax". You had come to this conclusion after what appeared to be careful examination of a video. I was also unable to duplicate NEIN's results. The error in logic was in your assumption that the video you examined was the same video that the code was found on. "If I was in your shoes", that's the question I would have asked a week ago. Although you claim I haven't brought anything to this party "except for defending everyone and their Mom" and " just posting theories", I was the only one here to question whether ATS examined the same video as NEIN. And as a result, we've (meaning ATS, myself, and everyone else that examined the video from Jill St Claire's site) learned that we didn't have the same video, although we may be able to attain access to the one that contains the hidden codes. So, I guess I have posted something to deny your claim after all. You should personally see to it that the "Hoax" banner comes down. You haven't proven that to be a fact, yet. Or not, I really don't care.

As it stands, I am still unconvinced of a 'hoax'. I have gotten us all a little closer to the truth, though. And I've done it without disparaging anyone's character.

By the way, you can "not take it out on ME" anytime man, my skins thick enough to take it.

Actually ghostship, the possibilty of multiple vdeos was first raised by me. I posted this about 12 posts before your first post in this thread. Jill's reappearance here was the first time someone has stated that there are in fact multiple versions of this video. I believe we are still making an effort to receive a copy of it from her.

HOWEVER, the offer in the post I made was directed to Ms. Mansfield and the NEIN. I am still awaiting a response from them. Ms. St. Claire as the middleman in this whole deal is and will be helpful, but not I believe a true result. Because as you have pointed out, unless both groups of people are looking at the same thing, it's hard to validate the results.

But I will say this... silence speaks volumes when it comes to defending ones credibility.

Originally posted by phreak_of_nature
A thought occured to me, that perhaps there are 2 different versions of this video in existence.

Possible

We have had an expert who is a member of our ranks look at the video he received and found nothing on the frames that were assumed to be in question based on the screen cap posted on NEIN.

I would suggest a swap. The links that muppet posted to the video he looked at should still be here, so any analyist would be able to pull it and review it for themselves. They could determine if the correct portion of the video was reviewed, and if not point out which frames they are in.

What I would like to see is an exact copy of the one analyzed by the folks at NEIN be made available to muppet as well. It is obvious from following this thread that muppet did not receive the video through the exact same channels.

So, my offer is this, if the good folks at NEIN would be willing to provide an exact, complete copy of the (version) of the video they reviewed to muppet for his review I believe we could clear this all up.

Once muppet has reviewed it, and if he were to observe them same things as NEIN, well obviously we would have no recourse other then to completely reverse our conclusions, and to make a full apology.

I would be more than happy to be wrong on this, and would gladly retract every statement ever made.
I'll even sweeten the pot... I'll make a pants down public apology!

OK. Head's up guys. I have made a mistake.

I've had a chance to grab a new DivX codec(5.2) and produce some test clips to examine how the code would have looked had it been encoded in the video.

The results are.inconclusive. By that I mean the compression artifacts caused by a DivX encoding are in fact similar to those caused by a JPG encoding. In the tests I ran, there were slight differences, but only slight. Too slight, in fact, for me to have made the assertion that the code "couldn't" have been encoded within the DivX movie itself. In fact it could have been placed within the DivX movie, OR added after the fact to the still frame. Further examination, which I intend to do, could provide a more conclusive result one way or the other, but for now, it's not possible to be sure.

So, to be clear, I was wrong to assert that the code "could not" have been encoded into the video itself..

My other key assertions though I stand by fully... namely :-

1/ the code was NOT in the copy of the video I received, from ATS member news4_02, which she claimed had come from Jill's site. No-one has yet been able to duplicate Laura/NEIN's "find" of the the code.

2/ The code WOULD have been clearly visible, had it been encoded in the video, and not hidden by nature of being on a single frame. This is not a matter of which software you use to view the video. I have made a test clip in which I actually insterted the code, exactly as it appears in the still frame, and it is clearly visible using windows media player and quicktime, and all of the more dedicated programs I use such as Discreet Combustion, Shake, etc. etc. The latter would be accepted in ANY court of law, due to it's open script based architecture.

(I'll post an example so you don't have to take my word for that!! possibly wise under the circumstances! :doh




So I owe everyone here my sincere apology for being so "firm" (as Valhall put it!) on the "couldn't have been in the video" assertion. I am sorry.
..
.
Moving forward, I guess now the next thing, while I'm still checking out the DivX/JPG issue (for my own educational purposes as much as anything), is to explore the "multiple video" option, as suggested by phreak, trick and ghostship.

One question is, if the code WAS inserted into one particular version of the video, what events lead to Laura/NIEN being the only ones to see that version?

What doesn't make sense is why the Jihadists would go through the trouble of producing videos, yet only make them available online for a small period of time, often as brief as a couple hours as has been the case for years now. If their intent was propaganda/terrorist-motivation, leaving them online as long as possible would certainly have a better effect for their cause. So, it is safe to conclude these videos have a more nefarious usage, such as a means to pass information. They also know that their actions are being monitored. For me, it's not hard to understand that they would now produce two videos, one with and one without a hidden message, and put them both online briefly as is their norm. It adds another layer of deception. Apparently, an effective one.

Looking at previous internet video releases, they often appear only for a short time. There are various sites dedicated to getting thme shut down, mainly via complaints to thr ISP or hosting company in question. Internet Haganah being one example. Also, since these things are posted on public file sharing sites, bandwidth limits can be quickly reached.

So fact the video was up for a short time was not in anyway unusual.

As things stand we have one video, without the code, and a screenshot, allegedly from another video, which seems so show a code. This code could have been added to either the still, or the video.

In which case, what we really need is to get to the bottom of the story of EXACTLY how, where and by whom the video was found.

Jill, who claimed to have found the video, made no mention of a "second" video until after it was proven that the code was NOT in the video she posted.

Whether or not the second video actually exists, is the obvious question at this point. until a video with the code in is made public, there is still no evidence that there ever WAS a second version of the video.

Questions for Jill :

What site did the version of the video you posted to your site come from?
What site did the "other" video come from?
What made you decide which copy to send to Laura?
Have you seen the code yourself, in the video, rather than on the jpg still?
Why did you post one video to you site, and send another one to Laura, without mentioning there were two videos at the time?

The issue can be solved easily. All Jill needs to do is post the original .rar file, containing the video with the code, with details of where it came from.

Originally posted by ghostship
For me, it's not hard to understand that they would now produce two videos, one with and one without a hidden message, and put them both online briefly as is their norm. It adds another layer of deception. Apparently, an effective one.

As you say yourself, the fact these videos are monitored closely, by REAL intelligence agencies, make's it HIGHLY unlikely they would use these channels to communicate with terrorists. The are millions of message boards, image stores and websites that could easily be used, without raising a sniff of suspicion.

The fact that Jihadist sites ARE so closely monitored is the reason no terrorist in his right mind would use one for serious communication.

The do make great fodder for conspiracy theorists trying to put together some sort of "terrorists" threat to scare the public into voting Bush, or parting with some money..


btw. I haven't seen your introduction yet.. You should go and make one.

[edit on 30-7-2004 by muppet]

Gotta love your honesty muppet.

And I guess we are still needing to view the exact complete file that NEIN used for analysis.

One question for you though. This is something I have seen theorized on another site.
Is it possible that some DIVX viewer could leave a char string artifact on the screen when the player was paused?
Doesn't seem very likely to me.

Originally posted by phreak_of_nature
Actually ghostship, the possibilty of multiple vdeos was first raised by me. I posted this about 12 posts before your first post in this thread. Jill's reappearance here was the first time someone has stated that there are in fact multiple versions of this video. I believe we are still making an effort to receive a copy of it from her.

HOWEVER, the offer in the post I made was directed to Ms. Mansfield and the NEIN. I am still awaiting a response from them. Ms. St. Claire as the middleman in this whole deal is and will be helpful, but not I believe a true result. Because as you have pointed out, unless both groups of people are looking at the same thing, it's hard to validate the results.

But I will say this... silence speaks volumes when it comes to defending ones credibility.

This is the last that I will post on this matter. For the last time, there were two ENTIRELY different videos released regarding OSAMA around the same time. The content is different, found on different forums, in other words completely different (to make it more clear...different as Gone With The Wind is to Rocky) One I could view, (because it was a smaller size), and the other I could not (problem with opening RAR files and lack of space on my hard drive).

The video that was downloaded from my site was NOT the one with the code on it. That was an entirely different video. Makes me wonder what the heck Muppet was looking at....what code or numbers/letters does he/she think are in the video that was posted on my site??? If there was anything there, it is news to me...not in that video.

Regardless, the video with the code is just where it is suppose to be...with federal intelligence authorities. Although I posted that I would provide a copy of the video to a mod here, I will not be doing that. The professionals have it, and are or have analysed it, and have told me nothing about it beinga hoax (and I would have surely heard if it was!)

You people here have slammed me, discussed me in a thread in a priivate section of ATS, that I was not given access to (although I requested it several times), damaged my credibility, and as a result of the posts here about me and my site.... hate emails have been sent to me threatening me.

Muppet was gracious enough to admit a mistake (thank you Muppet!), yet not one of you could offer any form of an apology. Ego in the way??????

I hope you all are very proud of yourselves.....try being on the receiving end of this. I owe you nothing more, and actually never did!

Welcome back Ms. St. Claire. I was hopeful after you made your breif appearance yesterday that we might be able to come to complete conclusions on the matter. It seemed logical that there may have been two different versions of the vid, but if they are as you say night and day of each other, then I don't see how there could have been any misunderstanding as to which one was which.

Could you perhaps elaborate on why you are now reversing course on your decision to make available the second video?

Phreak.

I'm pretty sure not (though we'd better have a second opinion on this I guess!). There's a basic explaination of the DivX codec here

www.divx.com...

Essentially it is an mpeg derived codec which simply compresses video. It doesn't have the facility to overlay text or captions.

Jill,

If you are an innocent party to all of this, then putting myself in your shoes I can imagine it might feel. If that is the case I (who is probably most responsible for this investigation), offer my apologies.

Either way I do apologise for the strength of my statement which probably contributed somewhat to the verdict being prematurely arrived at.

However, looking at it from our position, you must be able to see reasons for our suspicions. You are asking us to accept the existence of a second video, when your own earlier statements make no reference to this, and without making this second video available. If you can make the .rar file available, to a moderator, or to me, it would really clear the whole thing up..

If, as is also possible, there has been some intentional effort, behind the scenes, to discredit you, or anyone for that matter, we would also hope to expose that. We really don't have it in for anyone on this site (that I am aware), we simply try to get to the truth, particularly in cases like these.

As to my copy of the video,

The video was made available to me by ATS user news4u02, a freeper who joined this discussion thread to say that they had the video from your site. In this post from earlier in the thread, she claimed it had come from your site. I will u2u more details, since it you obviously have a right to know, but I promised I wouldn't post the link publically, unless news4u02 would like to come forward and confirm her source.

Originally posted by news4u02
>>>Probably the best thing to do is host is somewhere. if you don't have somewhere to put it u2u me and I'll try to arrange some space, or I can give you an email address to send it to.

What is u2u? I just signed up and am lost as can be here.

>>>What format is it?

It is an avi file that came in a zip format with a driver to run in MPEG.

>>>How big is the file?

28.8MB

>>>How long is the video (how many minutes and seconds)?

31 minutes

>>>How, or where did you find the file?

It was on Jill's www.homelandsecurityus.net site

edit : please also make sure you provide the complete video file, in exactly the format it was found.

The thing is, there are so many people out there crying wolf at the moment with regard to terrorist threats, that is has become a serious issue. Real people are dying right now because other people, thousands of miles away, are afraid of them... and this fear comes from the huge swath of disinformation and lies being spread in the media, and on the internet.

I hope you can stay around to help us get to the bottom of this. If you are an innocent part to all this, you assistance will allow us to exonerate you completely, and full retractions and apologies will be forthcoming.

Originally posted by phreak_of_nature
It seemed logical that there may have been two different versions of the vid, but if they are as you say night and day of each other, then I don't see how there could have been any misunderstanding as to which one was which.

Could you perhaps elaborate on why you are now reversing course on your decision to make available the second video?

You people were the ones with all of the answers. It was posted right on my website that thered were two different videos and that I could only put one on my site. I wasn't confused, you guys were. The person who downloaded the video from my site should have been forthcoming with that information since they were the one who provided the video that lead you all to believe it was the one with the code.

As far as my decision not to provide a copy of the video....a couple of reasons. First of all, the professionals (the feds) have it, and quite frankly, if there was a problem with the video, or that it was or could be a hoax, they are the ones that I will answer to...but that is not the case.

Secondly, if I am understanding this right, according to this thread, that video is at several locations on the internet...go find it or tell the person that provided you the other one to get you a copy. After what I have gone through, I feel I have been more than accomodating.

There is no hoax, the video was not altered by NEIN, Laura, or myself, and the feds have the same copy as Laura and I. There is no reason to provide a copy to anyone at ATS. If you had researchers here that visit the Arabic forums daily, as Laura and I do, they could have provided you with a copy.

Jill,

It looks then, if you won't provide the evidence you claim to have that would clear you name, then we well have to draw our conclusions from that.

I'm sorry you feel that way.

I've only recently started following this, and have a question regarding this image: Can someone tell me if the "code" appeared within the video stream itself, or the frame chrome that contains the video stream. It could be important.

Originally posted by muppet
Jill,

If you are an innocent party to all of this, then putting myself in your shoes I can imagine it might feel. If that is the case I (who is probably most responsible for this investigation), offer my apologies.

Either way I do apologise for the strength of my statement which probably contributed somewhat to the verdict being prematurely arrived at.

However, looking at it from our position, you must be able to see reasons for our suspicions. You are asking us to accept the existence of a second video, when your own earlier statements make no reference to this, and without making this second video available. If you can make the .rar file available, to a moderator, or to me, it would really clear the whole thing up..

If, as is also possible, there has been some intentional effort, behind the scenes, to discredit you, or anyone for that matter, we would also hope to expose that. We really don't have it in for anyone on this site (that I am aware), we simply try to get to the truth, particularly in cases like these.

As to my copy of the video,

The video was made available to me by ATS user news4u02, a freeper who joined this discussion thread to say that they had the video from your site. In this post from earlier in the thread, she claimed it had come from your site. I will u2u more details, since it you obviously have a right to know, but I promised I wouldn't post the link publically, unless news4u02 would like to come forward and confirm her source.

Originally posted by news4u02
>>>Probably the best thing to do is host is somewhere. if you don't have somewhere to put it u2u me and I'll try to arrange some space, or I can give you an email address to send it to.

What is u2u? I just signed up and am lost as can be here.

>>>What format is it?

It is an avi file that came in a zip format with a driver to run in MPEG.

>>>How big is the file?

28.8MB

>>>How long is the video (how many minutes and seconds)?

31 minutes

>>>How, or where did you find the file?

It was on Jill's www.homelandsecurityus.net site

edit : please also make sure you provide the complete video file, in exactly the format it was found.

The thing is, there are so many people out there crying wolf at the moment with regard to terrorist threats, that is has become a serious issue. Real people are dying right now because other people, thousands of miles away, are afraid of them... and this fear comes from the huge swath of disinformation and lies being spread in the media, and on the internet.

I hope you can stay around to help us get to the bottom of this. If you are an innocent part to all this, you assistance will allow us to exonerate you completely, and full retractions and apologies will be forthcoming.

Apology accepted Muppet. Just curious how do you know that it was a 'freeper' that provided it? Does that 'freeper' have a FR user name that I can be privy to? I think that is only fair.

And you are right, there is a lot of people crying wolf. That is why what I post on my website is 'RAW' information and posts that I find on the Arabic forums. They are in their loose translated form, and are posted just as I see them from the forums. Cut and paste job? You bet, and that is they way it will continue to be....posting from the Arabic forums just as I found it!

Is there disinformation and propaganda out there that is responsible for the deaths of some? Every day! That tears me up too, but that is where the feds fit in all of this. I can't speak for everyone else that monitors these forums, but I know that quite a bit of information I come across may not make much sense, but may contain a few key words here and there. Providing that info to the feds has on more than one occasion provided a missing piece of the puzzle, and helped save a few lives, and that is what it is all about for me...plain and simple...saving lives.

Honestly, the way that I feel, if there are some out there that have a problem with my contribution in the War on Terror....my question to them is What have you done to help fight the WOT?????' Chances are, they have no answer, or cannot say that what they have contributed has made a difference. Sure, discussions on forums are wonderful....bashing someone unjustly is not!

I have responded to all that I have been asked here at ATS, however, I cannot say that I have been met with the same. U2U's go unanswered even by the mods.

Now, I would like to get back to doing what I do. Despite what many of you may think, I do have a lot of people that count on the updates of my site, which I have been unable to do.

Again Muppet, apology accepted!

Jill I've sent you a u2u, and promise I will reply to any you send me.

With regard to the WOT, you will obviously know it is somewhat of a contentious issue. While there is obviously some threat, there is also unfortunately copious evidence that both side are using disinformation to perpetuate the level of fear. The vast majority if not ALL indicated threats to the US mainland have turned out to be false alarms and/or hoaxes. I

I've only been here on ATS a couple of months myself, but I would say the biggest contribution this site makes is to expose these hoaxes. As citizens and voters the most important thing we can do is truly understand what's going on in the world, NOT what hoaxers and scaremongers would like as to think.

We do this by arguing, investigating, and most importantly, backing up what we say with evidence, so that others may examine, it. If the evidence is false, then people here can make that call and argue the point, but at least all the evidence is available for all to see.

That's why i hope you will provide the video for us to see. It's nothing personal, we just work that way here.

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
I've only recently started following this, and have a question regarding this image:

image

Can someone tell me if the "code" appeared within the video stream itself, or the frame chrome that contains the video stream. It could be important.

SkepticOverlord: muppet has stated that the code could have been in the video, but was not in the one he reviewed. Originally he believed that it could not have been, and I think he is still a bit skeptical.

We are hoping that muppet can get his hands on a different version of this file, as the person who originally found it now states that there are two videos. She claims that the one muppet reviewed was not the same as the one analyzed by the Northeast Intelligence Network.