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September 14, 2004

Rather's Partisan Political Internet "Expert" Wrong About 1's and l's

(Mini-exclusive-- contains some new information.)

Rather's newest "expert" claims that the "1's" shown in the forged documents are actually lower-case L's ("l's" -- I know, they look very similar). He says this is more consistent with a typewriter than a computer-generated document.

Corante shows that in fact the two characters are extraodinarily similar, making it hard to tell one from the other. Except for one thing-- numbers on a computer-generated document are mono-spaced for readablility (i.e., so that the digits line up when doing column math), while lower-case "l's" would, like any other letter, be variably proportionately spaced.

Furthermore, the characters are nearly identical in Times New Roman anyway. In fact, I don't see any difference, although experts say the 1's are slightly taller than lower-case L's.

He presents .gifs to show the characters in question seem to be mono-spaced, indicating they are most likely not, in fact, lower-case L's, but rather normal computer-generated 1's.

But there's another objection to this newest of Dan Rather's defenses.

Dan Rather has been claiming these documents may be authentic because of the rather fanciful possibility that Jerry Killian had access to, for unknown reasons, a very high-end quasi-typesetting machine called the IBM Selectric Composer which could produce proportionally spaced characters (but, alas, not the same variably-proportionally spaced characters actually shown in the forged documents).

So Rather's entire defense is predicated on the Jerry Killian typing these documents on machine costing $3600-$4400 in 1972 dollars.

His expert asserts that it's more common for typical typewriters to use an l in place of a true 1 than for a computer word-processing program to do the same.

Well, Mr. Katz-- perhaps that was more common in normal typewriters.

It was not, however, true of the IBM Selectric Composer-- the very machine Rather's defenders insist the documents are actually typed in.

Shape of Days consulted an expert on the IBM Selectric Composer, and had him type out the text of the forgeries. This is what the IBM Selectric Composer typed, using the Press Roman ball:

Notice that the 1's for this type are very similar (if not identical to) the New Times Roman 1's on Word 97. Also note that, in fact, the Selectric Composer apparently has both 1's and l's -- the characters are clearly spaced differently. 1's are mono-spaced, as they are on Word 97. l's are proportionately spaced, again as they are on Word 97 -- check out how spaced out the "111" is, compared to the double-l's in "Ellington."

So which is it, Mr. Rather? If Killian had the sort of typical typewriter we'd expect to see on a TANG base, we probably would see l's rather than 1's.

But you're not claiming he had such a typical typewriter. You're claiming he had a high-end quasi-typesetting machine capable of producing variably-spaced Roman text-- and in the example we have, this high-end machine in fact has, as one would expect, distinct 1's and l's.

You can't claim that the documents were typed on a typical typewriter which would produce lower-case L's for 1's and also that they were typed on a high-end quasi-typesetting machine with distinct L's and 1's.

Or perhaps this really is Rather's latest claim-- that Killian typed out the bulk of the text using a high-end quasi-typesetting machine, but then, just to type the 1's (and nothing else!), switched over to one of the more primitive typewriters available at the base.

By the Way Update: If you're troubled by the superscripted "th" in the Selectric Composer sample-- don't be. In order to get that small-font superscript, the expert had to manually switch from an 11-point font ball to an 8-point font ball -- unscrewing one, screwing in the other -- and then switch back again to the 11 point font ball in order to finish the document.

Seems unlikely. Although they say there were custom-order balls that had small-font superscript available on them. The expert Shape of Days questioned didn't have one, though, making one wonder how common such balls were.

posted by Ace at 12:25 PM

Comments

Good catch!

BTW, doesn't CBS claim they have first generation copies? If so, why have they released copies that are so bad? Why don't they scan their first generation docs and release those?

Posted by: Phil on September 14, 2004 01:03 PM

There actually are some L's used as 1's in one of the memos, possibly two. Not that it helps their case any. It appears to be more of an amateurish attempt to defeat Word's automatic superscripting since it will only auto-superscript if the preceding text (not just preceding character) is a number.

If you'll notice in the Aug. 1 memo in the subject and 1st paragraph, the character used to represent the one in "1st" sits too close to the "s".

http://www.deadparrots.net/archives/media/0409of_ls_and_1s.html

Posted by: Dead Parrot James on September 14, 2004 01:17 PM

Based on inflation that typewriter would cost $22,000 in 2004 dollars. Last time I checked Army bases weren't shelling out the big bucks for computers.

Posted by: gibs. on September 14, 2004 01:21 PM

"They seem to have a flat, 90-degree-angle serif at the top, not the angled blade that Times New Roman 1's have."

You should really take a look at what effect faxing a document (and possibly copying, depending on the type of copier; whether it's digital or not) has on the serifs. As I say in the description, the following is a fax that was sent to me by my advisor a few years back. Look closely at the serifs. They lose their definition and shape rather quickly when faxed/copied/scanned.

http://www.deadparrots.net/archives/media/0409make_up_your_own_mind.html

Posted by: Dead Parrot James on September 14, 2004 01:40 PM

If I keep up this pace, I can forsee getting banned soon.

I know it's a minor point, really (pun intended), but you state: "unscrewing one, screwing in the other".

If I remember correctly from my mother's old Selectrics (court reporter, she went through many of them), the ball had a little catch at the top that only required flipping up and pulling on to remove it. Reverse the process to put it back on.

Posted by: Dead Parrot James on September 14, 2004 01:46 PM

Wait! That document was produced using LaTeX, which uses a different font than Word. Focus *only* on the 1's. The 1 has a slanted serif, while the l does not in LaTeX's default font. It does not diminish the quality of the argument, because you'll notice that many of the 1's now have serifs that look flat, making them look (disregarding the spacing) like l's. I will attach another screen cap of an unfaxed bit of LaTeX so that a fair comparison can be made.

Thanks for the link, btw.

Posted by: Dead Parrot James on September 14, 2004 01:55 PM

I didn't think that that page was in in the same font, and I didn't say it was TNR.

It doesn't matter really what font it is-- one can easily see that some one's have bladed tops, whereas others have had their tops flattened by the faxing process.

Nevertheless, the text of the Rather forgery, typed out in MS Word Times New Roman, and then faxed would obviously constitute stronger proof.

Posted by: ace on September 14, 2004 02:00 PM

For those running their own scanning experiments at home who are disturbed by the clarity of their results, keep in mind an important fact. The typical fax machine uses only 200 dpi quality vs. the much higher quality offered by a $50 Canon scanner, for example. Passing a pristing newly printed document through a typical fax machine provides an immediate 'aging through crappification' effect that includes a lot of artifacts that make it look more 'authentic' to the unwary eye. Say, Dan Rather's.

Posted by: Eric Pobirs on September 14, 2004 02:04 PM

"I didn't think that that page was in in the same font, and I didn't say it was TNR."

Sorry. I wasn't trying to imply anything. I just wanted to make sure that everything was as transparent as possible. I wouldn't want someone moseying over to Dead Parrots, taking a casual look at the scan, and wondering what kind of flimflam is going on because it's not a Word document. But if anything, it makes the point even stronger. We start with two characters that do not look alike (unlike TNR), and run them through a fax and voila, many of them look the same now.

If you've got a fax, I'd be happy to shoot a fax of one of the memos in Word format over if you provide me with the number. It's a newer model, and I'm completely unfamiliar with faxes (other than they suck compared to scanners and printers as Eric pointed out), so I don't know what the results would be.

Posted by: Dead Parrot James on September 14, 2004 02:27 PM

I know, I was just saying. I say it's a "Roman-looking" font (emphasis mine), but I'll edit to make it perfectly clear that it's not TNR.

Posted by: ace on September 14, 2004 02:35 PM

Just wanted to throw in my two cents.

Here is my attemp at using Word to create the August 1 memo. Looks pretty close to me, and I used only the default Font, tab spacing (every column ends on an exact tab), centering, word wrap, etc.

ftp://earth.prohosting.com/august_1_memo_plus_word.gif

I also wanted to raise this question: The four memos released by CBS are not all the same scale.

See here:

http://earth.prohosting.com/erik144/size_mismatch.gif

For starters, it proves that (at least some of) the documents are not scanned to scale. What from of repodruction was used such that there is a 6% difference in magnification from one doc to the next?

An ideas?

Posted by: erik on September 14, 2004 03:11 PM

Oops. I put the wrong URL for the August 1 docuemtnt Sorry. Try this one:

http://earth.prohosting.com/erik144/august_1_memo_plus_word.gif

Posted by: erik on September 14, 2004 03:13 PM

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