Hacker Proves How MSM is Fooled by al Qaeda Photochopped Images

At the Black Hat computer Hacker's conference held in Las Vegas last week, Neal Krawetz of "Hacker Factor" showed how easily the MSM has been tricked into believing the fake images that al Qaeda has offered to further their propaganda. Krawetz specifically referred to two images, one the July 27, 2006 image of al Qaeda second in command al-Zawahiri supposedly sitting in a modern television studio. It was an image that had the tongues of the MSM and pundits alike wagging. How is it, they clucked, that al-Zawahiri could be sitting in a modern television studio yet still could not be found?

Krawetz demonstrated how the elements of the two images, however, are special effects and not real.

Krawetz showed another image of al-Zawahiri from July 27, 2006, showing him seated in what appears to be a television studio. Krawetz said many people who saw this video were outraged that he could sitting in a television studio somewhere, yet the U.S. government couldn't find him.

Image analysis suggests that the studio and the various pictures positioned in the studio around him were added later. Again, a halo around al-Zawahiri suggests that he was shot in front of a monochromatic screen and pasted into a new background.

The fake TV studio image sure fooled Tucker Carlson of MSNBC's The Situation Room. On January 30th Tucker said:

Well, not only are they still here, but they seem to have access to a television studio. I‘m looking at the tape right now. I know you‘ve seen it. It‘s on our screen this minute. It looks like it was shot in a studio, and it also appears that al-Jazeera Television had word that this tape was coming. They were prepared for it before it arrived. These guys are not living in a cave.

Not living in a cave? Since the images are fakes, the idea that Tucker had that folks like al-Zawahiri are living in high style despite all the pressure the US has put upon him is not so obvious.

CNN's Soledad O'Brien was similarly fooled by the images. On CNN's American Morning aired on July 27th, 2006, O'Brien marveled at the freedom that our enemies supposedly enjoyed.

S. O'BRIEN: A final question for you, Peter. We're looking at this tape, and I've got to tell you, it looks like he's in a television studio. I mean, it's lit. They've got murals behind him. You know, here is a guy who is -- it is not a shot out in the desert with a canvas up behind him, hiding the scene.

What do you make of something like that? I mean, it's fairly, you know, good quality.

What do we make of "something like that," Soledad? Obviously, you want us to imagine that all we have done has resulted in absolutely no success if you want to promulgate the idea that al-Zawahiri has all the comforts of modern life despite what we have done in the war on terror thus far.

One thing is sure. The hacker conference has proven once again that the American MSM is the best friend that al Qaeda has.