Boudreaux SAVED my dad

April 21, 2004 10:21 PM

Follow-up to the recent photoshop/"Boudreaux killed my dad" thread: the lance corporal's mom, who runs a computer store and has been living in fear, says the original was "Boudreaux saved my dad."
posted by ajr to MetaFilter-related at 10:21 PM (9 comments total)

Uh, yeah, it's his *mom*

And, uh, yeah, it's a Photoshop.

Good follow-up though.
posted by scarabic at 10:29 PM on April 21, 2004

Jeez, did you read the article you posted to? It didn't say "saved" either:

"They were not the original. The original was in a group of photos he sent in the e-mail," Gustafson said. "It said 'Welcome Marines’ or something like that. There was not anything unusual or offensive."
posted by nicwolff at 10:54 PM on April 21, 2004

A picture is no longer worth a thousand words
posted by homunculus at 12:31 AM on April 22, 2004

I have difficulty believing that a professional, specialist analysis of the photos could not reveal doctoring. However, is it the case that all the existing images have been lossy-compressed and that would complicate matters? But I can't believe that the use of Photoshop or the like to alter an image in this fashion wouldn't result in mathematically identifiable artifacts, particularly to those who know the algorithms employed by the software.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:22 AM on April 22, 2004

You're right ofcourse there's an arms race going on between forgers and authenticators if I may call them that. But for simple stuff like messing with letters you're chanceless against someone clueful willing to put in a few hours of altering. And I suspect the same goes for more complicated scenarios, though it'll take longer.
posted by fvw at 4:31 AM on April 22, 2004

am i just being self-centered, or is that salon article a complete frickin ripoff of my post?! wtf?

it's not that it was such an original idea, but using the same headline and several of the same links, same theme, same "not believing your eyes," etc. i dunno.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 11:15 AM on April 22, 2004

i read the whole article now--i don't think it was a ripoff. slightly possibly inspired by, but he definitely does his own thing. and those links are just the obvious ones to use (and the idea was already in circulation when i posted it).

pardon the temporary outrage. gosh aren't i chatty today.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 11:29 AM on April 22, 2004

No, it can't be... you killed my father...
posted by rafter at 2:37 PM on April 22, 2004

More importantly than whether or not this stupid picture was subsequently Photoshopped: did those kids have a clue what it said? Or was it just written by Lt. Smileyfuck, and then handed to them for the picture-pose? Maybe they thought it said "Please send us jujyfruits, you rich Americans."
posted by scarabic at 3:07 PM on April 22, 2004