Birther issue laid to rest

[IronMan]

President Obama released his "long form" birth certificate at 9:00am central time this morning.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/04/27/white-house-releases-obamas-long-form-birth-certificate/

 

[Wyatt]

I have waited on this since the election... I feel so much better now...

 

[Roadking Larry]

I never really gave a crap about it. I want to see his student records. I'd bet good money he went to school as a foreign student. I'd also like to know why he traveled on a foreign passport till he was elected POTUS.

 

[onearmedman]

It doesn't mean a thing, unless it's timed to distract from more serious issues. Changes in SECDEF and Chief Spook (CIA). Gates out, Panetta in. Petraeus in at CIA. Hmmmm....

 

[RaysZ71]

He's the most powerful man in the world. Im sure any kind of document can be acquired to reflect what people want to see, just saying. If a two dollar crack head can make a fake ID, why can't a very powerful person. If there was nothing to hide, why did it take this so long to become public?? I personally don't care where he was born, I just want him out of the office.

 

[Wyatt]

You don't REALLY think there was something to distract the American public, do you? Yes, my initial post and this one MAY have included a SMALL amount of sarcasm... LOL

 

[VitruvianDoc]

It really took his counterfeiter this long? Mine would have had it in a month or less... gah

 

[av8r]

I guess it takes a while to get things printed in Kenya.

 

[cjjtulsa]

Here he's telling "Hawaiians" that he's proud to be back home:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SOP1XjS4Y0

Oops.

 

[Bierhunter]

Something I find interesting is the way the PDF is formatted.

I'm "assuming" that it is a PDF of a scanned document due to the age of the document. Importing the PDF into an application to deconstruct it, a scanned document would normally show up as a single image on the page. This is because the document would not have been created with individual text objects, but rather scanned in as a whole image.

Now the interesting part. Decontructing the PDF of the long form certificate, it does not show up as a scanned image. The main text, the date, and the lower right signature stamp are all separate objects. Also, the green background is completely separate from the rest of the document. On the green background, there is white where the letters are supposed to go.

(I'm just linking due to image size)
Here is the original image
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/bierh/initial.png

Here is the deconstructed view showing how it's broken up into separate objects.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/bierh/objects.png

Also, note how the '1' on the end of the document number is separate.

Documents that I have scanned in always end up as a single image object, and not separated like this. But, then again, I use simple basic scanning tools...nothing fancy.

Now, I will say that this does not provide definitive proof of a doctored document. We don't know what scanning process they used, or whether or not their software attempts to convert scanned documents to individual objects. Also, the application I used to deconstruct the PDF is simple and not what would be considered forensically sound.

All this does is raise questions. But it's interesting to see.

If anyone else has experience in this area and can shed more light on the subject, it'd be interesting to see what all can be found. It may be nothing, or it may be something more.