Saturday, September 22, 2007

A Razor Rather Reminder

clipped from www.flounder.com

So we have the following two hypotheses contending for describing the memos


  • Attempts to recreate the memos using Microsoft Word and Times New Roman
    produce images so close that even taking into account the fact that the image
    we were able to download from the CBS site has been copied, scanned,
    downloaded, and reprinted, the errors between the "authentic" document and a
    file created by anyone using Microsoft word are virtually indistinguishable.

  • The font existed in 1972; there were technologies in 1972 that could, with
    elaborate effort, reproduce these memos, and these technologies and the skills
    to use them were used by someone who, by testimony of his own family, never
    typed anything, in an office that for all its other documents appears to have
    used ordinary monospaced typewriters, and therefore this unlikely
    juxtaposition of technologies and location coincided just long enough to
    produce these four memos on 04-May-1972, 18-May-1972, 01-August-1972, and
    18-August-1973.
And Newcomer ends thus:

"Which one do you think is true? Which one would a 13th-century philosopher [that would be Occam -ed.] think made sense? How many totally unlikely other juxtapositions are expected to be true? How could anyone believe these memos are other than incompetent forgeries?

This letter concentrates only on the raw technology of the fonts and printing. It does not address many of the issues others on the Internet have raised, such as the incorrect usage of military titles and abbreviations, incorrect formatting relative to prevailing 1972 military standards, etc. I am not qualified to comment on these. All I can say is that the technology that produced this document was not possible in 1972 in the sort of equipment that would have been available outside publishing houses, and which required substantial training and expertise to use, and it replicates exactly the technologies of Microsoft Word and Microsoft TrueType Fonts.

It is therefore my expert opinion that these documents are modern forgeries.
"