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Snit Digest, screenshot edition

12/05/2004
Recently, Michael has engaged in even more obfuscation of this entire PDF issue found here: Snit Digest, email.pdf edition. His zealotry knows no bounds.
Michael has created a web page - that tries to divert attention from the fact that he was proven to have edited the PDF's in the first place.
Basically, what he is trying to do is to claim that the "boldness" in Steves screenshot (http://home.wi.rr.com/mackays/mine.jpg) doesn't match the "boldness" of his original PDF (http://home.wi.rr.com/mackays/email.pdf).
Now, Michael has created a ton of screenshots and cropped them so the original source of the image is unknown trying to "prove" that the original PDF is a fake since it does not match the boldness of Steves screenshot "mine.jpg".
What Michael fails to realize - or rather realizes fully, but desperately tries to obfuscate - is that when making a screenshot of a PDF you're making a screenshot of the rendering of a PDF. The appearance of the render is naturally up to the renderer.
So, basically, Michael is comparing Steves screenshot of the PDF rendered in Acrobat for Windows to a screenshot he made himself using another program to render the (allegedly) same PDF, which proabably is Preview for the Mac since Michael is a Mac user.
So, that said - the entire premise his entire page rests on is swiftly swept away, and to demonstrate this I now submit two screenshots I made myself of two different programs on two different operating systems rendering the same PDF - and unlike Michael, I show that I am looking at the original PDF in the browser.
The PDF as shown in Windows XP, using the Acrobat plugin. (click to enlarge)
The same PDF shown in Mac OS X, using the PDF plugin for Safari. (click to enlarge)
As is obvious - the PDF renders totally different in the two applications - which in this case is attributable to the fact that Windows XP is using the "Courier New" font and OSX is using the Courier font. Here is an example of the difference of Courier and Courier New:
"Old" Courier is clearly bolder.

Michael also writes


After Steve first presented his "evidence" in the form of the original email.pdf, I commented about how his font was wrong for the numbers in the IP. Shortly after I commented on this the numbers "magically" fixed themselves. Let's look at his original PDF (310,396 bytes, and the only file discussed here that is "magically" missing from Steve's site - and the only one that matches his mine.jpg) and then compare it to his modified PDF (159,159 bytes - it does not match mine.jpg).
The link to "his original PDF" doesn't link to a PDF on Steves site - but on Michaels site. This is an important pattern in Michaels obfuscation. Michaels link to "his modified PDF" is to what before was Michaels copy of the original PDF - which this digest has already commented on - and that Michaels still tries to pull.

Stranger still, Steve has two *other* PDF's on his site that he claims are from me and are forgeries (224,007 and 211,938 bytes). Yet, neither of those match the *real* original (310,396 bytes), which he claims is a forgery of mine.
As sad as it is - Michael still tries to refer to a file only found on his own server to be the original. Again - the original PDF is found here: home.wi.rr.com... - there is no need to look at any files on Michaels server to compare with. The original is still on Mackays server.

A change of tune

Since the publishing of this digest, Michael has changed his tune. He is now trying to claim that the screenshot is too dark to be a screenshot of the original PDF. Well, that's not true of course. Here is a screenshot of them both:
As usual, and as opposed to Michael, you see exactly what files are being displayed in the location bar.