How This Single 'M' Almost Ruined a US Presidency

[@spookyghostwriter3110]

Fun fact: A Canadian soldier doing janitor work during the Quebec conference stumbled upon D-Day plans a year in advance. A world leader (he took exactly who it was to the grave) had left behind said plans sitting on a desk. He took the documents home because it looked cool, took one look at exactly what he had snatched, and turned himself in the next day, earning himself several interviews with the FBI and Scotland Yard, but also a medal once things settled down.

[@davidjennings2179]

Have you got any sources for this? Didn't find anything when searching, sounds like it could be made up.

[@spookyghostwriter3110]

How a young Quebec soldier found confidential D-Day invasion plans - and kept it a secret. CBC News, August 25th, 2019.

[@TheBaldr]

Trust the CBC to not mark it as alleged, even though they hinted at it in the article. There is no evidence it really took place, no record of events.

[@TheBrainSpecialist]

@@davidjennings2179 He's real, his name was Sgt. Maj. Émile Couture

[@solandri69]

Friend of mine in grad school visited the Pentagon to meet with the principal sponsor of his DoD project. He visited the bathroom there, bumped into a guy holding some papers, said hi, and went into a toilet stall. When he went to wash his hands, he noticed some papers labeled classified laying next to the sink. He turned them in to security and explained where he found them. He met with his sponsor. They decided to head out for lunch. And he saw the same guy he'd bumped into in the bathroom, being led out in handcuffs.

[@GeorgiaOverdrive]

The man forging the diaries actually did know that he used a gothic F instead of an A, he simply did not have a gothic A and just used an F hoping no one would notice.

[@finnokeefe189]

that is HILARIOUS.

[@kneel1]

he did not give AF, is what i heard

[@vlynst]

genius!

[@D0Samp]

The cop-out explanation was that the initials stood for "Führer Hitler", a phrase that was never used in that way and makes no sense for a private diary.

[@zimriel]

@@kneel1 he got paid. i hope he invested his money swiftly and wisely and securely (not really practical to do all three)

[@cassiemyersconcertvids]

Can't believe you didn't have your writer Amy forge federal documents for this video.

[@МихайлоСєльський]

they poured coffee on the typewriter and it started glitching.

[@DOPES4MAGA]

This video was written by Ben not Amy. They have Ben write all the videos on forging that way he has to go through extra security checks at the airport costing Ben and Adam precious time allowing Sam to win Jet Lag.

[@harleyevans6563]

They probably did but those pesky people who are into typewrite history caught her and now she has been thrown in the slammer.

[@justanaltaccount1]

"To test out this theory, I had my outside correspondent Amy, well, not really an OUTSIDE correspondent anymore... more like an inside correspondent, because she's currently locked up in a federal prison.. Anyways, I made Amy forge her tax docume-"

[@POOProblems]

I thought she was an outside correspondent?

[@altarancho]

As a tree risk assessor, I feel a kinship with font detectives. We’re both a highly specialized highly niche skillset that do heroic things extremely rarely. The rest of the time we’re weird and useless.

[@setaindustries]

May I ask what a "tree risk assessor" does? Do you check if trees will fall on houses and whatnot?

[@altarancho]

@ yes that’s basically it.

[@nazamroth8427]

@@altarancho And will they fall on houses and whatnot?

[@andrek6920]

​@@nazamroth8427Extremely rarely according to his original comment.

[@altarancho]

@@nazamroth8427 not that rare, but it’s usually obvious to an untrained person. It’s rare that an assessor finds a critical issue that a layperson wouldn’t have noticed, usually because the tree is in the layperson’s yard so they’re intimately familiar with it and google exists.

[@CatherineKimport]

Suggesting we didn't notice the """so subtle""" switch to Aptos is like suggesting we wouldn't notice if you replaced the trumpets in an orchestra with a car horn

[@frigginjerk]

I remember the day I noticed the change. I was like, "Whoa, something's different here.... what the hell is Aptos?!" I did some googling, and resigned myself to acceptance that we're doing this now. But at least it's not Arial, which is a barbaric font for people who refuse to participate in society.

[@KKJKJH]

ok sir hypereyes von seealot

[@evildude109]

I didn't notice it because sans serif fonts are garbage so I just switch off of them as soon as I open a document.

[@dinoschachten]

Good comparison :D Aptos looks like quite a cheap Calibri knockoff, at least at first glance - haven't had the "pleasure" of really using it yet.

[@TheRogueX]

Hey now, you take that back, a car horn section in the orchestra would be sweet.

[@veroxid]

6:30 The term in question is called "kerning." It's also the most tedious part of creating a font because not only do each glyph have a certain amount of spacing, but some character pairings need specific kerning pairings. An example that is commonly missed in free fonts is the glyph "1" which requires a smidge more spacing if it comes after a letter like "d" or "T" than "a" or "n." If you tried to use consistent kerning spacing your "a1" will end up looking like "a 1" or your "d1" will end up looking like "oH" _(not quite but close enough)._ Probably the most famous pair is "WA."

[@FindersKeeperz]

*Opens a video on the letter M* 4 seconds in “Publish adolf Hitlers diaries…”

[@the0ne809]

The Godwin law in a video format.

[@Pr0toPoTaT0]

You know, we all make mistakes. In this case i feel like it should've been titled how a forger tricked a magazine that Hitler had no clue the holocaust was happening.

[@mesiroy1234]

​@the0ne809 its real thing? Lol I google it

[@jdjw20fanmades97]

Actually The Whole Video Can Be Described In The 1:05 Mark

[@ca1ebyt6]

@@jdjw20fanmades97 Hey bro you arent making a title you dont gotta capitalize every word

[@BlankPictures-1]

The hilarious part is this could have easily gone undetected if they had just committed to the bit and used a typewriter from the 1970s. Like, they're not that hard to find.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

But, they did locate such typewriters after it no longer matters.

[@emurphy42]

But typewriters from the 1970s are bugged by Commie mutant spies!

[@FlorianWendelborn]

They could’ve been caught by someone finding it odd they bought an ancient typewriter :)

[@darkfool2000]

@@SmallSpoonBrigade Yeah but the documents have still never been authenticated as legitimate. The source claimed he burned the originals, which is asinine.

[@omnitroph1501]

@@FlorianWendelborn These are professional political chicaniers we're talking about. They know how to pay cash for their equipment.

[@jimsvideos7201]

1:00 Detextives was _right there_ 😭

[@billberg1264]

So was "font" of knowledge.

[@phforNZ]

That would have been at least twice as interesting

[@unoriginalname4321]

I like fontective

[@Kokurorokuko]

0:57

[@rondobrondo]

@@unoriginalname4321 boo

[@votekyle3000]

7:25 that is fired CBS journalist Dan Rather, not Jerry Killian. Rather’s career was injured permanently by publishing the story without verifying it throughly.

[@kibashisiyoto6771]

Later the Bush Administration released an additional set of documents from the TANG that were in the fabled Selectric proportional font. I think it was Karl Rove's way of telling Dan Rather "We sure screwed you, didn't we?"

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

@@kibashisiyoto6771 Yep, that's what I remember, after the whole thing blew over, they did "find" some typewriters that were capable of typing with a proportional font at the time the document was allegedly typed.

[@john1701q]

@@kibashisiyoto6771 Doesn't matter. As soon as the docs looked fishy you do not use them.

[@thelordofcringe]

These days, verifying a story is what gets you fired.

[@Treblaine]

@@john1701q I mean the source claimed that he burned the originals after faxing over copies. And he also claims he "overheard" a conversation in the office of The Governor of Texas, guess who he claims they were talking about, George W Bush. This guy just has a history of making up outlandish lies about Bush.

[@haleyhalcyon]

Everything Sam got wrong about the Killian Memos: • *The typewritten documents that Sam claims are "TNR" are NOT Times New Roman.* As he himself explains later, Times New Roman is variable-width/proportional, while typewriter fonts are fixed-pitch/monospaced. • As far as I know, *Times was never available on any typewriter c.1972 or ever.* One major brand that “used type balls”, the IBM Selectric (1961-), had lots of different fonts available, all of them were fixed-pitch. (I know it’s just a stock video, but no variable-width typewriters ever gained traction.) • *He confuses the space TAKEN UP BY each letter and the space BETWEEN each letter.* “Adjusting the space between each letter” is called kerning, and while most proportional fonts have it while monospace fonts don't, some proportional fonts don't kern. The width OF each letter is called the advance width. • *He doesn't know what the hell “TrueType” means.* PostScript, TrueType, OpenType, WOFF, and WOFF2 are font file formats, just like JPG and PNG are image formats. The things he says “TrueType fonts do” are NOT features of or exclusive to TrueType fonts. As said before, adjusting the space between letters like "fr" (a better example would have been “fe” in “interference”) is called kerning, and is a feature of (most) proportional fonts, not just TrueType fonts. The “curved apostrophes” are a feature of Microsoft Word (or whatever other word processor they used) that replaces the straight “typewriter quotes” that your keyboard usually types with the special Unicode characters that represent curly quotation marks and apostrophes. The raised “th” is a feature of Microsoft Word that automatically applies superscript formatting to ordinal endings “st”, “nd”, “rd”, and “th”. The centered header is a formatting feature of Microsoft Word, too. Neither of these are features of TrueType fonts. F - see me after class

[@danielbishop1863]

There were typewriters that used variable-width fonts, such as the Vari-Typer (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vari-Typer). Of course, monospaced typewriters were mechanically simpler and thus cheaper.

[@viardent8823]

since you buried the lead on what true type fonts actually do: instead of just being an image that is scaled (raster), true type fonts are designed more like vector graphics, defining line segments. it allows for screen aware renderings of these letters and free scaling to arbitrary font sizes. It also allowed for subpixel optimizations on the lower resolution monitors of the 90's and early 00's making the fonts display "truer to typed" letters. pixel and subpixel modifications these days are not all that important as resolutions of our displays have increased so much, but it does also allow the rendering to control aliasing for readability at different scales that non-truetype fonts don't do well. anyway. I'm not an expert in this at all.

[@ryanhester2146]

@@viardent8823 *lede

[@froggacuda1605]

He also said that the Killian forgery was harder to detect. It was not. As soon as CBS aired Dan Rather's report, they were immediately inundated with folks pointing out that it was clear that the documents had been written using a modern computer with a modern word process on a modern printer. Anyone who is familiar at all with typed documents from the 70's IMMEDIATELY recognized that they were fakes. The most shocking part was that Dan Rather and CBS initially adamantly refused to admit that they were obvious forgeries. Dan Rather, to this day, refuses to explicitly admit that they were forgeries; a decade after the scandal he stated, "And the fact is we reported a true story, and we lost our jobs because of that."

[@joe_z]

5:59 Times New Roman is an inherently proportional typeface. There's no monospaced version of Times New Roman, and if there were, it would be blindingly obvious which one was being used because all the characters would be the same width in the monospaced version. Also, proportional typewriters did exist, and were pretty popular in the 1970s. In terms of typewriter functionality alone, the superscript "th" at 7:17 was the only clear giveaway. But more importantly, Times New Roman as a font was never available for typewriters. While some of the fonts on proportional typewriters were Roman-looking fonts (including an IBM lookalike called Press Roman), the only way you could have gotten _Times New Roman_ on a printed document back in 1973 would have been to typeset it like a newspaper or magazine would, which is too much work for a simple office document like that.

[@nedcurfman3486]

Bwuh? For some reason, the timestamp highlight was extended all the way to the first ‘e’ in inherently. That looked bizarre

[@CinemaDemocratica]

This was precisely my understanding of the situation as well. Most of what Sam said about it seems to have been wholly fabricated.

[@robertkeddie]

I remember when this fraud was detected - newspapers claimed that only three people in the world had the skills to do spot it. Yet I immediately noticed the superscript "th". Microsoft Word started doing that automatically sometime in the nineties if I remember correctly.

[@joe_z]

​@@robertkeddie Newspapers claim silly things like that all the time, to the fury of all the nerds in that field. I feel like any typography enthusiast would have immediately been suspicious that the Microsoft Word default font appeared on a document that predated the invention of word processors.

[@joe_z]

​@@CinemaDemocraticaNot fabricated, just a severe misinterpretation of the Wikipedia article they probably got this info from (because it contains all the information they used for that section: look up "Killian document authenticity issues").

[@tag180rotax]

Ive always signed my name in blue ink because itd be easier to tell if a document was a copy, but now copy machines scan color and Im sad

[@glennac]

“But now…”? Copiers have been able to copy in color for quite some time now. 🤔😄

[@Nico-pb1sr]

​@@glennac bros been signing with a blue quill

[@doujinflip]

It'd have to be a really good scanner though. If you look closely you'd notice most photocopies have grainy noise and more skewed angles.

[@SmallSpoonBrigade]

@@glennac I think there were specific shades of blue that wouldn't pick up properly, it's an ability that is sometimes exploited when you want to draw something to be copied, but you don't want the guide lines to show up.

[@billberg1264]

@@SmallSpoonBrigade Sign your name with scented marker. I've yet to encounter a copier that can properly scan scents.

[@VonGeggry]

Sounds like, How to do a good forgery: Use Paper, Ink, and the hardware from the time period of interest

[@Gamer3427]

The problem is generally getting your hands on those things to begin with. Particularly if your plan is to profit, because while the older something is the more profitable it'll likely be, and it's more likely to be easy to forge from a technical standpoint, it'll be much harder to acquire the necessary tools and materials.

[@davidlasdon457]

There was recently forged copies of the Hulk 181 comic discovered. The paper was wrong and the white was wrong for the era. It was a photocopy on good paper but not the right paper. You're right that you need to use paper, ink, and hardware from the time.

[@VonGeggry]

@@Gamer3427 I've got the type writer, and ink I just need the paper haha. More seriously the ink roll I have is very sad and that might clue someone in.

[@evildude109]

@@Gamer3427 I don't know about you but I've got two typewriters from before 1980 in my attic. Ask a friend, I guess? They're not uncommon and they're not expensive.

[@danielbishop1863]

How to do a bad forgery: Use the latest version of Microsoft Word with its default settings.

[@Nova3482]

Ben emailing his scripts in wingdings is sending me

[@der.Schtefan]

WinDings, not WingDings

[@crispoman]

@@der.Schtefan Might want to double-check that, old chum.

[@kaderiley3076]

@@der.Schtefanit’s definitely 100% wingdings

[@Polite_Cat]

Where?

[@General12th]

@@der.Schtefan um it's actually WingDins. Get it right.

[@colincampbell767]

The funny thing about the Killian Memo is that just about every person who had been trained in the official US military writing styles recognized it as fake immediately. It was written in the writing style implemented at the end of the 1990's. (And yes, in professional development schools for officers and NCOs - you do get trained in the official writing style.) I was in Iraq when I downloaded and read the memo and it was obvious immediately that it has been written recently,

[@algotkristoffersson15]

Why is there a writing style at all?

[@colincampbell767]

@@algotkristoffersson15 Because certain writing styles are better than others. The military writing style is a highly effective way of writing proposals. The 'bottom line up front' with the details getting more complex as you go further in works effectively in organizations. Senior management typically do not have time for all the details so putting the think you are proposing in the lead paragraph lets them know what you want - and who to forward it to for review. The reviewer then can read the first page and then knows which specialist to forward tit to. It is the specialist who needs all of the details skims over the first page and reads the last pages. The specialist makes a recommendation, and the document goes back up the chain with recommendations back to the decision maker. The decision maker reads the recommendations and makes a decision. If you want to get your company to do something or buy something - using this writing style is an extremely effective tool. I have used it very effectively in my civilian job. It was so effective that some people thought that management was playing favorites until I taught them how to write. BTW there are other rules for things like formatting paragraphs, signature blocks, date formats, etc. as well.

[@shasan2393]

@@algotkristoffersson15 uniformity and being able to appropriately follow orders.

[@HedgehogSpeedSonic]

LMAO. I love the subtle "anyone this diligent about font detecting has weaponized autism, so dont try fooling them this is their life".

[@SyphistPrime]

As an autistic I have mad respect for those of us that make use of our special interests.

[@Seraph.G]

As a diligent autist, I have to say that the typewriter one was pretty obvious.

[@bite-sizedshorts9635]

"Weaponized autism" came from the chans where Q and other events of the day were discussed from around 2017 onward.

[@xirfan]

Ben he said no more wingdings, didn't say anything about webdings though 5:41

[@CyanWatercress4]

dont give him any ideas we want jet lag s12

[@mathieuDBilly]

**channel is called "Half as Interesting"** **Covers an extremely interesting subject**

[@Leyrann]

Imagine how interesting the stuff on the main channel must be!

[@mathieuDBilly]

@Leyrann like... Full as interesting?

[@imminicheddars]

But it's half as interesting as a twice as interesting topic.

[@lucassilvas1]

Yeah, I feel scammed

[@H3llo_w0rldXD]

@@LeyrannI’m pretty sure the main is Jet Lag and they also have a channel named Wendover Productions

[@ItsTheRealJefe]

So, speaking of Bush's 'documents' and the superscript: I was taking a Political Science (like 100 level) course at a local community college when this story broke. By happenstance our instructor was also a guardsman, and did clerical work so had access to the typewriters that would have allegedly produced that document. His hot take? "You see this? The TH? Typewriters don't have that." He was pointing to the superscript TH that was referenced the 187th. There was no way to do that on typewriters from the 70s or even today. It an (instantly obvious) fake an everyone BUT those that published the 'findings'

[@zimriel]

I mean, you COULD do this: 1. leave two spaces for the th 2. when done, roll the paper half a notch up at that space 3. type your th ... but nobody did that. except 'spergoes.

[@simonmeadows7961]

When the default in Windows changed from Calibri to Aptos, believe me, I noticed. I am now directing my hate to Aptos and have spent some time changing all the default settings back to Calibri.

[@Stratelier]

At 2:40 with the side-by-side comparison, I notice that Aptos's lowercase 'y' has a curved descender (okay) and the glyphs are generally wider overall (good), BUT the more-curved stroke ends on lowercase 'a' and 'e' leave a smaller gap with the rest of the glyph (Bad).

[@petertrudelljr]

@@Stratelier also notice that the joining areas between strokes (say on the M and N) are narrower.... the bend in the 'a' is more flat and decends... There are a LOT of differences beyond the curved descenders.

[@LethargicSquirrel]

I'm by no means into art, design, fonts, whatever, and even *I* noticed the change immediately. It's terrible.

[@cs8712]

I love when acrobat fails to print a PDF copy everytime because there is aptos text in the source document

[@Entertainment-]

Bierstadt is so much better than Calibri.

[@Dukenukem]

The saddest part of this all is that there are people that would actually fall for those documents even when proven objectively forged. And you did not even pointed that typewriter would never do "block format" to unevenly space the written words to fill in the width of the paragraph. You can actually set MS Word to produce texts that are nearly 1:1 to what mechanical or electronic typewriter would produce, but still you can not replicate numerous things that would be present in the real documents, your best bet is to aquire some actual documents written on the particular machine (and by the person you are forging) of the time and modify the font to impress slight deformities and inaccuracies that might be present on the physical machine and quirks of that person (mainly misspells or fatfingers that are glossed over on paper as your other option is to rewrite whole page). Sprinkle in a few atrifacts from scanning process and dont forget to remove the digital fingerprint in document (metadata) and actual physical fingerpint on the printer (yellow dots) and you will present a very solid "real deal" document. Forging is definitely an art, and we are always glad to see people complementing it with "looks just like a real thing".

[@krishnachaitanyagv5065]

Nowadays, proof is unnecessary; belief is enough apparently. Who cares if it's been proven to not be true? I believe in it. - Dumb people

[@Iris-jw3ci]

honestly, just get a real machine, plus of course real documents to know what you're forging, and ideally documents or otherwise detailing the process. Typewriters are easy to find, and selectrics in particular, as, at least stated in the video, used here, are pretty common.

[@Arakus99]

Wouldn’t the optimal solution be to find out what typewriter they used and actually use it? Or are typewriters rare enough for that to be non viable now

[@jsquared1013]

The "block format" you refer to is called "justify" in MS Word (under the paragraph alignment options: Left, Right, Centered, Justified)

[@Musikur]

Just find a 1950s typewriter, type it out. Spill some coffee on it, and photo copy it 4 times with s little coating of dust ;p

[@YesNowGoAway]

There actually were typewriters that supported proportional typefaces! One example using typeballs, like those mentioned at 6:10, was the IBM Selectric Composer introduced in 1966. They were rare and phenomenally expensive, but they did exist, and there were typeballs with a Times Roman variant available for them.

[@palmberry5576]

Ok, but did they support kerning?

[@HenryLoenwind]

@@palmberry5576 Ok, but why is it impossible for one thing in the video to be wrong because another thing is right? Does this work for comments, too? "The moon is made from cheese and is orbiting Earth." He he! Now nobody can refute the cheese part because the other thing is right!

[@palmberry5576]

@@HenryLoenwind my point was more about the overall conclusion of the investigation rather than the whether or not the point was correct. Obviously the point in the video is incorrect, OP just said that. My point is that even though there may have been typewriters that have proportional typefaces, I doubt they supported kerning, making it still a valid marker of a forgery

[@YesNowGoAway]

@@palmberry5576 Hmm no, I think letter spacing was always done proportionally per letter. There *might* have been special typeballs for ligatures, which would have enabled the "fr" example for the video, but that is very unlikely as well.

[@EebstertheGreat]

Proportional type wasn't that rare or expensive, just more expensive than monotype. Times New Roman did exist on at least one typewriter, but that was genuinely rare.

[@kthwkr]

CBS published a scanned version in PDF format of the Bush document letter. PDFs are very good at producing exact copies. I downloaded the PDF and printed it out on an HP printer. I then installed a brand new version of Microsoft Word. Using the default configuration I typed in the exact letter. I used none of the tricks available in Word. Just plain vanilla configuration just as a fairly amateur user of Word would do. I printed out the document I created. I placed it on top of the printed PDF. Held it up to the light. All characters exactly overlapped. I could not tell the difference between the original PDF and my MS Word version. It left no doubt in my mind that the document had been created by an amateur MSWord user in the last couple of years. And absolutely not on any kind of typewriter in the early 1970's.

[@Solitaire001]

One of the main reasons that PDFs were created is because documents would change when sent from computer to computer. If I create an MS Word Document and send it to another computer, the document will look different on that computer. This is because the type of monitor, type of printer they have, and the typefaces on their computer can cause your document to change. I was in a job where I had to FAX documents to people because if I sent them a Word Document via e-mail it would look different than what I sent (these were documents that could have absolutely no differences between what I send and what they received [something as small a different amount of space between some of the letters was not acceptable]). What PDF did was make it so that what I send out will look exactly the same on their computer as it does on my computer. I still use it to make documents for my e-reader since they will look on my e-reader as intended.

[@bricksandkeebs]

As someone who works around typesetters and knows typesetting and fonts myself, I love hearing stories like this. Just proves how important fonts are in our world.

[@photocitizen]

The image that you caption as "Lt. Col. Jerry Killian. Cannot use typewriters" is actually a photo of journalist Dan Rather. An embarrassing error in a video about forgery.

[@BrightBlueJim]

I guess a font detective isn't necessarily a history detective. Rather was the guy who got fooled by the forgery. It ruined his career. This was back in a time when truth in reporting was valued.

[@mohamedaboubakr1758]

Forging documents is easy, you just need an x-acto knife, a ruler, wood please, Hammermill premium paper, 20 pound, one ream and a glue stick, oh, and point me to your best copier That's all you need to change 1261 into 1216, one after the Magna Carta

[@frigginjerk]

You can get all of that at a stationery store that stays open all night. Might have to come back later and bribe the clerk, though, so he doesn't rat you out to your brother.

[@spythere]

He orchestrated it, Jimmy!

[@disgruntledtoons]

A guy I knew while working in the Pentagon tried to fake a set of promotion orders. I was in the Air Force, just over mid-way through my career, and we were a joint unit so we had Army people with us. One that we worked with told us that he had been selected for promotion. We had no idea that he was lying so we all though, "jolly good then." At a certain point he began wearing the rank insignia of a Sergeant, and began to claim some of the privileges of the higher rank (which were piddling, truth be told, but had a material cost to them). Thing was, none of the higher-ups in his unit remembered being informed that he had been selected (in the military, your unit leadership is told about your selection and they in turn notify you), and the rank insignia he began wearing was the female version. Everyone began demanding an explanation of how he could have been selected without their knowledge. I asked him as well, and he gave a cock-and-bull story that was so convoluted that I could not have repeated it the moment after I heard it, and he of course played on the fact that I was ignorant of the finer details of Army personnel administration and had no hope of verifying his tale. I toyed with the idea of telling him that faking a set of promotion order was *not* going to work, but I didn't want him to turn around and claim that I was accusing him of planning this. At a certain point he was told to cough up his promotion orders or STFU about having been promoted. A couple days later the NCOIC of the work center, another NCO, and I were coming back from a smoke break (which for us was at the pre-renovation east loading dock) and I saw him approaching us with a folded sheet of paper. I thought, "Oh, {filtered}, he's really dumb enough to think this is going to work." He handed this paper to the NCOIC, and I was able to get a look. It was a set of Army promotion orders, which at the time were printed in a teletype font. The font for his name and SSAN, however, were the font from a typewriter. The fakeness was so obvious that only an idiot could think that it wouldn't be instantly noticed; but even if the font had been identical, only an idiot would assume that nobody would check this copy against the original copy, which was of course sitting in some filing cabinet somewhere upstairs from where we were standing. Dumbest soldier I ever met.

[@johngaltline9933]

These sorts of highly publicized forgery cases where the typeface or equipment used didn't exist at the time the document is supposed to come from being the cases we talk about makes me wonder just how many forged documents have never been caught, passed off by folks with half a brain that used period appropriate equipment.

[@antonjohansson3819]

The classic example being art. A policeman estimated that half the art in circulation is forged.

[@mildly_miffed_man1414]

@@antonjohansson3819shit as long as it looks nice and has the potential to fuck over art traders I’m cool with it

[@swampfox984]

Fun fact about typewriters. They actually did make some proportional manual typewriters. The Olivetti Graphica is the most common example but it is still extremely rare. Also, it only came in two typefaces, neither of which looked like Times New Roman.

[@BrightBlueJim]

The IBM Executive had proportional spacing, as did the IBM Selectric Composer, but these had only five (IIRC) different letter widths, and neither would have had a "th" key, nor could they do the "fr" ligature as described. The Composer did have multiple typeballs specifically for its proportional spacing, and I think Times Roman was one of them, but it still would have been easily distinguished from the TrueType font.

[@designatedarkhorse]

This is how I found out we lost Calibri as the default Word font this summer.

[@michaelmoorrees3585]

I remember the drama created with the fake "George Bush" documents. Also, around that time, the TV program Antiques Road Show, was still relatively new, and still quite popular. I believe someone was trying to sell a typed letter from John F Kennedy. Dated to 1962. Problem was the addresses included ZIP codes. ZIP codes weren't introduced until the 2nd half, of 1963, and the US Post Office was still running ads on TV, as late as the late 1960s, to encourage people to use them.

[@bite-sizedshorts9635]

I remember Mr. Zip. The letters stood for Zone Improvement Plan. Letters actually got delivered faster and more accurately before the ZIP code. My grandfather once got a Christmas card delivered to his house in a super small community, Jasper, NC. The envelope had nothing on the front but the name and the town Jasper. No route or box number, no state, no ZIP. It still got to the right state and mailbox.

[@erintyres3609]

The handwriting analyst hired to review the Hitler diary said that it was like a sports competition where the other team did not even show up. He prepared ahead of time by studying all available examples of Hitler's handwriting. The diary clearly did not match in many ways.

[@russelstudios2187]

2:41 I did and I hate Aptos

[@stephenj9470]

Yes! Noticed it on Excel and thought I was going crazy at the time!

[@kreuner11]

It's almost the same

[@TheXB]

WHAT I've grown to hate calibri over the years because of its softer and more slightly rounded letters which just pissed me off, when aptos came into usage I was relieved at the sight of a much more straight forward and sharper font

[@stephenj9470]

@@TheXB Honestly may just be change. I thought I was going crazy when I noticed it in Excel, and I changed it back. Why? Probably because it was unfamiliar.

[@n.park1]

I use office at school and I thought it was some shitty corporate branding the school was trying to push on all of our papers

[@Lukusprime]

I’ve always thought the spacing typewriters use is so visually appealing compared to electronically printed materials, and I’ve wanted to know how to replicate it. Now I know! It’s monospacing!

[@morboed96]

Just to make sure: The German magazine "Stern" is named after the German word for "star", not the English adjective.

[@notthatyouasked6656]

And it's pronounced "shtairn", not "sturn".

[@timseguine2]

He butchered Lucas de Groot's last name too. But I think anyone would who isn't Dutch.

[@bite-sizedshorts9635]

@@notthatyouasked6656 Wrong. And I did study German in college. The "er" is pronounced like the "er" in "error."

[@solandri69]

3:49 If you open an old Office file in a newer version of Office, when you try to close it it will frequently ask you to re-save it even though nothing has changed. I always wondered why it did this, and wouldn't be surprised if answering "OK" to the save dialog could update the file format and add a reference to Calibri to an old .doc file. I encountered this pop-up frequently when searching through old Office files. And wouldn't at all be surprised if someone just clicked OK to stop Word from annoying them with the save dialog if they ever opened the file again.

[@Solitaire001]

I think the reason for this is that, unlike other formats, when you save a Word Document it not only saves the text but it also saves all of the changes and deletions too (unless Microsoft has changed this). As an example, if you open up a 1mb MS Word Document and delete all of the text except for the first letter, when you save the document it doesn't just save the single letter but also saves all of the deleted text. This created problems when people would put sensitive information in an MS Word Document and then delete it. Although "deleted" that deleted text was still in the document and could be recovered. Once, as a test, I created a 1 character text file and saved it. Then, I opened it up in Wordpad and saved it as an RTF. Then, I opened up the original text file and saved it as an MS Word Document. Then I compared the three (the original was a 1 character document): - Text File: 1 byte - RTF: 32 bytes (an RTF file starts with a header that contains initial information about the document) - MS Word: 32kb Part of the reason MS Word Documents are so large is because there's a lot of formatting in the document even if you don't use it. As an example, when you create a Word Document the headers and footers are there even if they are empty.

[@bite-sizedshorts9635]

Resaving a Word document saves all changes, including the identification of the computer of person logged in. There are tools specifically for cleaning metadata from Word files.

[@retrictumrectus1010]

I think they want you to resave it for compatibility purposes.

[@kuus97]

4:12 Damn, over 65k MS Rewards points? It seems we have found a Bing enjoyer!

[@palmberry5576]

That’s like two years of bing points lol

[@kencube86]

Or a Xbox player. Player can earn rewards points by playing games, subscribe to Game Pass, buying digital games in Xbox store, etc. It's not uncommon to have 5 digit rewards points.

[@zanettilla]

I mean, how do you know that document forgery is so bad? Like, if a forgery is undetectable you can't.... detect it. So the only cases of document forgery you do know are the ones who failed, which may mislead us into thinking that forging documents and go undetected is impossible. So what I am trying to say is: go and forge some documents and if you do it well you will never have to face the consequences

[@iambicpentakill971]

It's kind of like the "serial killers are less intelligent than average" thing. I mean, maybe they are, but you're only basing that on the ones who were caught

[@Michael-uc2pn]

The only thing I've ever forged is copies of bills so that my wife could prove her address without us having to jump through hoops because her name wasn't on the lease or bills. I would literally just scan the document into Adobe and change my name to hers on the bill. Boom "proof of address".

[@zakofrx]

Very little punishment for it these days if you choice the right victim.. That FBI lawyer that forged the Doc to get Trump only got fired before being hired by the Democrat group..

[@jsquared1013]

@@Michael-uc2pn 🤫😂

[@dancingintherain111]

Ah, CLASSIC toupee fallacy

[@KSM-97]

Woohoo! They're talking about Pakistan *Mentiond Panama papers* Oh no, they're talking about Pakistan...

[@trymetal95]

7:32 survivorship bias, we only know about the failures because no one has discovered the successful forgeries

[@Luzgar]

Remember back when people cared about the authenticity of a document ?

[@glennac]

ChatGPT and Midjourney would like to have a word. Meaning, point taken. 😢

[@wrentubes1886]

Pepperidge farm remembers

[@iceman9678]

Don't be a birther.

[@threecards333]

​@iceman9678 or a Russiagater

[@zakofrx]

Now its anonymous source says person XX said XX.. And the people take it as truth.. Even when others at the mentioned meeting say it never happend.. And look at how that FBI lawyer got away with forging a doc to remove a president.. He only got fired..

[@KLightning18]

5:01 Always love it when my birthday just randomly pops up. Now all I need is my birthday that includes my year to randomly show up in something random. I’ll update if it happens if I remember and feel like it and can find the video etc…

[@mnbalfour1985]

As a trainee patent and trade marks attorney, I definitely noticed the not-so-subtle change from Calibri to Aptos. I still change it back to Calibri every time. Also, my boss doesn't like Times New Roman, which is fine by me because I don't like it either.

[@cwaldrip]

@7:27 That's Dan Rather most famously of CBS News. Not Lt. Col. Jerry Killian. 😛

[@stangbanger903]

Came here to say the same thing.

[@JeremyGabbard]

PHEW I had to go google Jerry Killian because I thought "there's no fuckin' WAY"

[@space.tel-e-grams]

It's engagement bait i'm sure. Or a sneaky implication that Dan Rather had a hand in forging the memo. Either way they knew.

[@bunkertons]

1:36 ...WHAT!?

[@relwaretep]

Shocking and huge if true!!

[@SparkSanSucks]

Sad I know

[@nathanaeldean6301]

Whwn that gothic caligraphy is shown, I immediately thought it spells FH, but for Fuhrer Hitler

[@nograe]

The guy who forged those diaries actually run out of the letter A and he used F specifically for that reason. That people would think it was a switch to "Führer". So you have fallen right into his trap. ;)

[@Mildbill455]

Voluptuous letters and particularly snatched letters REALLY got me, I was snort laughing in my cubicle :/

[@italiana626sc]

That was funny!

[@kevin-e5h5t]

I sent 4 copie of a document to the Minister, the Premier, the Public Service and the Director General. Sutbley, I change one type element in the last paragraph of the 4 copies. One of them leaked, and I knew exactly who it was. I am a Graphic Designer, and know fonts very well.

[@leoweinheiz7074]

0:43 Sorry I've to correct you on this one. The author knew it's a f but used it because he hasn't had an a on hand. So he used fh as an abbreviation for Führer Hitler. The author's name is Konrad Kujau by the way.

[@butlazgazempropan-butan11k87]

How to forge documents: Step 1: invent a time machine

[@oscarandria]

Yes I have noticed the change to Aptos, and I always change it back to Calibri or TNR. I HATE aptos

[@doujinflip]

I'm the opposite, I prefer Aptos which is closer to my preferred authoritative sans-serif styles like Arial and Franklin Gothic, rather than what I consider the laziness of Calibri which I find more akin to Comic Sans.

[@oscarandria]

@ fair point! For me, I don’t really know how to describe it, but aptos feels off and even blurry at times. Not as crisp or sharp as a TNR or Calibri for me

[@Entertainment-]

@@oscarandriaAptos is meant to be the opposite of blurry. It was specifically designed for digital first, not print.

[@oscarandria]

@@Entertainment- sure. For some reason it’s still off for me😭

[@bombus_]

@doujinflip these are almost exactly my thoughts on the font change. definitely a much bigger fan of aptos.

[@lauraketteridge324]

In the 1970s it would have been incredibly unusual for a general to know how to type. They would have had a personal secretary to type up their memos, deal with correspondence etc. In the 1980s, if person was planning on going to university, or into a profession, they would most likely not be taught how to type - again they'd have a secretary, or a access to a typing pool. In the 1990, my friends and I petitioned the university for typing lessons. We were writing computer code, entering data for statistical analysis and producing computer printed reports. Being able to type made is so much easier o do all of those things. 'Mavis Beacon Teacher Typing' started to become popular, and people were able to learn how to type.

[@floycewhite6991]

In 1976, my high school had both a year-long class for typing as a vocation, and a single-quarter typing class.

[@bite-sizedshorts9635]

I took two years of typing in high school in the late 60s, as my father said that was the only course in high school I'd ever actually use. I went to college in 1971 and made good money typing term papers on a portable typewriter. And then years later, I was typing all the time on computers, as I still do today. So my father was correct. In the 80s, the law firm I was working for starting getting new attorneys who knew how to type and to use computers. By the late 90s, most attorneys were putting together their own documents. This reduced the word processing staff greatly.

[@leoweinheiz7074]

As you mention Stern and things that were going around in Germany, I can proudly declare: Diese Kommentarsektion ist nun Eigemtum der Bundesrepublik Deutschland!🇩🇪

[@thenasiudk1337]

Back in highschool I used to do document forgery for a side gig, Dad used to work at a government owned project. Basically a website for registering ship documents like the owner and stuff in digital form. Ships have physical documents scanned and in PDF form and uploaded to the database. But there's a problem, when these ships change ownership, the documents must change of course. This would not be a problem if physical documents are not required. Making the new documents probably is a lengthy process for this certain guy that still works in the project which is my dad's ex-colleague. So he asked my dad to update the existing PDF scan of the old file and change everything to the new one. But there's also another problem, my dad doesn't know how to do it, so he asked me to edit those documents. Since I know how to use Photoshop, I edited those documents to be as authentic as possible. same exact font format, sometimes the paper was tilted in the scan so I have to tilt the letter too, sometimes the letter also has grey shade, etc. it's not even hard for me. That guy is probably rich by doing absolutely nothing about his job, while me getting paid like 5$ per documents.

[@emdxemdx]

There’s also the paper watermarks… Paper companies regularly change their watermarks, so it’s possible to roughly date a document by the watermark…

[@Anonymous-df8it]

Wait... Paper companies have watermarks?!

[@bite-sizedshorts9635]

@@Anonymous-df8it Only for the good paper.

[@Anonymous-df8it]

@@bite-sizedshorts9635 ???

[@algotkristoffersson15]

Why do they even HAVE watermarks in the first place?

[@emdxemdx]

@@algotkristoffersson15 ■ Think of it as a signature. It can also helps spot fakes.

[@General12th]

Hi Sam! Shoutouts to Amy for never submitting her drafts using WingDings. She deserves a raise just for that!

[@karbee0]

whatever, in Pakistan, it doesn't matter if you are a forger or a criminal. Ahh... well actually it does matter. The bigger the forger you are, you get the bigger award. 1:50 this family is still running the federal and a provincial government but after having lost to the public vote. (you know it's a "democracy" we take public votes but we don't count it..). the lady you pointed out is the Chief Minister of the Punjab province.. brilliant, isn't it?

[@drdghattierdc]

Those of us who worked for ibm know that ibm had proportional spacing typewriters. When the document first came out myself and others commented on the prop spacing. There was a machine called the Composer that was prop spacing. It also cost 20k when electric or type bars was under a grand. Bush’s BG airbase would never have that kind of machine. Nice video.

[@Jade93972]

Ben is certainly the type to submit scripts in windings, surprised he didn't switch to comic sans

[@SanyaZol]

Fun fact: there is many copying machines that use text recognition to "improve" copying. They have two interesting quirks: - they quite often literally change numbers in documents from time to time - sometimes they make legit copies look like they've been forged by 6 years olds in ms paint

[@karlisk4]

5:40 Ben seems like the kind of guy to be able to read Wingdings

[@AnonymousFreakYT]

The "anachronistic font in a word processor document" is kinda-sorta forgivable, and especially the "we actually did change the font and do the final save in an old version of Word." But the "typed it in a modern word processor program and printed it out, aged it, and scanned it and claimed it was a typewriter document" is ridiculous. You can go get a mechanical typewriter cheap easily enough to forge that document on!

[@BrightBlueJim]

It's what happens when a forger tries forging documents made before their time. Anybody who ever used a typewriter in real life would know that no laser-printed Word document looks anything like it. It's like when you see a movie that was supposed to take place in the 1980s, but when a traffic light changes from green to yellow to red, each light blinks out in an instant instead of dimming down over two or three frames of film. Hardly anybody today would notice, because they've either never seen incandescent traffic lights, or have just forgotten what they looked like. Or like seeing an electric clock with a second hand, and it's stepping one second at a time instead of moving continuously as these actually did. There are a million details you can get wrong.

[@dinocharlie1]

0:28 Hitler ❌ Hipler ✅

[@johnopalko5223]

There were typewriters that did proportional spacing back in the 1970s. There was the IBM Executive line of typewriters which, I believe, goes back to the 1960s. Granted, they were type bar machines, not Selectrics. The IBM Compositor was, essentially, a fancy Selectric that did proportional spacing. Other manufacturers may have had similar products. HINT: Don't ever get a job repairing IBM Executive typewriters. Those things were a pain in the butt. The Selectrics, on the other hand, were a pleasure to work on. I can't speak for the Compositor, though; I never worked on them. I never even saw one. They were spoken of in hushed tones.

[@Solitaire001]

I don't think any military office (like an Orderly Room) would have very fancy typewriters, they'd be typewriters that have been around a long time. In my experience the available typewriters are ones like the IBM Selectric, which are all monospace. Plus, the early word processors (like the CPT which only printed in monospace) allowed you to do amazing things (at that time) like justified printing. It was only when computers like the IBM PC became available that you started to see proportional-spaced printing, and even in the beginning most PCs didn't do proportional-spaced printing.

[@jamessloven2204]

4:56 The OG of modern fake news. Love it.

[@alliegrey4364]

Naw. The OG is probably carved in hieroglyphs.

[@Sound_Tech]

​@@alliegrey4364 keyword "modern"

[@sonicSnap]

loving the longer video!!! it's like the in between point of usual hai and wendover, with all of the jokes of hai and knowledge of wendover

[@Menon9767]

8:37 this must be the worst example for "more of them". Literally 1% difference

[@b4ttlemast0r]

tbh the difference between monospaced and non-monospaced font is not that hard to notice. with the other font inaccuracies as well, its an easier to detect forgery than the one were you need to find a reference to calibri with a hex editor. we still use monospace fonts for programming. japanese and chinese are also typically completely monospace

[@PraxZimmerman]

I was hesitant on getting an IBM selectric up until right now. Thanks sam 👍

[@dennisc6716]

I owned one back in the early 1980's. It was awesome.

[@wrightmf]

I've heard these things are so tough they can chock a runaway railroad box car.

[@BrightBlueJim]

@@wrightmf Tough? I beg to differ. These were such complicated, delicate mechanisms, only specially trained technicians could keep them working.

[@jeffcarey3045]

The Panama Papers was the biggest open media coverup I've ever seen. Media organizations all cooperated in redacting a lot of that information before giving it to the public. And they did so openly.

[@m1k3y_m1]

4:00 Publishing word docs is a horrible idea if you want to fake anything, there is so much Metadata. The best option is printing and scanning the document or only publishing pictures of the document.

[@algotkristoffersson15]

But then people will know you are forging anyway because if you weren’t you would just publish the actual document Because there would be nothing to hide.

[@walterengler5709]

I have to admit it is amazing the changes that have occurred in materials and typing over time. I remember when they taught typing in school with old Key Stroke typewriters and lovely inky ribbons, and some of my first work on printers in computers in the Ball Type heads. And sometimes I find myself trying to use a text type that does monospacing of the characters as it just feels right to me. But imagine how this has become almost forensic like to detect frauds. And now imagine how you can take all this information and tell an AI to produce fake letters with the correct format now ... LOL.

[@zickurion2139]

I should not have laughed that much at that Wingdings joke

[@der.Schtefan]

WinDings, not WingDings

[@Smithchipsareodd]

​@der.Schtefan that is.. not true.

[@ethos8863]

"How to forge a document" -> "Just bribe them. You're cooked."

[@bootmii98]

3:00 there was also Microsoft Reader for Windows XP, released 2005. That's where ClearType debuted.

[@laytonspuzzle]

4:27 "They had to open the document in a hex editor to find a single reference to a font that it wasn't even typed in? Amateur hour. Let me show you instead these documents that were put through an instagram filter by someone who's never used a typewriter."

[@wupme]

0:37 - thats actually not entirely true. He knew what it looked like, and he knew that this was an F. He used the F because he did simply not have the A in his typeset.

[@Ed_Stuckey]

Actually twice as interesting as most of what YT recommends for me. I'm glad I'm a subscriber.

[@CYLITM]

2:53 Windows Longhorn mentioned

[@TheRogueX]

Even if you were to get period-appropriate equipment to do your forgery with, you'd still be hard pressed to be successful if they asked for the original documents, because we can determine how old the paper is and how recently it was printed / typed upon.

[@oopsy444]

HaI just single handedly increased the quantity and quality of forged documents by releasing this video

[@chrisgurney2467]

Ink is also something that trips up forgers especially trying to make a modern ink look old

[@MrLegendra]

Now imagine all the forgeries that weren’t caught…

[@xXBl4ckB3ltXx]

Ben submitting a script in Wingdings definitely sounds like something he’d do

[@williambrown524]

Why are you using Dan Rather as your image for Jerry Killian? I’m guessing you wanted this video in your all the mistakes we made video next year

[@DarkHarlequin]

Ben submitting his scripts in Wingdings is the least surprising information I ever received on this channel!

[@ninjanoodle2674]

4:18 - Clippy: The original AI that tried to take over the world.

[@Solitaire001]

It's not gone, just evolved. See "Star Trek: Lower Decks."

[@wbfaulk]

Are you implying that the font at 5:51 is Times New Roman? Because it absolutely is not. Times New Roman is a proportional typeface. There is not a Times New Roman monospace. I'm having a little trouble understanding why you'd say this. Do you think all serif fonts are Times New Roman?

[@techheck3358]

Times new Roman is proportional. But typewriters are not. If you use a TNR font ball in a typewriter, it’ll be monospaced - because the typewriter doesn’t know the spacing for each font (or have the mechanism to increment a non-constant amount)

[@wbfaulk]

@techheck3358 I don't really think that using TNR letterforms in a monospaced context even really counts as TNR. Letter spacing is an important part of a font. Also, I feel like your tone sounds like you're trying to contradict something I said, but I don't think you did. Maybe I'm reading too much into your reply.

[@ptousig]

5:57 Somebody needs a better black marker for redactions.

[@jsquared1013]

I was going to comment about that also 😆

[@dinoschachten]

2:09 Absolutely loved that explanation :D

[@schwieb24]

My wiggles bring all the boys to the yard 6:43

[@walter-30]

Relateable

[@Nooticus]

Believe me I FUCKING NOTICED immeadiately when Calibri got changed, and immediately set the default back as Calibri!

[@NBrixH]

Yeah me too

[@gokce9521]

The operation sledgehammer trials still went on despite the font evidence btw

[@davidallen5142]

How This Single 'M' Almost Ruined a US Presidency "Okay, this should be interesting." Adolf Hitler's Diaries *who starts a conversation like that I just sat down*

[@JoshuaPeisach]

1:15 UBUNTU FONT MENTIONED 🎉🎉🎉🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥

[@kryjPL]

7:22 headers actually could be so consistent on different pages because typewiters had tabs which allow them to "save' given carriage positions

[@viloxy]

0:02 Sam straight up decided to speedrun wrong pronunciation right at the start of the video

[@mikes805]

Wow! The MLB A's use the gothic "A"... I had no idea. I really do learn something from this channel each time!

[@mikes805]

AND it's highlighted in yellow for a second!

[@miniepicness]

you can actually see blackletter in America a lot as part of degrees

[@8yourpets]

To the where?!?!!?? Where do your wiggles bring the boys?

[@russellgeisthardt9828]

Thank you for asking the real questions. The people demand answers

[@RobShinn]

I am one of those font-knowledgeable people. You could have skipped the whole explanation on that last one. The second I saw it, I was like no typewriter produced that document.