VD Merwe is a genius

[Albereth]

Look, I'm not saying that the files were edited - just that it is not as difficult as people are making out and that more care should have been taken with the original recordings.

At the risk of labouring the point - I am one saying that it is not true to say that data manipulation is easy. Sure, it may be, but to the point that it would be so easy to detect that it had been manipulated. Which, in the context of a court case would lead to perjury charges.

VD Merwe, if he is the expert he is proclaimed to be, ought have spelled out the whole story. Okay, he was a witness for the defence and maybe that means he only answered yes and no to led questions. Is digital data easy to manipulate? Yes. Thank you, that is all.

But then, what did he say under cross-examination?

Hmm - how exactly does one get hold of court transcripts?

Taking it further. VDM has said that it is easy and requires no skill. And that can be all that he said. And the prosecutor is also a ludite, so there were no further questions. It still beggars belief that that is VDM's last word on the subject - it has already been discussed that getting the output right can take considerabel skill and resources. That discredits him as far as I am concerned.

 

[Pilgrim]

http://www.dispatch.co.za/article.aspx?id=226340

2008/07/18

JUDGMENT on the admissibility of five cellphone recordings taken at the scene of an alleged drunken driving accident involving Pretoria High Court Judge Nkola Motata was expected next week.

In the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court yesterday, magistrate Desmond Nair postponed the case to give the prosecutors and defence time to prepare their heads of argument. These would be presented on Monday and Nair would make his ruling on Tuesday.

By Wednesday, the full drunken driving trial should resume.

Earlier yesterday, criminal law professor Daniel Petrus van der Merwe said an expert given access to the laptop the cellphone recordings had been downloaded on to may possibly be able to determine if any changes had been made.

He said the difficulty with detecting changes on digital data was that essentially there was no original, only perhaps a printout of something.

“(Analogue) is a physical medium that runs sequentially from beginning to end, whereas the digital medium is an invisible medium.”

He said the fact that different generations of copies were then made or downloaded of digital data always brought in an element of uncertainty.

“Every time data is sent from one medium to another something may get lost in transmission,” he said.

Motata faced charges of drunken driving and defeating the ends of justice for allegedly resisting arrest on January 6, 2007.

This was after he crashed his Jaguar into the wall of a Hurlingham, Johannesburg property, allegedly while drunk. — Sapa

Oh my word what was this dude smoking?

He said the difficulty with detecting changes on digital data was that essentially there was no original, only perhaps a printout of something.

What? Have you ever tried to print out a mp3 file?

“(Analogue) is a physical medium that runs sequentially from beginning to end, whereas the digital medium is an invisible medium.”

Invisible? Do you know how a codec works?

“Every time data is sent from one medium to another something may get lost in transmission,” he said.

Genius. Absolute genius.

I will admit that it is quite possible for a few bits to get corrupted when you copy data to/from faulty hardware (like a badly damaged CD) but that will introduce small glitches in the file. It won't change what someone said.

Genius.

 

[Pixie22]

Think its a bit of a joke that they are suggesting a nobody paid people to doctor evidence just because he doesn't like black people.
No offense, but I don't think he took the risks, and paid R1mill to a corporate black helicopter company to edit the data lol

Thats not plausible unless they have evidence. They are trying to say that because it cannot be proven to be an original that reasonable doubt be applied? Not a reasonable assumption at all sorry. My grandmother could do better than that..

 

[semiautomatix]

What wasn't recorded speaks more than what is being presented as recordings. The racist Richard Baird was more interested in humiliating and degrading a black judge than he was about his fence. As soon as Baird came on to the property and realized he had a vulnerable black Judge on his hands he jumped at the opportunity for revenge.

Baird claims that he only started filming and recording when he was being "abused", however there were pictures of the Judge taken while he was still asleep behind the wheel.

If Baird wasn't the heartless racist he is, he would have gone to the Judge's aid rather than standing by recording him and calling him degrading names. If one see someone in need do help them first, not try to cause problems and escalate the trouble.

Judge Motata offered to pay for the wall that was damaged, but that wasn't good enough for Richard Baird. Baird was out for blood.

Even the tenant of the house which had the wall damaged didn't want to press charges and wanted it handled like gentleman. However Baird threatened him with arrest and eviction if he refused to testify against the Judge.

This is just as much of a trial of Richard Baird as it is for Judge Motata.

I never said I was there. However when looking at the facts it's very clear that the racist Baird is trying to ruin the Judge with whatever evidence he has or can create.

Haha! We'll see then Motata takes you out at 3am in your car on some road. Then we'll see who is being racist. Trust me, we all bleed red inside.

 

[semiautomatix]

Where did you get that statistic that 75 percent of the country is racist? I would agree that 75% of this forum is racist, but then again this forum is made by racists for racists. It's not as bad as some, though.

Also, I'm not saying that the Judge should get away with anything, however he shouldn't be railroaded by a racist with a hidden agenda.

Well said! Which part of the 75% are you because you seem to form at least 50% of that?

 

[PeterCH]

So two witnesses in the Motata case have claimed that digital data is easy to manipulate and vd Merwe (a professor from UNISA) says no special skills are necessary.

One should also ask the question, what possible gains would the owner
of the wall have in making Motata look intoxicated or racist?

Didn't that all happen incidentally? Its not like Motata, crashed his car into
that wall on a daily basis, and the owner had finally become sick thereof
or some secret 3rd force agent trailed Motata and got the video
from the owner as the guy taped it.

It makes no sense. The video should be studied by experts, after
all they do that AROUND THE WORLD, as video surveillance footage
is common in criminal and civil cases the world over.

 

[reech]

It makes no sense. The video should be studied by experts, after
all they do that AROUND THE WORLD, as video surveillance footage
is common in criminal and civil cases the world over.

Yep - too right. Cellphone or not, it's digital video, this aptly named VD Merwe is going to invalidate all cctv evidence too.

That said the police should have acted immediately to verifiably mirror the cellphone memory - this is pretty standard practice elsewhere.

 

[Turtle]

The racist Richard Baird

You have proof of this, or do you just enjoy taking part in illegal defamation? Or is it your own hate showing through?

As soon as Baird came on to the property and realized he had a vulnerable black Judge on his hands he jumped at the opportunity for revenge.

Baird claims that he only started filming and recording when he was being "abused", however there were pictures of the Judge taken while he was still asleep behind the wheel.

Uh, yeah, a drunk driver crashes through your wall and it's TOTALLY unreasonably to take pictures. Ya right. And the only reason anyone would ever take pictures after a drunk driver crashed through their frikkin wall would be if they were "racists". Totally makes sense. And yeah he knew a sleeping man was a judge. The stuff coming out of your mouth is ABSURD.

It's completely rational and common behaviour to take pictures or video at accident/crime scenes.

Judge Motata offered to pay for the wall that was damaged, but that wasn't good enough for Richard Baird. Baird was out for blood.

LOL ... yeah and the moon landing was faked too. Watch out for black helicopters, and don't forget to keep your tinfoil hat on.

Let me ask you, if the races were switched around here, and a white man had hurled a lengthy string of vicious and threatening racial abuse against a black man, would you STILL agree that the white man merely offering to pay for the wall he damaged would be enough?

No?

I thought so. Hypocrite. South Africa is a non-racial society and not meant for racists like you.

Meanwhile we have racist judges like this.

The way you talk, you'd think the judge was doing the guy some kind of special favour in paying for the wall to be fixed.

BTW, I know a fair bit about the CG industry and video editing and formats, the possibility of a video like this being convincingly faked is ZERO - you need HUGE amounts of resources ... he would've had to pay a whole team of people to work for weeks, and had access to serious amounts of computing resources (easily millions of Rands worth), as well as specialized, expensive rendering software, not to mention sound editing facilities. To convincingly make a video match the specs and formats etc. of a particular cellphone, to the point that you could use something in court and put it up to legal scrutiny, you'd also need technical experts with forensic expertise and experience. The kind of capability to make a video like this, that can stand up to expert forensics probably doesn't even exist in South Africa, plus you'd need some hell interesting contacts. (Just for interest, even the best CG studios in the world can't yet convincingly render human beings, the technology doesn't exist - now at cellphone resolution you might just-just be able to start doing so, if you are amongst the world's experts and have access to all the necessary equipment and artists and a huge budget.)

 

[Turtle]

Think its a bit of a joke that they are suggesting a nobody paid people to doctor evidence just because he doesn't like black people

LOL .. yeah, you'd have to be on some pretty hardcore drugs for this to start seeming believable!

 

[gpe]

vd Merwe (a professor from UNISA) says no special skills are necessary.

... correct but there are also no special skills required to verify a fake video --->

Prof Hany Farid’s Web site:
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/tampering.html

I'm also willing to bet the FBI has even more advanced tools and software

 

[PeterCH]

You have proof of this, or do you just enjoy taking part in illegal defamation? Or is it your own hate showing through?

Racism in sa can only exist if the perpetrator is white. you'll have to sue
the real racist in a country which looks at the law and things objectively
not through complexed eyes.

 

[semiautomatix]

Ah, its not fun arguing with the week day 9am-5pm bigots

 

[marine1]

You have proof of this, or do you just enjoy taking part in illegal defamation?

When is defamation legal?

 

[antowan]

Where did you get that statistic that 75 percent of the country is racist? I would agree that 75% of this forum is racist, but then again this forum is made by racists for racists. It's not as bad as some, though.

Also, I'm not saying that the Judge should get away with anything, however he shouldn't be railroaded by a racist with a hidden agenda.

What do you mean? This section of the forum? The entire site? Please explain. Either way you are wrong!

 

[Turtle]

What do you mean? This section of the forum? The entire site? Please explain. Either way you are wrong!

What he is trying to say is that all white people are racists, given that probably the other (estimated) 25% he refers to are the non-white members. So there is no doubt as to who is the real racist here. He wants to say it, but because he doesn't have the balls to stand behind his own opinions and hold them up to scrutiny, he hides behind weasel words and being vague. Probably because deep down he knows that his opinions are a load of BS.

 

[Turtle]

When is defamation legal?

The redundancy was meant to inform, since he doesn't seem to realise he is breaking the law. Just "defamation" would thus have not emphasized the illegality of it; "defamation, which is illegal" would've been clunky.

 

[Pilgrim]

The five cellphone recordings taken on the night of Judge Nkola Motata alleged drunken driving incident are not reliable because the man who recorded them was untruthful and careless, the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court heard today.

# Motata trial to decide on audio clips

# Motata crash recordings ‘easy to fake’

"The evidence of Baird is riddled with contradictions, untruths and improbabilities," said defence advocate Danie Dorfling.

Richard Baird is the owner the property where Motata crashed his car into a wall on January 6 2007.

Five cellphone recordings that Baird took that night are at the centre of a trial within a trial to determine their admissibility.

Dorfling said Baird took no proper care of the electronic material in his custody. Baird had dropped the phone twice causing it to become eventually unusable. He had also lost a secure digital card and some zip files of the recording when making a copy for the court.

"The catastrophe in his handling of the evidence belie his consideration as fastidious." Dorfling said Baird was "less than candid" in some of his explanations. For example, a series of different explanations he provided as to why he switched from recording from a digital camera to a cellphone could not all fully add up.

Dorfling also said Baird was biased. "Mr Baird quite clearly had an axe to grind with the accused."

Dorfling said other bystanders had wanted him to settle with Motata on the scene. He said Baird had taken the story to the media a day and a half before even laying a criminal charge.

"These factors clearly demonstrate Baird’s bias. At this level his evidence is therefore circumspect," said Dorfling.

"This honourable court needs to rely on Baird’s evidence on issues of completeness and authenticity of the record. It is submitted that his word cannot be trusted," said Dorfling.

http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=806102

Hands up, who here is surprised?

 

[Albereth]

Funny how Baird becomes the subject of the trial. You sort of get the impression that he is deliberately trying to get Motata ma chance off.

 

[sox63]

Funny how Baird becomes the subject of the trial. You sort of get the impression that he is deliberately trying to get Motata ma chance off.

Thats the point of having a defence lawyer.

 

[Albereth]

Thats the point of having a defence lawyer.

I agree But the prosecutor should label Baird as a hostile witness.

I'd also suggest that his incompetence should counterargue the claim that he could have easily changed the files.