Anytime you hear reports of a new "Bin Laden" audio tape remember this:

[Hell Hath No Fury]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/dotmil/arkin020199.htm

When Seeing and Hearing Isn't Believing
By William M. Arkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, Feb. 1, 1999


"Gentlemen! We have called you together to inform you that we are going to overthrow the United States government."

So begins a statement being delivered by Gen. Carl W. Steiner, former Commander-in-chief, U.S. Special Operations Command.At least the voice sounds amazingly like him.

But it is not Steiner. It is the result of voice "morphing" technology developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

By taking just a 10-minute digital recording of Steiner's voice, scientist George Papcun is able, in near real time, to clone speech patterns and develop an accurate facsimile. Steiner was so impressed, he asked for a copy of the tape.

[TexasObserver]

1. Recommend. We top men working it.

Top men.

[napi21]

2. I heare ya. I've been wondering aout this for quite a while.

I know I haven't seern an actual video of Bin Laden for years! A still photo, and speech can be made to LOOK and sound like anyone! Saddam had how many doubles? I've heard as many as 35! I just don'pt think our security and information depts. really have any idea if the tapes in the last few years are really Bin Laden or not. Most of them are wrring on the yes it is side to CYA!

[tavalon]

19. Dead people look surprisingly awful on video

[reggie the dog]

3. the Ministry song LiesLies Lies begins with that quote

[druidity33]

4. OBL is dead.

We haven't seen actual video of him since 9-11, and even the voice that is appearing on these tapes is disputable. The question remains, who stands to gain by perpetuating OBL's appearances?

:shrug:

[Hell Hath No Fury]

8. He's the new Keyser Söze --

He can now be used by anyone to be their own personal boggeyman -- the US government, lame AQ wannabes trying to make a name, the MIC who needs those Pentagon dollars to keep on flowing, oil corporations who would need a permanent US military presence in Afghanistan to protect their oil access, the GOP who needs a their scary brown man to win the mext election...

The list is endless.

[lapislzi]

13. + 1 for Keyser Soze reference

Nice.

[druidity33]

14. yeah and

he even managed to figure out how to put the umlaut on the u...

i've always wondered about that...


:)

[tridim]

5. Every time I hear it I think to myself, who the hell records on audio tape these days?

Can you even buy cassettes any more?

[Wednesdays]

21. Heck yeah...

You can find them in nearly any convenience store along the Hindu Kush mountain chain.

[BrklynLiberal]

6. and the timing of the appearance of these "Bin Laden" tapes is always suspicious..

[Individualist]

12. The timing tells all.

[Lasher]

7. I will share an old story.

Years ago a couple of friends and I were beating up on a Republican buddy named Gilmer, who was trying to defend Nixon. His defense against our sundry condemnation was crumbling as we reminded him of the famous tapes that furnished unimpeachable evidence of Tricky Dick's infamy. Cornered and unnumbered, his defeat was all but certain when he blessed us with the finest example of verbal Ju-Jitsu that I have ever witnessed: "Hey boys, let me get somethin' straight right now. That was Rich Little on them tapes."

None of us could offer even a feeble retort. We had been crushed by his superior intellect.

For what it's worth, as the years passed my friend Gilmer decided to become a Democrat.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

9. I think we are moving into a very interesting age --

of seeing/hearing is not believing kind -- the new technologies that are available are going to be used against us by the Powers that Be in ways we can only imagine.

[Lasher]

11. You're right.

It's happening already. In ways we can not imagine. We know they can. And if they can they will.

[tavalon]

20. I often think of that when I see an astonishing picture

With photoshop, who knows? And with voice morphing............

[FormerDittoHead]

10. I'd love to hear an example of this.

You would have to count me with those who believe this, esp with the OBL "tapes" but I'm simply curious, as I've heard many technologies touted as near-miracles before but when I actually got to see it, I was far less impressed than the early reviews.

Three examples: that psychiatrist computer program Eliza - terrible. 3D - always terrible. Hemi-Sync - was supposed to instantly put you into a meditative state, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemi-Sync

[notesdev]

15. I kinda like this

it undermines the surveillance state by taking away the reliability of one of their methods.

[butterfly77]

16. He's dead..

and even if he weren't BushCO has made more of him..

[Iggo]

17. Video, or it didn't happen.

The man's dead unless they prove to me that he's not.

(I spel gud)

[newtothegame]

18. There is nothing to convince me he's dead or alive.

But President Obama is perfect, so I will assume that OBL is alive.

[mogster]

22. That's been on my mind all the time

Speech synthesis is well known, and has been since 1999. That's why it's so scary that media people and governments interpret the tapes as genuine.