[Sandwich]

Cool it with the personal attacks.

[Taristin]

oh noes! I've been censored!

[aldo_14]

Anyone else notice that in the picture of it, you can tell its a jpeg cauze of the crap around the 'grafitti'. I think the picture is fake and the story is false as well. Anyone else think so? Even if its not a jpeg, it still shows evidence of it beign faked.

It's been confirmed; the store/building owners were paid by Sony (or rather, a hired marketing agency IIRC) to allow their buildings to be painted.  This is actually at least a month old, this story.  It's pretty stupid, IMO, trying to appeal to some vague group of people who define themselves (in theory - in reality probably filling the pockets of 'outsider' merchandise manufacturers) by being anti-corporate reactionist or something (in reality, petty vandals).  And it's stupidly vague, too.  Plus I hate urban 'sk8ter bois' or whatever **** they refer to themselves by; they're an embarrassment and a right state.

I think IBM got into trouble for pulling the same stunt, too, although they didn't pay for the right to use that space and thus were fined (Sonys potential fine, you'll note, is down to zoning issues rather than being for defacement).

The Mylo album has also been advertised around Glasgow with grafitti stencils (reading MYLODE/STROYRO/CKANDR/OLL or similar).  It's not an uncommon or original tactic.

[Charismatic]

*BS*

[sandy]Uncalled for.[/sandy]

Seconded.

Yes, JPEGs have compression artifacts. That's pretty much what 'lossy compression' means. You can't tell anything from those artifacts in this case because the image is currently in JPEG form, so if the lines were added afterwards those artifacts would still be there.

If anything, those artifacts would suggest it was real. If the image was now a PNG (or other lossless format) and had been edited after being compressed as a JPEG, those artifacts would not be present.

Err didnt follow all of that but- if you have a picture and you save it into Jpeg, IIRC it dont have too much deformity for the first one. Now lets say you add text and save- bingo, a hudge noticable mutation can be spotted. Am i correct? I didnt know you could not tell at all. I must be wrong. I apologize.

[Descenterace]

Artifacts in a JPEG image are caused by sharp changes in colour or shade. The higher the compression, the worse the artifacts. I could try to explain exactly how it works, but it's an entire lecture of a course I'm not studying. Suffice to say it works in a similar manner to MP3, but with a 2D image rather than a 1D image (the sound wave). It's based on Fourier transformations, which deal with frequency rather than amplitude, and takes advantage of our eyes' decreased sensitivity to certain parts of the spectrum relative to other parts of the spectrum.
Also takes Mach bands into account to, I think.

Basically, the artifacts do not indicate a faked image, but with certain mathematical techniques it may be possible to determine if there's a chance it was faked. But since data is lost in the compression, it's sometimes hard to be sure.

[Turnsky]

Err didnt follow all of that but- if you have a picture and you save it into Jpeg, IIRC it dont have too much deformity for the first one. Now lets say you add text and save- bingo, a hudge noticable mutation can be spotted. Am i correct? I didnt know you could not tell at all. I must be wrong. I apologize.

as it's so-called "graffiti" spraypaint would've been used, this would allow for some degree of diffusion in the lines, as would be the fact that it has recently been confirmed, as it's not on a clean, even surface, without a super high-res photo to work from it'd be well nigh impossible to tell whether or not it was a "photoshop job" the lighting won't tell you much, either, as the photo was taken what seems to be an overcast day (as evidenced by the lack of bright light, and shadows)

one thing that woulda raised a few eyebrows would be that the lines seem a little -too- bold and black.

[Janos]

raa what did you say because i don't know

maybe i have to try and find the magic words!

[aldo_14]

*BS*

[sandy]Uncalled for.[/sandy]

Seconded.

Yes, JPEGs have compression artifacts. That's pretty much what 'lossy compression' means. You can't tell anything from those artifacts in this case because the image is currently in JPEG form, so if the lines were added afterwards those artifacts would still be there.

If anything, those artifacts would suggest it was real. If the image was now a PNG (or other lossless format) and had been edited after being compressed as a JPEG, those artifacts would not be present.

Err didnt follow all of that but- if you have a picture and you save it into Jpeg, IIRC it dont have too much deformity for the first one. Now lets say you add text and save- bingo, a hudge noticable mutation can be spotted. Am i correct? I didnt know you could not tell at all. I must be wrong. I apologize.

JPEG quantization is based on pattern-table matching (indexing grid regions of the image to pixel patterns within an included table), so any image (or specifically, image area) with increased visual contrast - even when compressed at the same ratio - will have more noticeable artifacts.   It's thus perfectly normal & expected for the high-contrast black edges to have more noticeable visual artifacts.

[Charismatic]

Ah ok, thanks for the higly detailed and techincal replys. My understanding is widened:P yay!
EDIT: Color fixed.

[Kie99]

raa what did you say because i don't know

maybe i have to try and find the magic words!

He's not going to say it again, when an Admin has already censored it once, is he?

[Charismatic]

raa what did you say because i don't know

maybe i have to try and find the magic words!

He's not going to say it again, when an Admin has already censored it once, is he?

I rec'on not!

[Janos]

raa what did you say because i don't know

maybe i have to try and find the magic words!

He's not going to say it again, when an Admin has already censored it once, is he?

O RLY whoah

[karajorma]

Incidentally it looks like Sony has been bent over and forced to take it up the arse over their rootkit

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/29/sony_settles_rootkit/

Amongst other things.

To nudge consumers to act on the settlement, Sony BMG will be required to offer two different incentive packages. In addition to receiving a DRM-free version of their original CD, consumers will have the option of picking up a $7.50 cash payment and promotion code that allows them to download one of 200 albums. Or they can pick up a promotion code that allows for three album downloads. Interestingly, Sony must also work to make the downloads available on iTunes.

[Mefustae]

Could someone explain this whole 'rootkit' debacle to me? Seriously, i've been out of the loop and now anything I read about it goes about 5 metres over my head... 

[Kie99]

Sony put some sort of copy-protection program on their CDs, and when it was put into a computer, it automatically installed without the owner's knowledge.  It was called a Rootkit.  This program caused Firewalls and Anti-Virus Programs to ignore programs with a certain character in front of the name.  As soon as people found out, viruses started apperaring which used the Rootkit to avoid the firewalls and Anti-Virus.

[Kosh]

Sony put some sort of copy-protection program on their CDs, and when it was put into a computer, it automatically installed without the owner's knowledge. It was called a Rootkit. This program caused Firewalls and Anti-Virus Programs to ignore programs with a certain character in front of the name. As soon as people found out, viruses started apperaring which used the Rootkit to avoid the firewalls and Anti-Virus.

Which in turn completely circumvents your precious Windows Updates

[aldo_14]

Sony put some sort of copy-protection program on their CDs, and when it was put into a computer, it automatically installed without the owner's knowledge. It was called a Rootkit. This program caused Firewalls and Anti-Virus Programs to ignore programs with a certain character in front of the name. As soon as people found out, viruses started apperaring which used the Rootkit to avoid the firewalls and Anti-Virus.

Moreso, it's worth noting exactly what the Rootkit did - it sat in front of the windows kernel (the core of the OS) intercepting system level calls.  This is why it allowed viruses, etc, to hide - in order to stop itself being removed, the rootkit hid files with said character from detection.  Also, it used copyrighted (under the GPL IIRC) code without permission, and the initial uninstaller Sony released (only after being caught with their pants down) actually did even more irreperable damage to the OS.