Airliner video shows matched noise, text jumps, and cursor drift Discussion
Edit 2022-08-22: These videos are both hoaxes. I wrote about the community led investigation here.
tl;dr: Airliner satellite video right hand side is a warped copy of the left, but not necessarily fake. The cursor is displayed so smoothly it looks like VFX instead of real UI.
Around the same time I posted a writeup analyzing the disparity in the airliner satellite video pair, u/Randis posted this thread pointing out that there are matching noise patterns between the two videos. When I saw the screenshot I thought it just looked like similarly shaped clouds, but after more careful analysis I agree that it is matching sensor noise.
The frame that u/Randis posted is frame 593. This happens in the section between frame 587 through 747 where the video is not panning. Below is a crop from the original footage during that section, at position 205,560 and 845,560 in a 100x100 pixel window (approximately where u/Randis drew red boxes), upsampled 8x using nearest neighbor, and contrast dialed up 20x.
https://reddit.com/link/15rbuzf/video/qe60npf3e5ib1/player
Another way to see this even more clearly is to stack up all the images from this section and take the median over time. This will give us a very clear background image without any noise. Then we can subtract that background image from each frame, and it will leave us with only noise. The video below is the absolute difference between the median background image and the current frame, multiplied by 30 to increase the brightness.
https://reddit.com/link/15rbuzf/video/q66wurdff5ib1/player
The fact that the noise matches so well indicates that one of the videos is a copy of the other, and it is not a true second perspective.
If this is fake, this means that a complex depth map was generated that accounts for the overall slant of the ocean, and for the clouds and aircraft appearing in the foreground. The rendering pipeline would be: first 3D or 2D render, then add noise, then apply depth map. It would have been just as easy to apply the noise after the depth map, and for someone who spent so much care on all the other steps it is surprising they would make this mistake.
If this is real, there is likely no second satellite. But there may be synthetic aperture radar performing interferometric analysis to estimate the depth. SAR interferometry is like having a Kinect depth sensor in the sky. For the satellite nerds: this means looking for a satellite that was in the right position at the right time, and includes both visible and SAR imaging. Another thread to pull would be looking into SAR + visible visualization devices, and see if we can narrow down what kind of hardware this may have been displayed on.
What would the depth image look like? Presumably it would look something like the disparity video that we get from running StereoSGBM, but smoother and with fewer artifacts. (Edit: I moved the disparity video here.)
Additionally, u/JunkTheRat identified that the text on the right slants and jumps while the text on the left stays still. This is consistent with the image on the right being a distorted version of the image on the left, and not a true secondary camera perspective.
Here is a visualization showing this effect across the entire video.
- At the top left is the frame number.
- The top image is the left image telemetry.
- The second image is the right image telemetry.
- The third image is the absolute difference between the left and right.
- The fourth image is the absolute difference with brightness increased 4x.
https://reddit.com/link/15rbuzf/video/dzblv6ivk5ib1/player
The text is clearly slanting and jumping. This indicates the telemetry data on the right was not added in post, but it is a distorted version of the video on the left.
This led me to another question: what is happening with the cursor? If this is real, I would expect the cursor to be overlaid at a consistent disparity, so it appears "on top" of all the other stuff on the screen. If the entire right image, including the cursor, is just a distortion of the one on the left, then I would expect the cursor to jump around just like the text.
But as I was looking into this, I found something that is a much bigger "tell", in my opinion. Anyone who has set a single keyframe in video editing or VFX software will recognize this immediately, and I'm sort of surprised it hasn't come up yet.
The cursor drifts with subpixel precision during 0:36 - 0:45 (frames 865-1079).
Here is a zoom into that section with the drifting cursor, upsampled with nearest neighbor interpolation and with difference images on the bottom. Note that the window is shifted by 640+3 pixels.
https://reddit.com/link/15rbuzf/video/qsv2hgd6y5ib1/player
Note that the difference image changes slightly. This indicates that it is being affected by a depth map, just like the text. If we looked through more of the video we might find that it follows the disparity of the regions around it, rather than having a fixed disparity as you would expect from UI overlay.
But the big thing to notice is how smoothly the cursor is drifting. I estimate the cursor moves 17px in 214 frames, that's 0.08 pixels per frame. While many modern pointing interfaces track user input with subpixel precision, I am unaware of any UI that displays cursors with subpixel precision. Even if we assume this screen recording is downsampled from a very large 8K screen, and we multiply the distance by 10x, that's still 0.8 pixels per frame.
Of course a mouse can move this slowly (like when it is broken, or slowly falling off a desk) but the cursor UI cannot move this smoothly. Try and move your cursor very slowly and you will see it jumps from one pixel to the next. I don't know any UI that lets you use a cursor less than 1px. Here is a side-by-side video showing what a normal cursor looks like (on the right) and what a VFX animation looks like (on the left).
https://reddit.com/link/15rbuzf/video/9gqiujopt7ib1/player
To reiterate: it doesn't matter whether this is a 2D mouse, 3D mouse, trackball, trackpad, joystick, pen, or any other input device. As long as this is an OS-native cursor, they are simply not displayed with subpixel accuracy.
However, this is exactly what it looks like when you are creating VFX, and keyframe an animation, and accidentally delete one keyframe that would have kept an object in place—causing a slow drift instead of a quick jump.
This cursor drift has convinced me more than anything that the entire satellite video is VFX.
FAQ
- Could this be explained by a camera recording a screen? I don't think so.
- Could this be explained by a wonky mouse? I don't think so.
- Ok but is a subpixel cursor UI impossible? Not impossible, just unheard of.
- Why would the creator not be more careful about these details? I'm not sure.
- Could the noise just be a side effect of YouTube compression? Unlikely.
- What if this was recorded off a big screen? Bigger than 8K, in 2014?
- Could the cursor drift be a glitch from remote desktop software? No strong evidence yet, but here are some suspicions that the remote desktop software Citrix might render a non-OS cursor with subpixel precision and drift glitches. Remote desktop software doesn't account for the zero latency panning, but would explain the 24fps framerate.
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u/tweakingforjesus Aug 15 '23
This level of analysis is why I'm following this story. Keep the weird details coming, both for and against the video being real.
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u/flynnwebdev Aug 15 '23
Yes. The detailed technical analyses have been fascinating. Everything you always wanted to know about VFX but were too afraid to ask!
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u/13-14_Mustang Aug 15 '23
Fake or not, visual effects creators (maybe even CIA?) are getting some extremely valuable feedback to prove or disprove future videos. Even the AI prompters can take something away from all this analysis. I guess I'm trying to say future videos will be harder to prove if they are fake. Good luck everyone, shits getting weird. Wish Hunter T. was here to comment on this.
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u/HugeAppeal2664 Aug 15 '23
This is like some CIA level analysis we’ve getting on this
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Aug 15 '23
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u/andorinter Aug 15 '23
I think Captain Hindsight will provide some valuable Intel regarding this issue in the coming years
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u/3-in-1_Blender Aug 15 '23
Highjacking the top post to say that a joystick could create cursor movement like this. Both that slow crawl, and the sort of inhuman constant-rate-if-speed movement that you wouldn't really expect from a mouse.
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u/gerryn Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
The input movements yes, but the output movements will be displayed in pixel-by-pixel fashion and not "antialiased" and displayed in subpixel precision as exhibited by the last video (before the FAQ). Good point though - as I've seen they sometimes have what we would consider 'weird' controls, but I assume this could be because the systems are bespoke and cost hundreds of millions of dollars, they come with custom controls that work really well for its purpose but look and feel a bit funky to an 'outsider'.
HOWEVER! I don't know if it was thought of, but today a lot of high-end stuff come with 8K displays just by default, I assume military grade shit made specifically for "seeing things" would definitely have 8k as a minimum output on screens people use to see shit on :) and 8K for example in Windows, is a really high resolution, you'd probably want to put at least a little bit of scaling on there to make the UI readable, which in turn would probably also increase the size of the mouse pointer, it could even increase the size of the mouse pointer heavily, and that could have a huge impact on how the mouse pointer is displayed here, we don't know the original anything of these videos, they could be 16 "8k sensors" that stitched some of that shit together and we're getting a down-sampled piece of shit copy like always (ANYTHING you see from the military that could potentially "give away" their technical specifications is being fucked with and never shown in its full capacity).
(edit) just want to point out like another commenter below me, that we're watching a video recording of another display device, most likely a monitor. Even with all the details like scaling, resolutions of everything - noise and this subpixel precision stuff, I don't think its reliable either way (fake or not fake) because ALSO of all the different video encodings (lossy) these have gone through.
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u/logosobscura Aug 15 '23
… how are you accounting for the remoting protocol and the mouse paint? Because it’s definitely a remote connection to the machine showing it. I can even tell the protocol based on the cursor behavior.
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u/Glad-Temperature-744 Aug 15 '23
Absolutely can confirm. I've seen these types of clients often in defense settings, and in the context of hosting similar material. Now that you point it out, that's exactly how the cursors behave. Whenever there's any amount of latency between your actual server and the thin client, the cursor moves strangely, and it can even become hard to click on things. The "filming a thin client" hypothesis fits both technically and with regard to standard security protocols.
It's unbelievable to me that they'd be able to first photoshop the entire video, and then have the depth of knowledge to somehow display it on a thin client, in a way that can be organically interacted with by a cursor swipe. It would be even more difficult to replicate the thin client's GUI behavior without actually using one.
I suppose it's plausible that someone who works in defense as an image analyst could be extremely proficient with VFX. I think that's part of the job description in some cases, for repackaging purposes. They'd also know how to make it look believable from a military perspective, and would have the technical knowledge and direct access to the same equipment used to process real imagery.
But at this point, we're talking about someone using actual military equipment, information, processing hardware, and, more than likely, footage of a real aircraft from two highly classified platforms to fake a UFO video with a CGI portal and orbs. Possible, but why? And it still doesn't explain how they had knowledge of the accurate flight path years ahead of schedule, or lined the video up exactly with the loss of signal. Even if the portal and orbs were added on top of the existing footage in post, there'd still be something very strange going on with the military's knowledge of what actually occurred.
Is it possible it's a video of the actual MH370, doctored to show UFOs?
There's something very unnerving about that to me. An insider, doctoring non-public footage that's been deliberately concealed, for laughs.
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u/KOOKOOOOM Aug 15 '23
I've said this before but another point that I don't think gets mentioned enough, but it should, is the behavior of the person recording/showing the videos. Whether the operator controling the drone camera or the person controlling the cursor on the satellite footage, they both act exactly as if a portal appears and the plane disappears.
There's a bit less surprise on the satellite footage user, because assuming it's pre recorded, they already know what it's gonna show. Vs the drone operator is tracking the plane and orbs in real time and as they disappear you can tell there's an attempt to pan out and re-acquire the plane.
This is all to say the theory of the orbs and portal being doctored onto real footage of the plane seems unlikely imo.
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u/Glad-Temperature-744 Aug 15 '23
I mean, there is an immediate pan out, but I don't necessarily see an attempt to re-acquire. If anything, it's a little odd that the operator stays zoomed in so close to the aircraft, and then only zooms out just before the portal. I'd think they'd specifically try to put the entirety of what's going on in frame. But I'm not as familiar with the camera systems on those platforms. Maybe there's something I don't know.
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u/NotJamesTKirk Aug 15 '23
Imagine the following, which I pulled out of my arse. Operator A tracked the flight, and gets in Operator B to tell what's going on.
OpA: "You have to see this, this is incredible. Nobody will believe this. This will get deleted in no time."
OpB: "Can I record what you're showing?"
OpA: "Sure go ahead. Okay, data loaded. Here is the plane..."
OpA: "...and here come the UAPs". OpA drags around the view to follow plane + UAPs.OpB: "WTF"
OpA: "Yes, WTF, but it's getting even more absurd, wait for it". OpA moves around a bit more to follow the plane
Plane pops out of existence.
OpA: doesn't move cursor around anymore, stares at OpB, "WTF"
OpB: "Holy.. I can't even.. What?"
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u/logosobscura Aug 15 '23
Yeah, that latter possibility disturbs me as well. But, it would be easier to blame some terror group, than do that, so it doesn't make much sense as a "look at that three-headed monkey!" game.
I could see a hostile foreign actor, using the knowledge they have from tradecraft, doing it, but as you say, to what end?
Time is money in every job, right? This was a rush job, out a few days after the incident, this would have been a nightmare to play act from cold, even if you had a really skilled team of VFX artists, had an existing Citrix estate, and knew where the satellites were. I've never seen a government department move that quick to do anything, anywhere in the world, what was the urgency?
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u/Glad-Temperature-744 Aug 15 '23
Well, I was assuming an individual.
If it is an external nation-state (who certainly would have the resources), they're also showing detailed knowledge of US imagery usage practices. And they're tailoring this hoax to fool internal personnel. And that is a whole new disturbing possibility. But the same question arises: to achieve what objective? And also, why release it immediately but then not re-dissiminate it by more effective means?
I'm sure psyops is used to an entirely different timetable from the rest of the government. I have no doubt they could produce something of this quality quickly. But again, if this much time and money was devoted to it, why just let it rot on the vine for 10 years? It didn't have any discernable impact at the time, to the point where we can't even locate some of the associated videos. I think it's safe to say if the state actor was competent enough to do this, they would be successful in ensuring we heard about it.
If it's US-produced, again, what's the objective? To make us distrust our government? To prepare for disclosure? Those things don't really line up. Why would they combine those two things? With this video, you can't have one effect without the other. It's also possible our government is throwing out a fake (and apparently absurd) explanation to draw fire from the plane's fate. Something more "realistic" that they were directly involved in.
If this is the case, the timeline makes sense. Immediately produce a flashy, absurd video, but no one happens to notice. So they just let this entire issue lie for 10 years, until suddenly the video resurfaces because of some random people on the internet. Why wouldn't they just scrub it when the video became unnecessary?
For these reasons, I think it's either exactly what it's advertised as, or an extremely sophisticated prank by a talented person or very small group of people within the IC, who misused their access to government imagery and assets to produce it.
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u/savedagwood Aug 15 '23
What protocol?
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u/logosobscura Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
They’re using HDX (Citrix), it’s got a few tells, including the key frame drift when there is some network chop. Know plenty of people involved in the design and build of ICA (that begat HDX), so it’s just one of those things you pick up when you’ve been staring at goats for years. We’re seeing a recording of a screen, that is displaying remote content. That seems to be being missed on either side of the push pull over this. I’m generally quite skeptical about this but there are some things that make me think they at least acted it out properly. To the point that focusing on the cursor will absolutely lead you up the garden path- because that’s not how cursors render, and when remote, it’s very much a ‘virtual virtual’ cursor.
It’s generally how it goes in compartment btw. Rarely are they goi g to give you hands on physical access to a device that stores data like this- you have to remote in, those sessions are logged, and if they’d use a screen recorder (which they wouldn’t be able to do in a thin client, but go with it)- they’d have detected that as well. Phone at screen is one of the few ways around it, but it’s generally kinda… a tell… when you stand in a SCIF with a phone you shouldn’t have pointed at a screen.
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u/Responsible-Local818 Aug 15 '23
So the subpixel cursor drift can be caused by a virtual remote cursor? Can you describe how this type of thing works?
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u/logosobscura Aug 15 '23
Sure, because the protocol has to adapt to network jitter and isn’t painted in the remote session, the action is ‘click here’. When you’re remoting essentially your looking at an image of the screen - let’s call it a JOEG for the sake of simplicity- you move your cursor around, and then you interact. We record those movements in the X & Y, and pass on the actions. Here’s where the drift can kick in- as the image gets compressed to fuck, and bounced around in real time, artifacts are created (the good protocols hide them well, but they are error correcting)- the drift you see, on a non-local machine, is an absolute tell of EC and the tracking of that to align with the distortions in the rendered frame. When I hear someone talking about frame rates and pixels, in that paradigm, it’s kinda missing some really important context.
This could entirely be fake. But it’s a good one and one that does get a bit of how things actually work when it comes to the operation of these systems.
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u/kcimc Aug 15 '23
If you can share any screen recordings from the kinds of systems you are referring to, it would help contextualize this a bunch. I looked into the Citrix client and it seems like the default framerate is 30 fps, which already is off from the 24fps in this video.
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u/lemtrees Aug 15 '23
I'm having a bit of trouble parsing the wording on this documentation from Citrix for XenDesktop 4.0, created in 2014 and updated in 2016.
Near the top they say "With XenDesktop 4 and later, Citrix introduced a new setting that allows you to control the maximum number of frames per second (fps) that the virtual desktop sends to the client. By default, this number is set to 30 fps."
Below that, it says "For XenDesktop 4.0: By default, the registry location and value of 18 in hexadecimal format (Decimal 24 fps) is also configurable to a maximum of 30 fps".
I'm reading the latter to mean that the default FPS for XenDesktop 4.0 was 24 but configurable up to 30, but I'm also reading the former to indicate that the default was 30. This article was made in 2014 and updated in 2016. Maybe it used to be 24, and was later updated to 30 as the default? I've tried looking for older documentation for their legacy software but just get 404s.
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u/kcimc Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
Holy shit. I think you're reading it right. Citrix was actually running at 24 fps in 2014. If we can find a screen recording from Citrix that shows this subpixel drifting behavior, we may be back out of the fake zone.
Edit: we'd also want to see a zero latency screen recording (the same way that the cursor matches the panned image perfectly without any delay). This implies a server-rendered cursor, and a screen recording that does not include any client cursor. This could be done on the server, or inside the Citrix client app, but not on the client machine itself.
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u/Different_Mess_8495 Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
Here’s footage from 2013, hope it helps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh7LxetjqA0
Edit:
Here’s XenDesktop 4.0 running on someone’s computer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bWwWG0qdOE
Edit 2:
Here’s XenDesktop 7.6 playing Battlefield 4. Not the exact same software but have a look at the “Activate Windows” text in the corner. Do you see what I see?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bywhIiMrOvg
Edit:
More gameplay on XenDesk 7.5 from 2014 running at 22 FPS - Similar cursor movement?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89prGZ1FhZg
Edit 4:
So I just rewatched the cursor movements from the original video ( NROL video ), and I noticed something peculiar - I'm not sure what this information means, but its true from what I can tell.
So first - assuming this video isn't a VFX creation
The cursor drift ONLY occurs when the operator is not touching the control interface. How do I know this? All other times the cursor stops in the video, it is used as the point of origin to move the frame; we can assume the operator is pressing some sort of button to select the point, such as the right mouse button.
BUT When the mouse drift occurs, it is the only time in the video where the operator "stops" his mouse and DOESN'T use it as a point of origin to move the frame.
This reminds me of controller drift on some controllers where the stick never properly returns to its "home" resulting in a very slow drift in one direction. Someone smarter than me figure this out though please!
EDIT 5:
Another random observation but the drift starts occurring before the plane / uap enters the frame. Not sure if that means anything.
EDIT 6:
CITRIX DOES SUPPORT SERVER SIDE CURSOR RENDERING! WE ARE BACK?!
The cursor in the video doesn't appear to be a OS standard cursor!
EDIT 7: Plenty of threads about jittery mouse controls especially when using a non os cursor over on the Citrix subreddit, along with visual glitches accompanying this. /r/citrix
TLDR: Citrix renders the mouse on the server then sends it back to the client ( the client being the screen that is filmed ) and latency can explain the mouse movements
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u/KOOKOOOOM Aug 15 '23
Your comment is very interesting about noticing when the mouse is idle, and when it's used by the user, if I understood you correctly? Would it help you arrive at a conclusion knowing whether they used a device like shown in this video at the 2 minute mark?
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u/cotterdontgive Aug 15 '23
Annnddd were back boys and girls
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u/Gerry_-_Jarcia Aug 15 '23
This is the craziest time of reddit I've ever had. What a ride! This is turning into an epic tale that is going to have its own documentary one day.
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u/savedagwood Aug 15 '23
I love that you’ve been adding links to questions into the body of the main post, it’s so helpful!
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u/SmoothMoose420 Aug 15 '23
You should add this part back to the analysis.
Great post. Really well done. First post I am accepting as a good debunk honestly.
But… I keep having to flip flop. Fake. Final answer. Wait. Not fake maybe. Wait. Fake. Wait. Lol
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u/kcimc Aug 15 '23
There is an avenue for this to not be fake (a non-OS cursor rendered by Citrix), but no real evidence. If someone can share evidence of this kind of subpixel precision behavior from any screensharing app then we're back on. Until then I feel pretty confident dropping this.
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Aug 15 '23
Man this is so weird, I thought it was for sure fake from the jump but ever since looking into these posts I just can’t be 100% certain anymore, every time I think we’ve gotten the proof there is something that says “not necessarily” - one things for sure there are a lot of actually intelligent people on here
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u/dsfargegherpderp Aug 15 '23
https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX201812/citrix-consulting-hdx-7x-do-you-know-your-graphics-mode
"The default frames per second (FPS) setting has increased from 24 (in XenApp 6.5) to 30. This may result in additional bandwidth and CPU utilization (Check if this was lowered additionally by policy if doing a migration to ensure there is not a large jump in resources)."
Created: 17 Aug 2015
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u/logosobscura Aug 15 '23
You could always override via an engineering key if they either got told about said Registry Key (big frown face, but hey, that’s how the industry works) OR they raised a support case and we told them to, given consideration of their needs and environment. Back then, IIRC, they got it past 60 pretty well, but not consistently at scale, so 24 got out as the standard. 39 has been the default since 2015, but you can rack it to 60 in the console and 120 via engineering keys.
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u/kcimc Aug 15 '23
Do you have more info about this? If the cursor drift is a common glitch or behavior that can rendered by HDX I would love to see that. The cursor itself is a little unfamiliar to me.
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u/yea-uhuh Aug 15 '23
Apr 9, 2014 — The cursor and mouse pointer start moving after logging in to the citrix application. Citrix Xennapp 6.5 windows server 20008 R2
June 26, 2014 — The issue has been resolved after upgrading the Citrix online plugin to version 12.3.0.8.
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/472854-cursor-and-mouse-pointer-issue-inside-the-application
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u/Meltedmindz32 Aug 15 '23
That’s pretty fucking crazy that it was patched a few months after mh370 lol
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u/savedagwood Aug 15 '23
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u/kimmyjunguny Aug 15 '23
Okay, but this wouldnt result in subpixel precision from the cursor. the cursor ui should still be jumping whole pixels, even if it’s drifting. Am I missing something?
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u/WeeklyQuarter6665 Aug 15 '23
So it’s a recording of a screen, that is being remotely viewed. So the image being recorded on a screen, isn’t even coming from that screens Pc, it’s being streamed to that screen from another PC using a remote viewer? That’s fuckin dedication for a fake
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u/logosobscura Aug 15 '23
It does suggest if it is fake, that it is a sophisticated actor. Nation state, etc. But that’s also true of some of the other tradecraft shown in the video.
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u/BigBeerBellyMan Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
- 30fps screen capture
- of a 24fps virtual/remote desktop
- running custom video software
- to navigate around a very large video
- that is playing at 6fps
- originally recorded by a satellite
- possibly in 3D
absolutely crazy if fake
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u/savedagwood Aug 15 '23
Wow, that makes sense - Citrix does say they provide support specifically to DoD/IC https://www.citrix.com/solutions/government/department-of-defense.html
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u/logosobscura Aug 15 '23
Oh yeah, they love their Fed money, it’s one of the best enterprise sales you can make in software, a license to print money.
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u/JustDoc Aug 15 '23
As someone who has used CITRIX previously, this is the correct answer.
It's all through a virtual machine.
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u/troll_khan Aug 15 '23
This might be the most important post regarding this video. You come up with straight information.
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u/TheOwlHypothesis Aug 15 '23
A thin client isn't the only way to launch a Citrix session. Screen recording software could be installed on a normal machine that uses the Citrix software to remote in to the instance.
It has been a few years since I worked in an environment that used this, so forgive the generic terminology.
That being said, even if this were the case, it would involve them saving the screen recording to media. Most of the time they disable or completely remove USB from machines. CDs and CD drives are available but require a lot of paperwork, logging, credentials (certs) etc to get and use them. It's not impossible, but a LOT of tracks and logs would have been made. Would be a lot of people not doing their job if no one noticed all that.
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u/logosobscura Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
No, it isn’t, but it is within a compartmented system, and was in nearly every single architectural design I’ve been dragged into for those clearances. Especially since Snowden.
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u/Relevant-Vanilla-892 Aug 15 '23
This makes sense because I heard that contractors leaked it?!
Contractors would likely remote in
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u/logosobscura Aug 15 '23
Remember Snowden? Yeah he caused pretty much everything to go remote- contractor and employee. Bumper year for vendors who sell those solutions, across the Five Eyes.
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u/quixotic_ether Aug 15 '23
The cursor could be being displayed through a remote link, like a remote desktop, I think that could account for your observation.
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u/candypettitte Aug 15 '23
This sub should take a verified real video of something (like a drone strike or whatever) and pretend that its provenance is unknown.
Then see the best arguments people can make for it being fake or it being real.
We've reached a point where so many people have poked holes in this, but then people respond to each hole with "well it could be this and thus true." I'd be interested to see what people do with a real video of something.
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u/gabrielmamuttee Aug 15 '23
Maybe It could be some mouse interpolation artifact over a remote desktop connection? Or absolute mouse positioning using a 3d mouse over remote desktop? (maybe relevant: https://superuser.com/questions/849918/erratic-mouse-movement-in-3d-games-over-rdp-with-remotefx)
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u/blubblubinthetubtub Aug 15 '23
Yup, I doubt they'd have physical access to this data, and instead remote in so the session is logged.
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u/ThrowingAwayToUfos Aug 15 '23
I have developed 3 different screen capture software packages on two platforms (Mac / Win).
In every instance (except for odd edge cases on macOS having to do with the OS sometimes choosing to 'burn in' the cursor), the cursor is passed remotely via x/y coords. Then the cursor image is passed separately (it rarely changes) and is burned into the image later. This is so that we can give high fidelity cursor images and prioritize cursor delivery over image delivery as the smooth cursor feels better than jerky cursor.
Every time I've done this, we have code that will approximate the cursor location in between 'frames'. So what can happen is if the cursor hops due to networking, which looks bad. But if done with simplistic linear approximation you can get that kind of odd drifting we see. I have specifically worked on making this kind of thing not happen. To make the cursor move naturally when frames are missing. It's a very common requested feature.
Lastly, the rendering system that uses the x/y coords and images can very easily end up doing sub-pixel movements on the cursor, as we downsize preparing frames for the encoders.
So to sum up :
Cursor drift can easily be explained. Cursor sub-pixel can easily be explained.
I am not saying these videos are 'real' but it just so happens this an area of expertise that I have, so I created an account (my first reddit account!) and chimed in.
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u/wooden_pipe Aug 15 '23
we all agree that we're looking at a camera recording of a screen, right? how can we be analyzing subpixel movements when we dont even know what the mapping of pixels is from screen to video. this might be a high resolution / retina display, so "subpixel movement" could really just be interpolation of pixels from the lower res recording. we might want to record a few screens with a mouse cursor to see how that ends up looking.
further, has anyone even talked about how the cursor stuff looks unlike "regular" human cursor movement, it looks very interpolated or almost mechanical. however, given the quality of the fake - given its fake, this will be either deliberate. or, if not, why would it be done that way?
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u/whiskeyandbear Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
Are you looking at the clip he took of 0:36 - 0:45? I actually noticed something like that when first watching it, the drift of the cursor is not natural. While yeah it might be a massive screen condensed down, that would explain subpixel movement, however looking at the video now - the mouse honestly does look really strange. Like at parts it looks completely natural, other times it looks like overly smooth like the mouse is panning across the screen at a constant speed and direction.
I dunno what it says about the video as a whole - it seems getting the mouse movement wrong seems strange given the rest, but there are to be fair, a million ways in which they could have been using the cursor - we don't actually know it's a mouse.
It could be a laptop track pad, a track ball, a strange proprietary military joystick that we've never even seen. Or even a touch screen. There's also those weird nubins that are still on lenovo thinkbooks.
Edit: nobody called me out on it but no a higher resolution I don't think would explain the sub pixel mouse movement shown - but we are presuming this is a mouse, and not propriety hardware working with propriety software, meaning no windows kernel mouse handling may come into it at all perhaps?
Edit 2: the weird mouse movement is probably entirely due to it being a remote client - and if it was citrix, there was an issue with the cursor on april 2014 moving on it's own
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u/KOOKOOOOM Aug 15 '23
I may have found what may explain the weird cursor behavior. I commented below, may be op can consider this aspect regarding cursor drift.
Around the 2 minute mark in this video, the device being used seems to replace the mouse. Would that have anything to do with cursor irregularities?
I saw the video in yesterday's post by aryelbcn so credit where due.
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u/whiskeyandbear Aug 15 '23
I think at the point where there is custom hardware for exactly the use case of looking at stereoscopic satellite data like in this video, yeah the mouse cursor being weird no longer is an issue.
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u/KOOKOOOOM Aug 15 '23
Exactly. I'm not sure why the mouse cursor being irregular is considered a smoking gun here.
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u/JunkTheRat Aug 15 '23
The smoking gun is the distortion is being applied to the cursor and the coordinate text in the bottom left corner. Overlays on video should not be distorted and they are. No, claims of advanced hardware and software do not explain away or excuse how bad the text is distorting, and the fact that is angles/leans and distorts in the same direction the rest of the frame does. This was applied in editing either by mistake or on purpose. Everyone thinks accepting this makes the whole thing a hoax. No, it just means Regicide didn’t upload an unedited source. The Vimeo video is an unedited source.
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u/JunkTheRat Aug 15 '23
And then you still have to overcome the fact that the coordinate text in the bottom left corner distorts and leans so badly it’s obvious. Overcoming the cursor still leaves you with the reality the whole frame is distorted including the overlayed text. And no, fancy software and hardware doesn’t explain why the coordinate text looks so bad and distorts so badly. You don’t intentionally obfuscate important information in a system like this, and the distortion is such that is explains away the idea of it being VR/AR. Regicide just uploaded a version he messed with. We have to accept it. Use the Vimeo video as the true source.
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u/kimmyjunguny Aug 15 '23
idk ab that. Cursor UI jumps whole pixels, not subpixels. No one has been able to explain to me how a software only capable of pixel to pixel movement is even allowing for subpixel precision. Remote viewing or not, the cursor must move pixel to pixel.
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u/KOOKOOOOM Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
It could be a laptop track pad, a track ball, a strange proprietary military joystick that we've never even seen. Or even a touch screen. There's also those weird nubins that are still on lenovo thinkbooks.
I'm very interested in this perspective too. Has this been considered or the base assumption is just a regular mouse?
Edit:
Around the 2 minute mark in this video may explain the cursor drift?
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u/whiskeyandbear Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
It's weird because the movement when you actually look at it, is sketchy as fuck at many moments. But to be fair, it's not consistently sketchy, like it's lazy animation. Like at 0:30 it really erratically moves down, but just before 0:36 you see it glide from left to right smoothly. I'm surprised we all ignored these cursor movements tbh.
There's no way it's a mouse, and I'm surprised I ignored it and no one has picked this up. I know I mentioned track pad, but it's not a track pad. I dunno what this means, maybe the leaker was just a weirdo who used a joystick as a mouse? Or they were literally recording directly off the government machine used to interface with the satellites? Perhaps the recording wasn't made by the leaker, but was actually made to give to people instead the pentagon or something, I can't imagine someone risking screen recording on a government machine without permission.
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u/MeringueCorrect4090 Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
I doubt our leaker is the original recorder, it was probably shared around and our leaker got their hands on it in some classified meeting/briefing or otherwise. If it's real, then you can bet your ass this video did the rounds in all the circles who deal with this stuff and that's when it came to our leaker. The absolute first people to get vetted after this video comes to light are the ones who would have had access to screen record the video, so I very much doubt anyone like that leaked this.
More likely someone in a high position with access to this decided to give it to someone else who then did the leaking as discretely as possible for them.
As for the cursor, I really doubt they're using Windows XP and a wireless laser mouse. Most likely some proprietary government software and a specialized trackball controller of some type for controlling the view, which results in the "unnatural" cursor movement we see. Because it's not a mouse controlling that cursor.
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u/lopedopenope Aug 15 '23
Yea the military is still known to use track balls or things like it. They really like them for certain things.
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u/Ok-Reality-6190 Aug 15 '23
It could also be a "virtual" mouse and not represent the local mouse input perfectly
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u/wooden_pipe Aug 15 '23
A track ball is also my thinking. It would explain very linear movements that are rarely done with regular mice, as well acceleration and deceleration over time, as opposed to more erratic changes done with a regular mouse
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u/Wonderful-Trifle1221 Aug 15 '23
Cursor movement seems legit to me, you get a better idea by watching the gps coordinates roll as the view is changed, you can tell sometimes the coordinates change slightly slower or slightly faster but the changes perfectly match the speed the screen is moving. Unless someone can fake that there’s no way in hell
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u/AppointmentOk4955 Aug 15 '23
Cursor movement also seems normal to me (watching on a phone). But maybe on a computer we can see what seems conclusive.
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u/covid_is_from_a_lab Aug 15 '23
Unlikely they were using a traditional mouse. See the satellite promotional video from earlier. See what the operator was using.
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u/KOOKOOOOM Aug 15 '23
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u/covid_is_from_a_lab Aug 15 '23
Exactly this type of drift happens to me all the time with my 3D mouse. If I put my hand on the table and it's slightly touching the joystick, I get extremely slow and controlled drift.
And if you bump it hard enough then it will just do this on its own with nothing touching it until you recalibrate.
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u/PaperSt Aug 15 '23
This is a great point. I have a “Space Mouse” I use for certain programs and if something on my desk is touching it slightly it will drift like this. It’s more like a mini joystick than a mouse.
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u/MeatMullet Aug 15 '23
Cursor movement also seems normal to me (watching on a phone). But maybe on a computer we can see what seems conclusive.
The OP said it was missing a keyframe. It wouldn't be key framed ON EVERY SINGLE frame. That would be called Rotoscoping.
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u/wooden_pipe Aug 15 '23
This could be caused by the fact that software and cursor often happen at different refresh rates. Cursor is usually on a "hardware" level, e.g. screen refresh rate, while Software can go all over the place. Frame drops, micro jittering, etc. All very common.
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u/truefaith_1987 Aug 15 '23
I agree, but I'm also wondering what caused the drift.
In OP's scenario, the hoaxer would have accidentally interpolated the cursor's movement to the next position, over a longer time period than intended. Basically, a misplaced or accidentally deleted keyframe. But during the drift, the cursor is moving down and to the left, when the cursor's next movement after that, is actually up and to the right, and its last movement before that, was up and to the left.
So maybe what happened instead, is that the position of the cursor at the next keyframe was accidentally shifted down and to the left, and so it mistakenly interpolates between those keyframes when it wasn't supposed to. This is kind of supported by the fact that the drift happens immediately before the very next movement of the cursor, up and to the right.
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u/abstractConceptName Aug 15 '23
Right, and what if the "noise" is something wrong with the monitor being recorded, that repeats?
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u/kcimc Aug 15 '23
I don't see any indication that this is a camera recording a screen. For one, it is difficult to perfectly align a camera to a screen so that the all the telemetry data lines up perfectly parallel to the bottom. But also, camera recordings of screens typically introduce some kind of color distortion that makes it very obvious that it was recorded with a camera. Also, the framerate is locked to 6fps against a capture rate of 24 fps. Cameras and screens often have different framerates and they would likely drift. Try and create a camera recording of this video on your screen, and you'll see how different it looks (rotated, colored).
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u/covid_is_from_a_lab Aug 15 '23
I have used screen capture software in my work that has built-in compression and adjustable or dynamic frame rate. The end videos have plenty of pixel interpolation and other flaws reminiscent of just pointing a camera at the screen.
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u/aureliorramos Aug 15 '23
The most sneaky way to record video and not worry about leaving any evidence behind in a log would be to simply tap the HDMI / DVI cable of the monitor and use a capture device like the ones gamers use to livestream, assuming standard monitors and workstations are used. Come to think of it, if the output is stereo (for a custom stereo display) and the video is encoded as side by side stereo, then the capture device would record the raw output with the side by side frames.
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u/square1311 Aug 15 '23
If this is not a video of a video then why are we seeing the cursor moving. Not trolling btw
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u/lemtrees Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
I believe we are seeing a screen recording of a remote desktop session, which would include the cursor.
(Original response: It is a screen recording? That would include the cursor.)
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u/square1311 Aug 15 '23
So you are saying that he screen recorded and then email it to his email, and that's how the video got out of the facility that has this. Don't you think that's more risky than recording it with a phone or something and smuggling it out that way
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u/lemtrees Aug 15 '23
Assuming this is real leaked footage, the leaker would be remoted into a session via something like Citrix (see here).
Just speculating here, but it could be that the plane went "missing" but was still being tracked by the military, so this surveillance satellite was tasked to look at it. Between recording this event and someone very high up locking it all down, there could easily have been many contractors or whomever who had access to a low security server with this video in it. Any of them could have simply logged in to see what happened to the "missing" plane and then seen this fantastical footage. They may even have been able to just sign in from their home laptop or cubicle PC that had minimal security or logging. Any of them could have screen recorded and thrown the video on a USB stick that they hid for a while. The hosting server would see who logged in, but maybe a couple dozen contractors all logged in to see what happened so it wasn't possible to identify who recorded their screens. Maybe that's why some of the video is cropped; To cut out session identifying information.
There may easily have been a LOT of people with potential access to this surveillance video before it (presumably) was internally locked down. Just because it ultimately recorded an ontologically shocking event doesn't mean that beforehand it wasn't used for anything requiring very high level security access.
Again though, I'm just speculating wildly. I don't usually like to make so many assumptions, my intent is just to point out that it is entirely possible that this video was available to people in a low security environment for enough time for someone to have recorded it without being tracked down.
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u/aureliorramos Aug 15 '23
I would expect Moiré patterns from a camera recording a screen and we don't see that. However, the possibility that the video has been resampled digitally (scaling / transform) so that the output pixel resolution is reduced should also be considered.
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u/Different_Mess_8495 Aug 15 '23
So I just rewatched the cursor movements from the original video ( NROL video ), and I noticed something peculiar - I'm not sure what this information means, but its true from what I can tell.
So first - assuming this video isn't a VFX creation
The cursor drift ONLY occurs when the operator is not touching the control interface. How do I know this? All other times the cursor stops in the video, it is used as the point of origin to move the frame; we can assume the operator is pressing some sort of button to select the point, such as the right mouse button.
BUT When the mouse drift occurs, it is the only time in the video where the operator "stops" his mouse and DOESN'T use it as a point of origin to move the frame.
This reminds me of controller drift on some controllers where the stick never properly returns to its "home" resulting in a very slow drift in one direction.
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u/knowyourcoin Aug 15 '23
Um.
Couldn't the video be from a single stereo set of sensors?
Couldn't the mouse just be offset in the GUI to give a sense of depth to the UX?
And as to subpixel precision, might that not be required for an interface that demands a very exacting degree of accuracy, like in military applications?
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Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
Excellent analysis and I appreciate the effort you put into it. That said, I'm still not convinced that the video is fake. I worked for Maxon for 3 years (the company that makes Cinema 4D), up until last year, although I didn't work on C4D itself (I'm a web developer; I built the Maxon, Cineversity, and C4D Live websites through the agency I worked for), however, I was given a free copy of C4D and full access to everything on Cineversity, so I dabbled quite a bit. I'm not an expert in VFX, but in addition to over 3 years of using C4D as a hobby, I've also had a YouTube channel since 2007 and have a TON of experience with Adobe Premiere and After Effects. As a web developer, I also had extensive professional experience years ago with Flash. So I know my fair share about keyframing and just enough about VFX to be dangerous.
The videos were a recording of a screen with a phone. Why would you need to keyframe a mouse cursor instead of just moving your actual mouse cursor around while filming? I get what you're showing and it's somewhat compelling, but at the same time, I feel like there are other plausible explanations for the drifting, and it just doesn't make sense to animate it in post. Why have a mouse moving in there at all, especially if you're going to keyframe it? How would that lend anything to the credibility? How does the mouse move in other parts of the video? Does it move perfectly linear, or is the movement human-like? It would be a pain to make it move human-like with keyframing and seems like a waste of time and effort for something that adds nothing to the video.
Further, if you accidentally delete a keyframe in the middle of two coordinates that are 17px apart, it's not likely to take 214 frames to complete, because 214 doesn't divide evenly into 30 or 60 (two of the most probable frame rates for the original video). Not that it necessarily has to be divisible by the frame rate, but it still would have had to have been intentional to have it move that 17px over the course of the 214 frames, whether a keyframe in between was deleted or not.
Other possible explanations: If you have a glass of water or another drink sitting on your desk, assuming everyone nowadays uses optical or laser mice, I've also seen my mouse drift if the condensation from the drink container gets on my desk and under my mouse. Additionally, I've seen it happen when not using a mousepad on a wooden desk. Sometimes the woodgrain, especially if it's even slightly indented, can mess with an optical mouse. I've also just seen it happen with shitty mice, or wireless mice that pick up some minor interference, particularly if they're more than 3 feet away from the receiver, or the battery is low which can weaken the signal. Even aside from all those things, I'm in my 40s and have been using computers almost my entire life, and daily professionally for over 20 years, and I've definitely seen my mouse do weird jumping, drifting, or other strange things without explanation over the years.
Video compression can also have some really weird results that you wouldn't expect. I once filmed a funnel cloud from my backyard, and it was this giant circular cloud that spanned MILES of radius directly in front of me, and the entire thing was rotating at a fairly good speed. In the video though, you could not see the rotation at all. The entire thing was stationary. You could see movement in other parts of the video, but the giant rotating cloud was completely still. Compression algorithms make some odd decisions about the placement of things at times.
Just my $0.02. Not trying to invalidate all your hard work, you did an amazing job and I think you should keep at it, I just don't think the mouse drift is that strange.
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u/JunkTheRat Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
/u/kcimc people like this are confused thinking this is a debunk of the entire thing when in reality it just debunks the idea the RegicideAnon upload is 3D video. We are still no closer to understanding if this event truly happened or not. All we have done is confirm what some of us always knew; Regicide edited their copy before uploading to YouTube and the Vimeo source did not. I faced the same confusion from people and don’t know how to separate the two ideas.
If you can run the cursor drift analysis on the Vimeo source and still find cursor drift, I would consider the entire thing debunked. The Vimeo source is a truer original than RegicideAnons so if you start to poke holes there you are poking holes in the story itself. RegicideAnons upload is its own rabbit hole. The Vimeo source is the target.
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u/kcimc Aug 15 '23
Great observation. The drift also happens in the Vimeo video starting around 0:42, it's easy to see without any extra analysis. Unless someone can find an example of a cursor drifting with this kind of subpixel precision, I would consider it a VFX mistake.
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u/frognbadger Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
Excellent post OP. Well-thought out work and I can really understand your perspective, methodology (somewhat), and evidence.
To play devil’s advocate, could a UI feasibly have subpixel precision for cursors? If this is, hypothetically, a proprietary government software program that’s being recorded, could it not have the subpixel precision? I feel like your point on this alone is evidence that this detail could only come from a VFX program, but I’m wondering if there are any other logical explanations or if this IS the logical conclusion.
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u/kcimc Aug 15 '23
Great question. It is feasible for UI to have subpixel precision, but I have never once heard of this in practice. Many government systems are based on Windows or Linux, and in those cases the OS handles the mouse input and cursor. So this would mean customizing Windows or Linux itself to offer subpixel cursor rendering. If that were happening, there would need to be a good reason for it.
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u/Single_Apple7740 Aug 15 '23
What if as /u/logosobscura says above, this is over Citrix? Then you have a virtual mouse on the client. Pixels don’t necessarily align with the resolution on the server. Screen recording on the client side then shows us a mouse that appears to move sub-pixel.
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u/sumosacerdote Aug 15 '23
Couldn't it be the result of a downsampled video being up sampled again? The mouse looks too skinny/occupies too little pixels and it's also somewhat blurry on the edges. Reminds of a poor upsampling like bilinear or nearest neighbour to me.
Also, thanks for your work and such detailed explanation.
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u/AbbreviationsNo4089 Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
Ok!!! Holy shit this has been insane, few things completely unrelated feel free to ignore:
There are a lot of talented and capable individuals in this sub that are either new or have been here, either way fuckin right on.
I had no idea this much analysis was available from uploaded videos, gives me hope for debunking the deep fake tidal wave that seems to be inevitable (I get not this much work can be done for every video)
Thank you to all who have dedicated time to this.
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u/AndriaXVII Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
I just emailed the NRO for comment on the supposed leaked video. We'll see what they say. lol
I am not convinced that everything outlined in this thread isn't just distortion from compression or exporting from an integrated military information system. I am well versed in military info systems, but I am not an expert in video forensics.
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u/kcimc Aug 15 '23
I agree. Personally, I can imagine an explanation for everything except the cursor drift. If someone can find a real-world example of a cursor drifting with subpixel precision like that, I would consider this video as possibly real again.
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u/Destructive-Toaster Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
I have some random bug in my linux install that occasionally causes my cursor to drift like that. Unless I am missing something, I'd bet you can get the same effect with a faulty mouse or trackpad.
That said, I have worked with animation software in the past and can absolutely see that cause by missing or improperly set keyframes.
Edit: I think I misunderstood what he meant by sub pixel precision. I though he meant the commanded movement but I now think he meant the displayed movement. I don't believe the glitch in my linux system causes the mouse to move sub pixel as shown in the gif.
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u/spazzybluebelt Aug 15 '23
Same,ive experienced this a couple Times in the Last 30 years of using computers
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u/Tedohadoer Aug 15 '23
You don't need a faulty mouse, you need a shitty mousepad, try using plastic file folder as your mousepad, uneven surface for laser will cause same thing seemingly randomly
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Aug 15 '23
But that doesn't make much sense because if the goal was to fake it, the last thing that would need to be faked is the cursor, this he could easily record later
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u/kcimc Aug 15 '23
For all the work that would have gone into this, I am surprised they didn't do a few things more carefully:
- Add the noise after the depth map.
- Add the telemetry after the depth map.
- Add the cursor after the depth map.
But to be fair, they were managing a lot of small details for this and I can see how they could have lost track near the end. Or it could indicate that they were more comfortable with 3D graphics than with 2D editing.
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u/Adventurous_Still743 Aug 15 '23
Wow what a good read. I appreciate your depth of detail! I don’t necessarily agree with your conclusion though. As someone with as much VFX experience as you, surely you know how distorted images and even more so videos become through the process of compression.
Doesn’t compression remove massive amounts of original raw data from a file? Thus, resulting in the aforementioned disparity in videos. To me it’s as simple as that. Look forward to more of your analysis, cheers!
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u/Aye-Laddie Aug 15 '23
Hope this does not get downvoted just because people want the vids to be real.
Stick with logic and facts and try to avoid bias.
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u/ShadyAssFellow Aug 15 '23
It’s quite morbid people want it to be real. So do I. Why?
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u/pedosshoulddie Aug 15 '23
Because it would be the first ever ufo video that isn’t just a ufo flying.
This video shows these motherfuckers are doing something, and whatever it is crosses into science fiction (to the general public’s knowledge)
This is a video that if proven real will absolutely need answered for, at minimum by the United States government for having this footage, and doing nothing relevant.
So as fucked as it is, this is a major ticket to a lot of answers we all want. That’s where the hope that it’s real lies at.
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u/BeefDurky Aug 15 '23
Perhaps you crave an exciting distraction from your day to day life.
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u/Altruistic-Sound2639 Aug 15 '23
Maybe I'm an idiot. What if the mouse is operated via trackball? Trackball mice are a common rsi prevention technique in the work force. Could it be capable of sub pixel precision? Might be the sort of tool someone would use for scrolling through enormous images that have been stitched together.
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u/ExoticCard Aug 15 '23
Can you add your methodology?
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u/kcimc Aug 15 '23
In my previous post I shared a Jupyter notebook that shows how I work with these videos and images in Python. For this post I didn't do anything really novel, just cropping and contrast boosting, all stuff that can be done in video editing software. I'm just faster with code. If you want to know about a specific step I'm happy to share more.
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u/Grittney Aug 15 '23
If the video is real, it's coming from some fancy military satellite, which almost certainly would come with custom software built to spec for viewing/analysing that satellite's data.
The satellite appears to capture an extremely large image, enough to require significant panning. The raw data doesn't have to conform to any common standards (1080p, 4K, 8K, etc.) since it is produced by a highly specialized device for a very specific purpose, i.e. not film-making. It's very possible, then, that this custom software is rendering the cursor in the same super high res as the raw image.
I think there's a real possibility that we're looking at a screen capture of classified military satellite operation and/or data analysis software.
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u/fogush Aug 15 '23
Found an article potentially explaining: 1. why the noise is similar between the two stereoscopic images, and 2. only one satellite/camera is needed.
Apparently in 2013 some researchers at Harvard found a way to create stereoscopic images using a single camera without any equipment upgrades but only changing the focus depth plus an algorithm: https://www.cnet.com/culture/creating-3d-images-with-a-single-lens-without-moving-it/
Could it have been that the two images at different focus depth were processed into the two stereoscopic images we see, in the process sharing the noise?
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u/Arclet__ Aug 15 '23
This is how I feel each time I get into an in-depth analysis of this video
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u/cognitive-agent Aug 15 '23
Could the noise thing be due to some kind of joint compression of the two video streams? I would imagine that video codecs specialized for stereo video would likely introduce artifacts that are correlated between the two views, but I don't know if it would look like this.
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u/kcimc Aug 15 '23
I can also imagine that, but I don't have enough experience with stereo video codecs to speak to it specifically. This still wouldn't explain the cursor movement.
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u/dsfargegherpderp Aug 15 '23
could something like "Schneider’s 3D PluraView monitor. This includes the 3D mouse pointer ‘displaying ‘perfectly in EliteCAD’ so it ‘intuitively reaches’ every point, surface or edge in the (holographic) 3D space." explain it, assuming that their satellite video viewing software has at least the same capability as their cad software?
https://aecmag.com/visualisation/schneider-brings-3d-stereo-to-desktop-bim-pluraview-3d-monitor/ https://www.unmannedsystemstechnology.com/2021/11/stereoscopic-3d-monitors-for-military-use/
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u/dsfargegherpderp Aug 15 '23
Also just found this "Subpixel Summit Evolution improves vector data accuracy by removing pixel limitations. The system provides subpixel viewing functionality for measuring, dynamic zooming, and movement within pixels"
https://www.datem.com/summit-evolution/
Maybe subpixel smoothing or movement is normal in this type of software? I wouldn't know.
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u/GrimZeigfeld Aug 15 '23
Great post, man. Amazing attention to detail. Just some ideas:
Matching Noise Patterns: - The identical noise patterns in both videos could potentially be attributed to the sensor noise inherent to a specific satellite. Sensors in space might exhibit consistent noise characteristics under certain conditions. It's possible that if both videos were taken from the same satellite sensor under similar circumstances, they might display matching noise patterns. However, as you mentioned, it is weird that the right video seems to be derived from the left.
Cursor Drift and Text Distortion from Resolution Downsampling: - The videos may have originally been captured or rendered in ultra-high-resolution (as one might expect from a military reconnaissance satellite). During subsequent viewing or editing back at base, UI elements like cursors, text, and other overlays might have been added. - If this ultra-high-resolution video with overlays was later downscaled to a lower resolution (exported, screen captured, or filmed), several artifacts could emerge: - Cursor Drift: The cursor's position in the ultra-high-res version might not perfectly align to the pixel grid in the downscaled version, potentially causing a subpixel drift. - Text Distortion: Text overlays, if they were anti-aliased or used subpixel rendering, could appear distorted or inconsistent when scaled down.
Frame Interpolation: - It's also conceivable that if frames were interpolated, perhaps to adjust motion or frame rate for the downscaled version, this could introduce its own set of artifacts, leading to perceived inconsistencies in the footage.
Anyways, excellent post. I’m excited to see what others make of this
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u/SettingSevere Aug 15 '23
Can we get any forensic information from the cursor that would tell us whether the cursor matches OS and version contemporary of the year it was taken (i.e. Windows vs Mac vs Linux)? Doing a quick search online revealed that Windows’ cursor is asymmetrical compared to Mac’s which is symmetrical. If this is truly taken from a DoD government computer in 2014 then I would imagine this should be Windows and/or maybe Linux but certainly not a Mac? Just some thoughts.
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u/kcimc Aug 15 '23
There is a subthread here where u/logosobscura suggests this may be the cursor from an HDX Citrix remote session.
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u/ThatEndingTho Aug 15 '23
Would it be outside the realm of possibility that they just add a new cursor?
I had some downright unusual cursors back on XP.
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u/Kinginthasouth904 Aug 15 '23
Could you do this level of work in the timeframe allowed?
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u/floreno007 Aug 15 '23
The Noise could be a Watermark with data about terminal, user, date and time of view.
With this technique the leaker could be easily identified by just decrypting the watermark.
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u/UntilEndofTimes Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
I'm not concerned about the authenticity of the video (it's too hard to believe even if this is somehow not fake) but I'm following for the top-notch analysis from all sides.
This article was posted on citrix's website in 2019, explaining how the cursor rendering works, it can be client or server side depending on the OS. If it's being rendered on the server side it can appear smoother but with a lag
Symptoms or Error
In a Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops environment, mouse cursors are presented to a user in one of two ways in an ICA session: client-rendered or server-rendered.
In most cases, mouse cursors are client-rendered. By default, the HDX graphics process will detect OS and application cursors on the VDA (server side), capture the cursor image and send to the Citrix Receiver or Workspace App for rendering locally on the client. A client-rendered cursor delivers the best performance and user experience as it behaves the same as with any local application running on the physical endpoint. This means there is no added latency to the mouse movement from the virtual session.
There are two special cases where client rendering of the cursor is not possible for a particular Citrix session and the mouse cursor is server-rendered as a result:
Custom cursors (non-Windows standard)
There are some applications that use proprietary cursor types and handle cursor rendering on their own. These applications do not use the standard Windows OS functions to set and render cursors on screen. In this scenario, the application cursor looks no different to the HDX graphics process than any other image on screen. Because of this, it is not possible to query the Windows OS and detect the cursor in use in order to redirect for client rendering.
AutoCAD from Autodesk is a common example of an application that uses custom cursors.
Lack of cursor compatibility with HDX Graphics and Citrix client in use
This is more of case with modern applications running in Citrix sessions configured with HDX Legacy Graphics mode and older Receiver clients. Not all cursors are created equal. Modern and more complex types such as 32-Bit color cursors may require use of new HDX graphics mode and recent/current versions of the Citrix client.
Performance Impact
Server-rendered cursors can be very costly for virtual desktops and applications. Every time the user moves the mouse, the client sends a message to the server, so the desktop or application can be redrawn and the resulting image (the new cursor position) is sent back to the client. This process may need to be executed hundreds or thousands of times to capture every change in cursor position, depending on the user movement of the mouse. This can generate high-bandwidth and, if the application is very complex (Ex. a complex CAD model where the application is recalculating the part), it can become a bottleneck. It can also result in a lot of redrawing of transient intermediate frames that are unnecessary, intermittent information that a user doesn’t need, like when scrolling or moving a window rapidly.
In this scenario, a user may perceive a slight delay when interacting with a server-rendered cursor because they are interacting with a graphical representation of the cursor that is being remoted across the network instead a local cursor rendered directly on the client hardware. The issue would be more apparent in low bandwidth and high latency network conditions. A user on a local area network may not perceive the issue compared to a user connecting over a WAN link, for example. The graphics mode and display configuration in use may also be a contributing factor. Using the H.264 video codec would perform a lot better than the lossless codec, just like a session on a 1080p display would be much better than on a 4K display.
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u/DoedoeBear Aug 15 '23
We want to remind our community that the source of the video in this post has not yet been verified. There are many unknowns surrounding the origin and content of this video. Please approach this with a healthy degree of skepticism.
We want to make it explicitly clear that the official stance from a multinational investigation had concluded that MH370 crashed into the ocean. What happened that day was a global tragedy, and it remains a painful memory in the minds of many. We kindly ask everyone to always be mindful of the profound human interests connected to these subjects. Content that does not respect these interests or violates our rules will be closely monitored and potentially removed.
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u/Tedohadoer Aug 15 '23
I'll give you a better riddle - what operating system is this cursor from?
It's too dark to be white, it's to white to be dark theme, now if we assume that it was done by military on computers that can't have anything installed - it cannot be a custom theme, so which one is it?
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u/Popular-Sky4172 Aug 15 '23
hurry someone make a new thread to debunk the debunker. how long will it take for a new informed post made to counter this? lol
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u/AppointmentOk4955 Aug 15 '23
Could the "cursor drift theory" be due to computer slowdown or a related issue?
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u/vajra_bendy_straw Aug 15 '23
That is not sensor noise. Sensor noise is fine grained—at individual pixel scale. This noise is way too chunky. We have no idea what convoluted path these videos may have taken from sensor(s) to presentation. Instrument codecs, stereography-specific data compression, rasterization and then recompression, editing and re-export … then YouTube. We’re far too removed from the sensors to make any judgement there. I’m unconvinced by this line of thinking.
As for the drifting mouse and non-flat UI we also don’t know what UX/VR hardware a stereoscopic video from this mission was meant to be viewed on, or how hackily that intended experience had to be flattened into a video for this leak. The text and cursor may very well be rendered in 3d in the full viewing rig. The cursor may not be driven by a mouse but by some other 3d pointing device which drifts, or drifts when remotely simulated (per other commenters).
(All that said, I’m personally still undecided on these remarkable videos. But this is all very entertaining. :) )
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u/kcimc Aug 15 '23
You're right that it's not "sensor noise". It's just "noise", i.e. everything that isn't modeled by the median filtered background image. In addition to what you listed, this may also include atmospheric turbulence. Personally I am convinced that the right side video shouldn't have the same noise as the left side one unless it is a warped version of that image. But also, it being a warped image alone doesn't prove anything (for example, it may be based on SAR interferometry).
And you're also right that a custom viewer could have been made for this that has a non-OS cursor driven by a drifting joystick. But given the way it moves otherwise, I don't think that's what's happening.
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u/I_talk Aug 15 '23
Could the upload compression on YouTube have applied any of these discrepancies?
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u/ArmChairAnalyst86 Aug 15 '23
I think it's important to remember that whether you believe this is really what happened, or that it crashed, or whatever, that someone took the initiative to create this in such detail and in response to an anomalous situation where a plane was straight up lost. Did it just age like wine? Was it a faked video by pros for disinformation? Either way, it's a noteworthy event and alternative theory at this stage of the game.
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u/atomkraft Aug 15 '23
Everyday for me I vacillate between this goddamn tossup of “this is all just collective sunk-cost fallacy” and “hold on just a minute…”
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u/Crakpotz Aug 15 '23
This could be valid, but may not be but you lost me at the mouse drift. This was posted in 14, I would test different screens from that time and compare. Run the difference image on them with mouse drift. If it’s real that should tell you if the video is legitimate. Could an oleophobic coating cause something like that.
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u/PsychologicalFun5427 Aug 15 '23
Geniune quick question, could the matching noise not just come from a video being copied from the original or rescaled up (interpolated) to another source/codec? or even from a sharpening filter someone may have added after they received the original video?
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u/AHappy_Wanderer Aug 15 '23
I really like the effort people are putting to explaining this, but it is really too technical, only people in the field can understand fully what is being said
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u/CharlieStep Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
- Most cam recorders since the first iphone use some sort of temporal (so multiframe) upsampling and antialiasing techniques that introduce generated noise into the captured image in order to smooth out jaggedness and source data.
- The video we're analyzing definitely have been preprocessed ( i haven't looked into the file codec metadata - but assuming the source was uploaded to YT - we are talking about a vid that has been treated with an custom h264 codec setup) Therefore we should account for some sort of artifacts generated by the codec but also some sort of progressive image stippling / blue noise importance sampling.
- The artifact ridden doubling of the video feed might be just due to badly written display driver for all we know, or slightly different feed settings (or could be software error). There is a big possibility that artifacts that we're seeing are the result some sort of dithering / smoothing of the feed from the display driver. In such setups that allow for simultanious display of FLIR/color data side to side it could be simply an error or difference in settings in the way that the footage is being feed trough - to the separate image viewports - and there is no way we can check that with the data we have.
Imo - And I hate to be the bummer, because im not ok with the idea of planes being stolen by aliens - the artifacts you portray here can be explained also by the way modern direct data to video solutions work.
Obviously whomever made the videos (assuming they are fake) knew that. Analyzing them on a per pixel basis w/o access to the source data is kinda like looking for signs in a bowl of cereal.
Imo a way more intriguing approach to debunking this video would be to figure out potential lens used to capture the image and then using that to calculate and compare footage with the altitude from which the video feed was allegedly captured. That way i think it'll be fairly easy to see if it checks out with any potential satellite position/data. (unfortunately i dont have time to look into this)
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u/traction Aug 15 '23
After reading this post, and then the comments about Citrix running at 24fps in 2014 which matches up with this video...WTF.
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u/Weary-Reading2153 Aug 15 '23
OP great write-up, can someone clarify.
- The video is either a fake
- Or -
- It is a contractor remoting into a secure computer over Citrix and using a phone to record what he sees on the screen.
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u/Glad-Temperature-744 Aug 15 '23
If it's a fake, it appears to be a fake that's being played through a Citrix client somehow. I'd consider it to be nearly impossible to create such a recognizable cursor effect without the actual system. Especially when you could just use the system. I'm just not sure how you'd do that. Run it on a remote server, and then log in, start a pre-rendered video, zoom, and swipe to follow the plane image? That requires you to render a LOT more video. And why? How would they even know that codex is related to this at all?
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u/mutilatedpuppet Aug 15 '23
*someone tries to debunk it with pixel drift
*turns out it proves it is a recording of a physical screen showing a remote session to a government issue operating system further proving the videos as legit.
jesus, this is starting to get scary
every single "debooonk" has only proved them to be more legit
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u/TripplBubbl Aug 15 '23 edited Aug 15 '23
Is there evidence that Citrix is used by the government?
Edit: I'm an idiot -- it's literally designed for government use
It seems conclusive, then, that the cursor, and by extension, the plane footage, is legit. The question then remains whether the UAPs and wormhole are VFX.
If they are VFX, then someone with access to classified satellite footage of an airliner likely to be the missing MH370 risked their job by taking the footage in order to create a hoax that was barely propagated across the internet and got virtually no traction until nine years later.
Very strange indeed.
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u/[deleted] Aug 15 '23
This is the most interesting week I’ve had on Reddit and I’m seriously impressed at the detailed analysis of this video from both sides. I’ve been having so much fun reading these