Bellingcat is fine. They sustain all their claims with evidence, and have never been proven wrong.
About that, read what this Bellingcat insider has to say...
...I must consider Bellingcat to be nothing more than trolls impersonating journalists. Bellingcat appears to be less legitimate than Fox News."
That is coming from the guy who has build Bellingcats fotoanalysis software..
https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/729-All-Mouth,-No-Trousers.html
Thanks Tunnelforce. I remember this argument and this guy Krawetz.
Let me start by saying that he is not very clear as to exactly which Bellingcat report he is referring to and exactly which problem he has with their analysis and exactly which of their claims he is contesting and exactly on which grounds.
So hang in there, I'm going to try to deduce all of that, and then see what's left over of his argument :
He starts with "
Last year, a group called 'Bellingcat' came out with a report about MH17... ". Yeah. Bellingcat came out with dozens of reports about MH17. Which one ?
He has a link in this statement : "
However, as I pointed out in my blog entry, they used it wrong.". Follow the link and you get to this blog from June 8, 2015 :
https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/676-Continuing-Education.htmlwhere he states "
A few days ago, a group called "Bellingcat" published a report where they tried to do some digital photo forensics.". Still no link, but I think he refers to this Bellingcat post :
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2015/05/31/mh17-forensic-analysis-of-satellite-images-released-by-the-russian-ministry-of-defence/which refers to this detailed report :
https://www.bellingcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Forensic_analysis_of_satellite_images_EN.pdfThis is a report where Bellingcat analyzed the pictures that the Russian Ministry of Defense presented in their July 21, 2014 press conference.
His complaint seems to be the ELA analysis that Bellingcat ran on one picture (picture 4), the one with the clouds in there.
Using ELA, we cannot determine the authenticity of this picture: we cannot tell if it is real, and we cannot tell if it is fake. We can only conclude that this is a low quality picture and that the black text on white annotations were added last. If there was a higher quality version of this picture (without the annotations), then we would have a better chance at detecting any potential alterations.
It is curious why he concludes that, since his own tool FotoForensics clearly shows a difference in error levels between the C and D regions, as Bellingcat points out (on page 11) :
The difference in the error levels between areas D and C cannot be explained by the image’s
content. While error level differences may be caused by blurry image content, the clouds on
the right side are sharply defined structures, so the error levels should not exhibit any
significant deviations from the central part of the image in this field.
On page 11, Bellingcat also gives an example of a different satellite picture, with a similar cloud structure, where ELA shows consistent error levels across the picture, contrary to C and D area differences in the MoD picture.
Bellingcat logically concludes :
Therefore, it is highly likely that the cloud in Picture 4 is not part of the original image and was added later.
Now, even if you discard all that, and go with this guy's assessment that Bellingcat should not conclude this because the picture is too low quality, you have to know that any alleged alterations on picture 4 are not important at all. The important part about picture 4 is that is was mis-dated by the MoD, which was determined by comparing the satellite image to WorldView satellite images, NOT by ELA. On page 17 :
Picture 4 was taken between 1 June 2014 and 18 June 2014.
Which proves that the Russian Ministry of Defense lied about the date this picture was taken.
And that was determined without ELA, by just comparing the MoD image to WorldView images.
And that was just ONE picture from the Bellingcat report.
A more important one is picture 5, taken south of Zaroschinskoe, where ELA analysis suggests that the MoD edited 2 BUK vehicles into the satellite image.
Either way, there has been some criticism of using ELA for photo forensics.
That's why Bellingcat contacted the James Martin Center for Non-Proliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, for an independent analysis of the MoD pictures. Here is their report :
http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1201635/mh17-anniversary/This report uses a different method than ELA, and still came to the same conclusions as Bellingcat did using FotoForensics. For picture 4 specifically, they conclude :
The same three regions in the ELA analysis conducted by Bellingcat are evident across multiple filters in Tungstène that show differences in quantization, compression, and noise. In an unaltered image, the central region of the image is unlikely to appear starkly different from the clouds. The cloud on the left side of the image is almost certainly digitally altered or added; the cloud on the right is more than likely altered.
and regarding picture 5 :
Again, we know the labels have been added and, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the field has also been blurred to hide the resolution of the satellite.
But the image shows other signs of manipulation that call into question its integrity. These manipulations include signs that the two Buk launchers do not match the underlying image, suggesting that they have been enhanced or added digitally from another image. Two filters show obvious signs of tampering – artifacts left by software such as Photoshop.
again confirming Bellingcat's analysis.
Now, once again, regarding Krawetz objections to picture 4 alterations are not so important. They don't even show up in Bellingcat's conclusions :
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2015/05/31/mh17-forensic-analysis-of-satellite-images-released-by-the-russian-ministry-of-defence/As far as this guy Krawetz is concerned, it looks like his ego was hurt when Bellingcat decided to use his open-access tool rather than ask for his 'expert' opinion, so he could feel important.
Well, sorry Krawetz, but welcome to the age of open-source journalism, where we can all check the evidence and don't have to solely rely on self-proclaimed experts like you any more.