• (cs)
    "the taxes around here charge a bit of a premium during the holidays."
    I thought the US was supposed to have been founded as a protest against high taxes?

    Oh, Taxis!

  • mara (unregistered)

    Clearly, Dale King photos were so ugly they desperately needed to be photoshopped.

  • (cs)

    Somebody else do the "badger badger badger" thing with the photoshop pic this time. I did it last time.

  • Mitch (unregistered)

    That last screenshot is so photoshopped, I cant believe you didn't notice that Alex

  • (cs) in reply to Bellinghman
    Bellinghman:
    Oh, Taxis!

    Don't Ever Antagonize The Horn.

  • (cs)

    I think Ken Cooney may some issues telling left from right.

  • Anon (unregistered)

    Guess that explains how Dry Ridge got so dry.

  • Anon (unregistered)

    I see you blurred out the addresses on the first one, but doesn't the (clearly visible) bar code at the bottom of the envelope basically encode the same information?

  • CodeReview (unregistered) in reply to Someone You Know
    Someone You Know:
    I think Ken Cooney may some issues telling left from right.

    It's always embarassing to be called out by Someone You Know

  • reader (unregistered)

    What is with the temperature measure for Cedar Creek?

  • reader (unregistered) in reply to reader
    reader:
    What is with the temperature measure for Cedar Creek?

    uhm, Grove, Cedar Grove?

    captcha: genitus, instant-roflmao

  • AnonCoward23 (unregistered) in reply to Someone You Know
    Someone You Know:
    I think Ken Cooney may some issues telling left from right.
    He clearly meant the other left.
  • cthulhu (unregistered)

    The realwtf is you have given me his address.

    Blurring it only works so far. Giving me 3 instances of the same blurred text provides enough info to retrieve the underlying address.

    Oops!

  • (cs) in reply to Someone You Know
    Someone You Know:
    I think Ken Cooney may some issues telling left from right.

    Naw, he's a stage actor, and was talking about stage left.

  • Addison (unregistered) in reply to Mitch
    Mitch:
    That last screenshot is so photoshopped, I cant believe you didn't notice that Alex

    Uh, no it really isn't. I've gotten that weirdness myself.

  • Anonymous coward (unregistered) in reply to Bellinghman

    <quote>I thought the US was supposed to have been founded as a protest against high taxes?</quote>

    The Real WTF is in the comments, as usual.

  • (cs) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    I see you blurred out the addresses on the first one, but doesn't the (clearly visible) bar code at the bottom of the envelope basically encode the same information?

    Not really. The postal bar code is an encode of the zip+4, along with a couple of check-digits.

    Too bad they don't do a 2-d barcode like UPS does. Now THAT'S fun stuff.

  • (cs) in reply to Addison
    Addison:
    Mitch:
    That last screenshot is so photoshopped, I cant believe you didn't notice that Alex

    Uh, no it really isn't. I've gotten that weirdness myself.

    Error parsing style: "humor". Please try again.

  • Tim (unregistered) in reply to cthulhu
    cthulhu:
    Blurring it only works so far. Giving me 3 instances of the same blurred text provides enough info to retrieve the underlying address.

    This is utter nonsense.

  • Nobody You Know (unregistered) in reply to jimlangrunner

    Zip+4 will narrow it down to which block and which side of the street. Once you have that, you just go there and find the only house with a properly-configured wireless router and you've found your Daily WTF reader.

  • (cs) in reply to cthulhu
    cthulhu:
    Blurring it only works so far. Giving me 3 instances of the same blurred text provides enough info to retrieve the underlying address.

    Whatever... Just because you saw that article on Slashdot or where ever it was doesn't mean you can do it. Also, they used a type of Gaussian blur which preserves shapes whereas the blur on the envelopes is more of a smear/wipe and no shapes are preserved whatsoever.

    As for the real snail-mail WTF -- Citibank sending me two letters a month telling my my online statement is available. (they've stopped)

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Nobody You Know
    Nobody You Know:
    Zip+4 will narrow it down to which block and which side of the street. Once you have that, you just go there and find the only house with a properly-configured wireless router and you've found your Daily WTF reader.

    Or just knock on a random door and ask for Martin. Even if it's the wrong door, I'm sure his helpful neighbors will happily tell you that he lives at number 42.

  • Steven (unregistered)

    The real WTF here is that I posted the Niagara Falls picture (not "Dale King"), and even gave the description that was used. However, the "FinePix" message did not happen to me, and I did not send that with my post.

  • (cs)

    I work with busted computers too much.

    CMOS CHECKSUM ERROR - DEFAULTS LOADED Press F2 for setup Press F1 to continue

    Also, D/M/Y on the receipt. WTF!

  • (cs) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Nobody You Know:
    Zip+4 will narrow it down to which block and which side of the street. Once you have that, you just go there and find the only house with a properly-configured wireless router and you've found your Daily WTF reader.

    Or just knock on a random door and ask for Martin. Even if it's the wrong door, I'm sure his helpful neighbors will happily tell you that he lives at number 42.

    Ya know, since you guys all seem to have such a big ol man-crush on this Martin guy, maybe you should just ask him his address...he'd probably be much less freaked out when you showed up and gushed about how funny you thought his pictures on the interwebs were.

    (Seriously though, I'm sure this guy would be better off if the address was left untouched...then, at least, no one would try to hack it, and it'd lose its appeal...)

  • mauhiz (unregistered)

    let's save bandwidth, no more comment! let's save bandwidth, no more comment! let's save bandwidth, no more comment!

  • Techzoid (unregistered)

    Really? 89 degrees in Cincinnati a few weeks ago?

  • IByte (unregistered)

    Perhaps they meant "there's no more paper in our office because we've mailed it all out".

  • Certified Coward (unregistered) in reply to jimlangrunner
    jimlangrunner:
    Too bad they don't do a 2-d barcode like UPS does. Now THAT'S fun stuff.

    Then what's that bunch of pixels in top right corner?

  • xxx (unregistered) in reply to Tim

    No. It's called "image processing". You know, stuff invented by smart people who think about problems instead of trolling on Internet forums.

    To address another commenter's claim that you can't undo directional smearing, that you can only degauss: on the contrary, this kind of filter is actually easier to revert. Learn how blurring is done. The operation is reversible without loss if it is a localized filter (which it always is in these kinds of blurrings) and you know its kind and exact parameters. Typically, you only know the kind (e.g. here: directional distortion) and you have to guess the parameters (here: speed). That's easy: the values space is small, use binary search.

    Recommendation: if you are trying to hide some part of an image, DO NOT blur it. Instead, draw an opaque black (or whatever, e.g. random patter; just don't apply any operation that uses original pixel values as inputs) box over the sensitive part. That is guaranteed to be unreversible. And if you absolutely want to use a fancy filter, you better understand the math first.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Techzoid
    Techzoid:
    Really? 89 degrees in Cincinnati a few weeks ago?

    Now that you mention it, on the Channel 9 one you can see something about strong storms hitting the tri-state. I wonder if this was around the time that hurricane Ike hit Cincinnati and knocked everybody's power out. That might explain some strange sensor readings due to power being all screwed up.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to xxx
    xxx:
    Recommendation: if you are trying to hide some part of an image, DO NOT blur it. Instead, draw an opaque black box over the sensitive part.

    And TRWTF is that people continue to mess about with blurs when a black box over the sensitive pixels is both easier and more secure.

  • Andy (unregistered) in reply to cthulhu
    cthulhu:
    The realwtf is you have given me his address.

    Blurring it only works so far. Giving me 3 instances of the same blurred text provides enough info to retrieve the underlying address.

    Oops!

    Big talk. Let's see you do it.

    Whether or not the data is retrievable depends a lot on the type of blur, the resolution and contrast of the image, and whether or not the images are unadulterated before they're blurred. (It's easy to mangle it before blurring.)

    Another important question is whether you can make assumptions about the content. (ie: Getting an account number off of a check printed in OCR font is a lot easier than getting a random address printed in a normal human font.)

    Really, if you have to develop custom software to find someone's address, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he's going to consider it "good enough".

  • clickey McClicker (unregistered)

    Why bother blurring? it takes less CPU time to just draw a few black boxes. Does the blur make it more authentic or something.

    I only care because more CPU time means more trees that were burned to make electricity.

  • (cs) in reply to JPhi
    JPhi:
    cthulhu:
    Blurring it only works so far. Giving me 3 instances of the same blurred text provides enough info to retrieve the underlying address.

    Whatever... Just because you saw that article on Slashdot or where ever it was doesn't mean you can do it.

    No, it was one of those evening detective shows. There are 3 steps:

    1. Spray window cleaner on a Q-Tip
    2. End of Q-tip turns red
    3. Murderer's picture appears on computer monitor

    This process is called "Forensic Science".

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to squeem
    squeem:
    JPhi:
    cthulhu:
    Blurring it only works so far. Giving me 3 instances of the same blurred text provides enough info to retrieve the underlying address.

    Whatever... Just because you saw that article on Slashdot or where ever it was doesn't mean you can do it.

    No, it was one of those evening detective shows. There are 3 steps:

    1. Spray window cleaner on a Q-Tip
    2. End of Q-tip turns red
    3. Murderer's picture appears on computer monitor

    This process is called "Forensic Science".

    No, you missed the step where lots of different criminal pictures appear on the screen while the computer searches the database. Because everybody knows, it's important to show the data on the screen as you search it.

  • Bob Dole (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    I hear it speeds up the search considerably to show all the pictures and redraw the interface.

  • Dennis (unregistered) in reply to jimlangrunner

    You're confusing Zip+4 with Postnet. The Postnet barcode shown encodes Zip+4 plus the delivery point which is often the last two digits of the numeric part of the street address. DPBC (Delivery Point Bar Code - 11 digit Postnet) is supposed to be unique for every deliverable address.

    BTW, Pekin, IL, but I won't get any more specific than that.

  • gravis (unregistered)

    I've seen that multiple Photoshop import error pop up quite a bit actually... on client computers with pirated installs of Photoshop. Way to go.

  • Squidfood (unregistered)

    I work in [unnamed government department]. We like everyone do most things by email, including all departmental memos etc. Imagine my surprise, a few months ago, to find an actual paper memo in my mailbox. Then I noticed there was one in every one of the 250+ mailboxes in the mail room. A colleague later reported the same thing in his building, bringing the total to 1000 (at least).

    It was a memo on the Paperwork Reduction Act.

  • (cs)

    I saw the Niagra Falls one myself, and took a few shots myself. Never got around to submitting it though. Glad someone else did.

  • (cs) in reply to squeem
    squeem:
    JPhi:
    cthulhu:
    Blurring it only works so far. Giving me 3 instances of the same blurred text provides enough info to retrieve the underlying address.

    Whatever... Just because you saw that article on Slashdot or where ever it was doesn't mean you can do it.

    No, it was one of those evening detective shows. There are 3 steps:

    1. Spray window cleaner on a Q-Tip
    2. End of Q-tip turns red
    3. Murderer's picture appears on computer monitor

    This process is called "Forensic Science".

    I'll create a gui interface using visual basic and see if I can track an ip address.

  • (cs) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    I see you blurred out the addresses on the first one, but doesn't the (clearly visible) bar code at the bottom of the envelope basically encode the same information?

    I decoded the barcode. It turns out that the mails are coming from INSIDE YOUR HOUSE!!

  • (cs)

    The battle for which comment can display the hottest temperature has begun!

    1000°.

  • Anon Ymous (unregistered) in reply to Dennis
    Dennis:
    You're confusing Zip+4 with Postnet. The Postnet barcode shown encodes Zip+4 plus the delivery point which is often the last two digits of the numeric part of the street address. DPBC (Delivery Point Bar Code - 11 digit Postnet) is supposed to be unique for every deliverable address.

    BTW, Pekin, IL, but I won't get any more specific than that.

    (1300 block) Willow St. Pekin, IL 61554-2908 delivery point 04.

  • Anon Ymous (unregistered) in reply to Anon Ymous

    http://www.fsbolocal.com/propertyPics/11488_0_1190679876441.jpg

    O_O

  • Dennis (unregistered) in reply to Anon Ymous
    Anon Ymous:

    (1300 block) Willow St. Pekin, IL 61554-2908 delivery point 04.

    I can tell you Martin's last name and show you pictures of his house. It's all out there for anyone to see. Privacy is an illusion.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Anon Ymous
    Anon Ymous:
    Dennis:
    You're confusing Zip+4 with Postnet. The Postnet barcode shown encodes Zip+4 plus the delivery point which is often the last two digits of the numeric part of the street address. DPBC (Delivery Point Bar Code - 11 digit Postnet) is supposed to be unique for every deliverable address.

    BTW, Pekin, IL, but I won't get any more specific than that.

    (1300 block) Willow St. Pekin, IL 61554-2908 delivery point 04.

    Well, aren't you clever. I'm sure the person who originally submitted the picture really appreciates it.

    In a related WTF, why blur the banks address. I'm pretty sure that's not a secret.

  • Dennis (unregistered) in reply to Anon Ymous
    Anon Ymous:
    http://www.fsbolocal.com/propertyPics/11488_0_1190679876441.jpg

    O_O

    Oh, I see you've been busy, too.

  • (cs) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    In a related WTF, why blur the banks address. I'm pretty sure that's not a secret.

    Because the letter may have been sent from a local branch. If so, it'd probably be the one where Martin set up his account, which might give you a clue as to where he lived. Of course, that means little since other, more specific information about where he lives is available elsewhere on the envelope.

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