Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2015 September 1

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September 1

UTC - Correct me if I'm wrong

I started watching a movie just now. The scene is dark and there is a readout at the bottom of the screen saying that the events are taking place in Kandahar at 05:00 UTC. Since Afghan time is +4:30, wouldn't that make it 09:30 local time? And therefore, it shouldn't be dark but instead be light out? This movie didn't get good reviews and now I'm seriously wondering if it's even worth the time. (pun intended) Dismas|^(talk) 02:47, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

According to [1] the latest sunrise in Kandahar is 07:08 local time in January. That is 02:38 UTC. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:27, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Okay, well the screen also said it was 18 July. So going by that and your comment, I guess they screwed it up. Dismas|^(talk) 03:39, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

They probably added 4:30 to the local time by mistake, which was then probably 00:30 (or half past midnight). But the mistake is evidence of poor editorial quality. Marco polo (talk) 16:05, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

It was a dark and stormy morning ... Clarityfiend (talk) 07:56, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

• Reminds me of when Queen & Country had a mosque in Kabul facing east. —Tamfang (talk) 19:24, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

How to determine if a picture posted on the net has been "taken" from elsewhere

I'm a long time (nearly 12 months) reader of the "behind the scenes" stuff here at Wikipedia (having used the front end for many years more) - to the point I have finally registered an account and hope to contribute in some way in the future (I've corrected a few spelling mistakes so far).

Having read virtually all of the archives of the helpdesk/reference desks/WP:ANI/WP:AN/WP:SPI etc. I remember seeing mention of a way of attempting to trace whether an image posted has been "taken" from another site (E.g. Google images etc.)

The situation is that, on another site, there is someone who has posted asking for monetary donations with an attached back-story which would pull at the heart strings of many. This user has only ever posted this one message on that site and the "go fund me" page was set up on the same date.

There are photos attached and I am fairly cynical; so would be interested to use the functionality if available to see if the same images are available elsewhere. Having moderated in a technical capacity on the site in question I am well aware of what can and does go on.

If anyone can help (either by providing instructions or possibly even messaging me and I will provide the details) I would be most grateful.

LItD Londoner in the desert (talk) 17:54, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

There are at least two web sites that can locate other copies of a picture. One is Google Images itself: drag and drop the image onto the search bar. Another is TinEye: paste the direct URL of the image into the search bar. Of course, if they don't find it, that doesn't prove that there isn't another copy; and if they do, that doesn't prove which one came first. --65.94.50.17 (talk) 18:03, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)You spent a bit of time explaining about your question but I don't understand what the actual question is. I think you're looking for instructions on how to do an image search. If that is the case, you can often right click on an image and a menu will appear. In that menu is often a choice that says "Search for image via Google" or some such (the wording depends on which browser you're using). Choose that and you will get a search of that image in other places on the 'net. Or, you can pull up the same menu and choose "copy image URL". Then go to either http://www.tineye.com or http://images.google.com and paste the URL in the search box there. Does that help? Dismas|^(talk) 18:05, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you both. Tineye was absolutely what I was looking for. Greatly obliged. Londoner in the desert (talk) 04:21, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree that either the Google Image search, or TinEye is the way to find out whether other copies (or near-copies) of the image exist elsewhere on the web. However, that doesn't tell you which of those copies is the original. For that, you need to do more work. Firstly, you need to figure out if one copy is cropped compared to the other - the cropped one must be a derivative of the uncropped one - so that tells you something. If they are all absolutely identical, then you may need to use something like https://archive.org/web/ ("The Wayback Machine") to see which of the webpages on which the image occurs has contained that image for the longest amount of time. If it's a JPEG image - then you might want to look at the "metadata" to determine if (for example) one copy tells you which camera was used to take the picture and the other copy has "Edited by Photoshop" or something...suggesting that the former is the original and the latter is the copy. Another consideration is the relative 'authority' of the web sites where the photograph is found. If one of them is (say) the New York Times newspaper site - and the other is some guy who wants money from donations - then you might suspect that the latter is faking and the former is the original. Images that are also found on copyrighted 'stock photography' sites are another red-flag.

None of these things can ever constitute truly definitive proof.

• It's very easy to manipulate color tint, do cropping and small rotations or mirroring of a picture and fool Google and TinEye's algorithms into failing to match the original.
• When an older and newer copy exist, it's possible that BOTH web pages stole the image from some yet older site that no longer exists.
• You can change the JPEG metadata to say whatever you like.
• Sometimes journalists and photo libraries steal images too!

...but these tricks can certainly give you a sufficiently high level of doubt to tell you not to spend money backing a crowd-funded initiative...and perhaps also to warn others of your lack of confidence.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:40, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

There are rules and regulations on what you can and can not use when it comes to a picture. The majority of the time, the picture will have a symbol on the picture to indicate where the picture was originally from. In addition, when you search for the image and see a reliable source, like a news channel or government website, they will explain where the photo originally came from. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/305165/c-notice-201401.pdf Kmmi227 (talk) 19:34, 20 October 2015 (UTC)