How a Microsoft Font Brought Down Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (2017)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/how-a-microsoft-font-brought-down-pakistani-prime-minister-nawaz-sharif/article35828938/

by ing33k • 8 years ago

292 105 8 years ago

theglobeandmail.com

huntertwo• 8 years ago

That’s really funny. Don’t think I’ve ever seen Calibri on any legal document now that I think of it.

thewizardofaus• 8 years ago

They should have used Comic sans. Released 1994.

xbmcuser2• 8 years ago

There a saying in Urdu (Pakistani Language) Nakal ke liye Bhi Akal Chaye i.e Even to cheat you need brains.

ccozan• 8 years ago

I guess Courier would be the standart choice, right? At least most of the official and semi official papers I've seen were typed in a variant of it.

Freak_NL• 8 years ago

A large part of that seems due to inertia; these kind of documents have always been typeset in a monospaced font, so there is bound to be a good reason for it — or so the mindset goes.

That reason usually boils down to 'because that's what it looked with typewriters before we switched to desktop publishing'.

In the US Courier stuck, in other countries it was Times New Roman with bad default choices for leading, font size, and line width. Legal and government typography for Latin alphabet based scripts seems to mostly be substandard everywhere.

cm21872• 8 years ago

Judicial experts in France love to make reports with fancy fonts.

et2o2• 8 years ago

My quick Google was unsuccessful. Care to provide an example?

ChicagoBoy11• 8 years ago

Curious how/who noticed the font detail and knew enough that it could help date the document.

However, couldn't the machine identification code from the printer reveal exactly when the document was printed?

nobrains5• 8 years ago

It was identified by the JIT (join investigation team) established by the supreme court to look at the case. And Robert W. Radley of London-based The Radley Forensic Document Laboratory was the person who helped in identifying it.

Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1344654

pknerd3• 8 years ago

They hired the services of the expert who identified the font.

lkbm• 8 years ago

It's an ice reminder that "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" extends beyond computer programming.

Another example: IMDB has a goof documented for the Bourne Supremacy wherein the fluorescent lamp is humming at 60Hz, instead of the 50Hz appropriate for Goa, India: https://twitter.com/deeaen/status/961369721571627009

baybal26• 8 years ago

BTW, Avenfield reference case verdict has just been pronounced. Literally few minutes ago: Nawaz gets 10 years!

philbarr• 8 years ago

Link for the curious:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44737793

degenerate• 8 years ago

Good. Corruption needs jail time, not just fines.

hutzlibu4• 8 years ago

Only if the same standard is held to everyone. I don't know any details about this case nor pakistans situation in general, but I know that in most corrupt states, corruption trials are usually used in a power struggle, where one corrupt side brings down the other side, and just has their own corpses better buried and/or is connected better to the investigators/secret intelligence.

nobrains5• 8 years ago

Nawaz 10 years jail.

His daughter, who faked the document, 7 years in jail.

Millions in fines.

Apartments in question to be returned to government.

userbinator• 8 years ago

It's like watching a movie set in the 1950s and noticing someone in the background walking past with his head looking down at a smartphone.

ChrisRR2• 8 years ago

That's called an anachronism.

amp108• 8 years ago

We're not talking about movies with a giant snake.

arif_sohaib5• 8 years ago

Finally a comment about the article and not about Pakistan.

emeth• 8 years ago

Like this Charlie Chaplin 1928 movie, with a time traveler talking into a cell phone walking by?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU_k4yGPeOI

chungy• 8 years ago

Good luck getting cell reception in 1928 :)

amriksohata• 8 years ago

Pakistan is not a democracy, it is run by the military regardless of who is in power, the ISI it's it's real head of state, which have a pro-islamist agenda but with a slightly modern outlook for economic growth. Regardless if he did any wrongdoing, there have been far worse acts by politicians in Pakistan and they have got away with it.

amingilani• 8 years ago

That may have been true a few decades ago, but it's certainly becoming more democratic.. still not the best, though. Especially with the military curb circulations of a private national newspaper.

iKSv22• 8 years ago

Sure its not perfect but its definitely not how it was in my childhood ( The Musharraf days )

Waterluvian• 8 years ago

Democracy is more palatable these days because the power it yields to the people can be reclaimed easier than ever through modern technology. Keep the wrong ideas contained through control of media channels, censorship, etc. and you can marginalize the true freedom their vote supposedly provides.

baybal26• 8 years ago

Attack on Dawn and Geo were first of a kind after 5 years lull.

In last 5 years, Pakistan saw, well, nothing less than an explosion in privately owned press and TV channels.

jessaustin• 8 years ago

I didn't really understand USA until I spent some time considering Pakistan.

selimthegrim2• 8 years ago

This. Pakistan is a Republican wet dream, if Republicans were Muslim.

eternalban• 8 years ago

I didn't really understand geopolitical theater until I spent some time considering USA, China, and Pakistan.

typon• 8 years ago

Whataboutism. Corrupt politicians have ruined Pakistan and all of them should rot in prison regardless of their political affiliations. This also includes the corrupt Army generals and officers who have sucked Pakistan dry for years.

pknerd3• 8 years ago

Our neighbor's democratic PM has a pro-Hinduism agenda despite of heading a secular state. A year back many opposite voices silents who raised questions about the fake surgical strike. What's your point here by the way?

iamshs2• 8 years ago

Dude, your law and order has made sure to eliminate all Sikhs not only in Pakistan but even in Afghanistan. Million strong minority has been reduced to mere thousand. Let’s not point fingers here, your dictators have made this whole region a hellhole for minorities.

dang2• 8 years ago

Please don't take HN on flamewar tangents and especially not on nationalistic or religious flamewar tangents. Those are right out here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

nobrains5• 8 years ago

This reply is off-topic, political, flamebait and without references. Not Hacker News material.

iamshs2• 8 years ago

Pakistan is not a democracy. That remains a fact.

Your constitution has a clause that only a Muslim and a pious one at that can be president or PM. Nawaz Sharif was dismissed because he was not considered a pious Muslim. Imran Khan is a Military stooge who led the charge against him.

philliphaydon4• 8 years ago

If it was released in beta of longhorn in 2004 couldn’t they have still legitimately created the doc???

chris_wot2• 8 years ago

The first public beta was released on June 6, 2006.

philliphaydon4• 8 years ago

It was first presented in a 2004 beta of Windows Vista, then codenamed Longhorn

According to Wikipedia.

Hence my question. Even tho it wasn’t yet part of office could it have been selected if it was installed on the OS?

nobrains5• 8 years ago

Even if it was, it would beg the question of probability of them (1) installing and using the beta and (2) somehow selecting an obscure font and (3) the font ends up becoming the default font years later.

hutzlibu4• 8 years ago

Or someone else smuggled the font on their computer, so to set them up on this corruption case 12 years later ... also possible, but even less likely.

Fnoord• 8 years ago

Extremely unlikely government officials of Pakistan used Longhorn beta in production...

iKSv22• 8 years ago

"longhorn" aah that word triggers the memories of "packs" we used to get on deviantart to modify your windows back in the day

philliphaydon4• 8 years ago

https://www.dawn.com/news/1344685

In a separate email, de Groot, the font designer himself, said that while in theory it would have been possible to create a document using Calibri in 2006, the font would have to be obtained from a beta operating system, "from the hands of computer nerds".
"Why would anyone use a completely unknown font for an official document in 2006?" he went on to question.
"If the person using Calibri was such a font lover that he or she had to use the new Calibri, then he or she should be able to prove that other documents were printed with Calibri in 2006, and these prints should be in the hands of other people as well," he wrote.
De Groot said in his opinion the document signed by Maryam Nawaz was "produced much later, when Calibri was the default font in MS Word".

So apparently yes it would be possible but highly unlikely.

deltateam5• 8 years ago

Having dealt with so many Pakistani web/graphic designers and photo retouchers back then, I don't think it is highly unlikely at all.

There was such a competitive race to the bottom with graphic design work that I could have seen the Prime Minister's son, daughter or anyone in their network having had that font on their computer.

At the time of this trial, I always had to laugh about the argument and wondered if I could present this reality as a third party to the trial, but then I saw that like every Pakistani Prime Minister is brought down this way and realized it has no bearing on my life whatsoever.

forapurpose• 8 years ago

> "Why would anyone use a completely unknown font for an official document in 2006?"

De Groot lives in a rarified world where someone would consider this question. Most people never give a thought to which font they are using or whether it's appropriate. Maybe someone just typed the document on a handy computer, on which someone happened to have installed the beta OS.

I'm sure he knows hinting and drop caps far better than I do, but he has no expertise about the likelihood of that happening.

chris_wot2• 8 years ago

Haha! Sans Sharif indeed!

ankit219• 8 years ago

Pakistan acted on the Panama papers is a big news since a lot of countries with allegedly a hard stance against corruption did not.

nobrains5• 8 years ago

It was mostly due to the efforts of one man, Imran Khan.

arif_sohaib5• 8 years ago

Yep. Hopefully he wins the current elections. Me and my whole family waited hours in lines to vote for him last elections.

fish_bizkit3• 8 years ago

I beg to differ, rather I think it was due to the fact that Nawaz had certain "disagreements" with the military elite that he was brought down. Imran Khan's whole movement was based on false assumptions which he even admitted later. The lock-down of the national capital in 2014 was based on the famous accusation of "35 punctures". Which he later admitted was his political statement and there was no proof of it. I doubt if the military, especially the ISI had not intervened in the background, Imran alone would have been able to shake such a politically strong prime minister. Wasn't it revealed later on that the news of "35 punctures" was spread by some brigadier or colonel? I am not sure who it was but surely it was some army officer with ties to the politicians.

shadykiller• 8 years ago

True. Especially in India where it's wasn't even covered much in the news

baybal26• 8 years ago

Pretty much live coverage of that for the last hour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQu5n7Nh42Y

Given the channel is pro PTI, half of it is about Imran's people rawing hard on the streets.

baybal26• 8 years ago

More coverage of today's court proceedings:

https://www.dawn.com/news/1418326/guilty-nawaz-10-years-in-j...

https://www.geo.tv/latest/201862-avenfield-reference-verdict...

J-Kuhn• 8 years ago

tl;dr: Forged document claims to be from 2006, uses a font (Calibri) that was introduced 2007. Newsletters headline: "Sans Sharif".

master_ant• 8 years ago

With a name like that how can you not make the pun :)

merricksb• 8 years ago

Discussion from about a year ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14751358

zenovision• 8 years ago

Almost every printed document also have hidden yellow dots that allows you to get certain information about that document (print date, print model etc...)

Froyoh• 8 years ago

Even monochrome printers?

sjm-lbm• 8 years ago

The scandal wasn't near as big, but a similar issue arose during the 2004 US Presidential election. Documents claiming to be from the early 1970s about George W Bush's air national guard service were found to use things like proportional-width fonts - and, indeed, the entire document seems to have just been typed using the default settings for a contemporary version of Word.

Here's some details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy

perl4ever• 8 years ago

The letters were short, so someone could easily have retyped them in Word. Did anyone old enough to have used a typewriter seriously claim they were photocopies of 70s era typewritten documents? Surely Dan Rather of all people must have some experience with typewriters.

djrogers• 8 years ago

Yes, on air Dan Rather did in fact claim they were taken directly from Killian’s files and had been ‘authenticated’. The person who sent them to 60 Minutes also claimed they were originals, which he subsequently burned after faxing.

CBS then spent the next couple of weeks in a ‘strident defense’ (their own investigators’ words) of the documents and their use, before ceding they screwed up and firing people over the incident.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controvers...

kevin_thibedeau• 8 years ago

Proportional typewriters did exist at the time.

maxpert• 8 years ago

I’ve been following this case from the beginning. I think in a country like Pakistan it’s a huge accomplishment! Pakistan is known for its corrupt leaders because they control the system inside out this is probably the first time law is being upheld and people are backing it.

nashashmi• 8 years ago

It's not over yet. The person is still in London.

Salamat• 8 years ago

Microsoft bought a pirate Arabic font because they would not pay the orginal owner- Boutros Fonts, his asking price, and got away with it.

unaaaa• 8 years ago

Would using the hidden printer tracking dots/stenography also work to disprove the documents age?

baybal26• 8 years ago

Looks like that Zardari is next: https://www.dawn.com/news/1418348/eminent-banker-and-zardari...

Hussain Lawai - Zardari's personal banker. There can't be anybody with more dirt on "the Beast" than him.

m23khan2• 8 years ago

This may not amount to much for Pakistani people. The forces and judiciary are so pathetically weak that they couldn't force the PM and his Daughter and his sons to remain inside of Pakistan - so what if the PM's wife is sick in London (which we don't even know if it's true) - let her die alone because she and her life is worthless for Pakistani people. For months the PM's daughter barked daily in front of masses against the judiciary yet received full security protocol and no judge's order was put forward to muzzle her rabid speeches.

And then there is the magical softening of stance overnight and miracle reduction of punishments which Pakistani judges are famous for - absolute joke. I won't be surprised at all if at the end of day, all he gets is a 'warning' and 'stern lecture'.

Finally, PM in question and his family aren't the only corrupt folks in Pakistan - the other 'dynasty' is the PPP-clan of Bhuttos/Zardaris -- now watch them flee scotch-free from Pakistan.

And the icing on cake - UK/UAE/Swiss are among nations which actively harbor corrupt and dangerous Pakistani individuals, have granted them/their families citizenship, and allow them to bring their illegal wealth - these Govts will not send the wealth or the individuals back to Pakistan. Perhaps Pakistani ISI should learn from Israel's Mossad.

gadders2• 8 years ago

Slightly offtopic, but this [1] is a great series of podcasts about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. No idea if she would have made a good leader, but she was certainly brave. Even if you're not interested in Pakistani politics, it's still fascinating.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05r6cgx/episodes/downloads

m23khan2• 8 years ago

How was she brave? She was born into a political dynasty. Used the platform laid down by her Daddy to jumpstart her own political career. Lived a privileged, pampered life. Brokered deals with the scum Taliban to help further her ambitions. Under her party the economy ALWAYS suffer and corruption increases.

It is better to take a tennis ball, declare it the next PM+Emperor-for-life of Pakistan then anybody from the Bhutto party PPP.

arif_sohaib5• 8 years ago

What do you mean no idea. She was PM several times in the 1990s and not a good one. She and Nawaz took turns robbing Pakistan until Musharraff came.

selimthegrim2• 8 years ago

Uh, she put a hit out on her brother (or let her husband do it)

gadders2• 8 years ago

I stand corrected by you all. She would be a PM as bad as the others.

I call her brave because she knew she would likely be killed if she returned.

fish_bizkit3• 8 years ago

Here's another one. This guy spent 2.6 million Rupees on tea and biscuits. With the bill of bakery items for one TV channel's interview team being 175000 Rupees.

https://www.thenews.com.pk/archive/print/641087-kp-cm-spends...

https://www.urdupoint.com/en/pakistan/bill-of-tea-provided-b...

How a Microsoft Font Brought Down Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (2017)

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