1. Why do you censor some pictures and not others?

The Fake Detective and his staff will censor a picture if we feel that it is too explicit and not something we want to include on the web site - because others might copy it from there, which would mean that we are distributing such pictures.

We occasionally censor the celebrity's picture but not the real body shot because we don't want to distribute denegrating fakes of our favorite celebrities, yet we don't feel that the real body shot is very explicit nor worth censoring.

The Fake Detective web site is a public service, and we do not want to be forced to put it behind some age checking service such as "Adult Check". We do our good works for the benefit of Mankind, and, for that reason, we want as many people as possible to be aware of the world-wide phenomenon of "Fake Celebrity Photographs". We want them to know about the types of fakes and the number of fakes circulating on the Net. We want people to know how such fakes are created, so they can more easily avoid being duped. And, of course, we want the World to know that our favorite celebrities would not pose for such pictures. Keeping the site open to all is the best way to do that.

2. Why don't you expose sexually explicit fakes?

The answer to that is largely given in response to question #1. In addition, we feel that such fakes are OBVIOUS fakes and no one should need any proof from us. Movie and TV actresses, singers, supermodels and most other celebrities do NOT pose for sexually explict pictures. The exceptions might be those few who may have become famous because they posed for such pictures. Please do not send us any sexually explicit pictures! You will only be wasting your time and ours. If you send any, we will ignore them and return only a graphic stating that we do not expose such pictures.

NOTE: The Fake Detective estimates that there are between 50,000 and 100,000 fake celebrity photographs in circulation on the Net. Of that number, 90 percent or more are sexually explicit, OBVIOUS fakes. From the other 10 percent, the few hundred fakes that we have exposed were picked because they seemed the most frequently believed or the most interesting.

3. Why don't you expose fakes of male celebrities?

The Fake Detective protects "damsels in distress". We figure that Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone and the rest of those guys can take care of themselves.

Besides, male celebrities don't seem to care if their bodies are faked. They usually think it's funny and joke about it. But female celebrities do care about being faked. They care a lot.

If a male celebrity doesn't care if his body is faked, why should I do anything to prove what is real and what is not? Who cares? They don't. I don't. It would just be a waste of time.

I don't have the time to do what I am already doing, so I don't want to waste time on doing something that no one cares about. People who look at the fakes don't really care. They're just curious. And I don't feel any need to resolve their curiosity.

Another reason: Showing human genitalia would cause people to demand that this site be put behind Adult Check or some similar service. Female genitalia is easily hidden within pubic hair, but male genitalia isn't. If I censor the genitalia on a fake of a male celebrity, it usually means censoring nearly everything that has been faked. So there would be no point in displaying the rest of the picture.

4. What software do people use to create these fakes?

We find that most fakers use Paintshop-Pro.

5. What software do you use?

We used Corel/DRAW 4.0 (which includes PhotoPaint) for our graphics work through Case #197. (It came free with our printer.) But then in July of 1998 we upgraded to Corel/DRAW 8.0, which is the primary graphics software we have been using from that point on. This web site was created with Netscape 3.0.

6. How long has The Fake Detective been in business?

The Fake Detective began investigating fakes on October 21, 1996, but because of problems with his news server he didn't officially go on-line until December 20, 1996. At that time he had already solved 20 cases and all 20 were posted to various newsgroups on that date. For more information refer to the section in this web site on "The History of The Fake Detective".

7. Who are the "damsels" that The Fake Detective tries to "protect"?

The Fake Detective tries to protect the reputations of his favorite female celebrities. Mostly they are movie and TV actresses, but some supermodels, singers and other celebrities have been added in response to popular demand from The Fake Detective's fans.  At one time we maintained a list of celebrities that we are familiar with, but it became too difficult to keep up to date.   Since his work requires that he know something about the celebrity before he can expose any fakes of them, he may not be able to assist you on queries for people he does not know.  But feel free to ask.

8. Has The Fake Detective ever made a mistake?

Yes. Three times. First with Case #109. Originally we had a clear picture of Tea Leoni wearing lingerie that didn't show her nipple, and we had a slightly blurred picture where her nipple was visible. The Fake Detective mistakenly thought that someone had painted in Tea Leoni's nipple to create a fake. It turned out that Los Angeles Magazine had painted out the nipple for their cover. In the real picture, Tea Leoni's nipple is visible through the lingerie. The Case File had to be re-done.

Second was Case #131. We mistakenly identified a picture of actress Mel Harris as being a picture of talk show host Cristina Ferrare. Cristina appeared on the cover of the March 1977 issue of Harper's Bazaar and Mel appeared inside the same issue (but was not identified). We were told that High Society Magazine identified the picture as being of Cristina and we created Case #131 with that information. Eventually were were convinced by a preponderance of evidence that the pictures in question were actually of Mel Harris and Case #131 was retracted. Both women were models at the same time; Mel posed for lingerie and Cristina may have posed nude, so no harm was done. It was merely a matter of misidentification. But this is why we HATE look-alike fakes.

The third time was with Case #289, which is very similar to the mistake we made with Case #109.  We thought the magazine printed the real picture and a faker modified it.  Nope.  The magazine printed a censored picture, and then someone released the uncensored picture over the Internet.  Making the same mistake twice was really embarrassing!

In addition, several times The Fake Detective strongly suspected that nude or sexy pictures of various celebrities might really be pictures of look-alikes, but after a thorough investigation he determined that the pictures were actually real. Several times we even created Wanted Posters trying to determine the validity of some pictures - and some turned out to be real. Examples: Kirstie Alley, Vanna White, Lady Diana, JoBeth Williams.

9. Are you ever asked to investigate "real" pictures?

Many people have sent The Fake Detective "real" pictures to verify that they are indeed real.

He is often asked his opinion of controversial pictures that have appeared on the Net. Examples of this are the images of Lucy Lawless taken when she sang the National Anthem at a hockey game (it really happened), the images of Ashley Judd as she walked across the stage at the 70th Academy Awards presentation (just shadows), the Dr. Laura Schlessinger nude pictures (they were real, see Case #225 and the link in FAQ #15), the controversy that raged on the Internet over whether or not Jennifer Love Hewitt exposed a nipple in a shower scene on her TV show (Yup, she apparently did.), the photograph that showed a bit of Sarah Michelle Gellar's nipple (a real but enhanced picture), the photographs of Patricia Richardson that showed her nipples (real but enhanced pictures), the numerous shots of Natalie Portman topless on the island of St. Barts (totally real), and the controversy over the nude pictures of Malaysia's rock stars, Edry from KRU and Linda Rafar from Elite (the pictures are real).

We also notice that more and more people are sending us real pictures to find out if they are fake or not. In fact, at least half of the pictures sent to us are now real pictures. This would seem to indicate that people are much more suspicious about nude pictures they find on the Internet, which we feel is a good thing.

10. Do other people assist you in solving these cases?

The Fake Detective receives assistance from people all over the world. Since it is virtually impossible to find specific body shots among the many millions that are in circulation on the Net, he totally depends upon others to supply them. And he gets offers of assistance from people everywhere. CLICK HERE to view the current list of counties from where fans have sent e-mail.

11. How many cases have you solved without assistance from outside your group?

Actually, we didn't even think about asking others to assist us until we were stumped by Case #61. Since that time, we've been fortunate to be assisted on many many cases. When we completed Case #200, we counted the number of cases that were solved with the assistance of others and found there were 78, which calculates to 31 percent of the total as of that date.

12. Which celebrities are faked most often?

I don't really collect fakes, so I can't be certain about exact numbers. It's clear that Gillian Anderson is faked more than any other celebrity, and Melissa Joan Hart seems to be a favorite for fakers on the news:alt.binaries.pictures.nude.celebrities.fake newsgroup. Princess Diana probably belongs on the list, but I'm not sure where and most fakers have stopped making fakes of her. Beyond that it becomes mostly guesswork. The following list is my best guess:

1. Gillian Anderson
2. Sarah Michelle Gellar
3. Britney Spears
4. Melissa Joan Hart
5. Christina Applegate
6. Sandra Bullock
7. Jeri Ryan
8. Jennifer Love Hewitt
9. Jennifer Aniston
10. Shania Twain

Possibly.

In an interview that Sandra Bullock gave regarding the Internet, she said that at one time she was using the Internet "all the time", but she "stopped" because it "scared" her. My guess is that after she encountered a lot of the jerks the are on the Net, she didn't totally stop but just decided to stop using her own name and now uses some phony name.

Other actresses have said that they enjoy surfing the net and talking to people in chat rooms and on newsgroups because it's the one way they can discuss things freely and be themselves without anyone knowing that they are famous - in other words they always use phony names.

I did once exchange some e-mail with Penn Jillette of the magic team of "Penn & Teller" because of an article he wrote for the Excite Search Engine. When he wrote me using his home e-mail address he was very very concerned that I might pass it around to others on the Net. That's understandable. I can see how celebrities would be concerned that their personal e-mail addresses would be passed around the Net and/or that the addresses might be used to exploit them in some way.

I have received many hundreds of e-mail messages thanking me for performing this service. So, it is possible that I have been thanked via e-mail by celebrities using their Internet names. But I have never been contacted by any celebrity using her real name.

14. Have your efforts actually accomplished anything?

We believe that we have accomplished a great deal. People now have a central source when seeking information about fakes, and they also have a source for information about the most common techniques used to create fakes.

We believe a lot fewer people are being fooled by fake photographs today than when we first began. And we also see that most fakes are now identified as being fakes, where before it was much more common to try to pass them off as real.

15. Are there any laws against faking?

I hope not. It is just an art form and is generally protected by the 1st Amendment which guarantees "free speech". But there have been quite a few legal cases regarding fakes and real pictures on the Internet where the pictures are used in violation of copyrights or to defame celebrities. Generally speaking it is not the creation of fakes but how the fake pictures were used that prompted all the law suits. Dr. Caesar backside has been keeping track of them HERE.

16. Do you expose fake videos?

We have been contacted a few times by people asking us to evaluate videos - including a representative of the Belgian Ministry of Justice.  And we have exposed a couple (see Cases #232 and #235), but these are really exceptions.  Generally, we don't expose videos, because, as with most still picture fakes, most fake videos are pornographic.

We've found that "nude celebrity" videos fall into three basic categories (1) videos that are clips from some nude scene in a movie involving a well-known actress, (2) videos that are clips from porn videos where a woman in the video happens to look a little bit like some famous celebrity when seen from certain angles, or (3) very obvious fakes.  One of the most obvious look-alike fakes is a clip said to be of Britney Spears accidentally exposing a nipple, but the woman in the clip is actually French Actress Arielle Dombasle and even says so at the beginning of the clip.

Video clips of actresses in nude scenes are usually distributed with the name of the movie, since that adds to their value and interest. For example, Jodie Foster's topless scene in "Nell" is of little interest because it is short and not very erotic, but her shower scene in "Backtrack" is in high demand because it is a longer scene and has better lighting. If anyone has any question about such clips, they can rent the video, they don't have to ask us. We've never been asked about any of these.

We have occasionally been asked about fake XXX videos. There are many around. As with look-alike fake photographs, look-alike fake videos are merely another way for pranksters or hustlers to fool people. We don't expose such fakes because they are pornographic and we would have to put them behind Adult check.  We've seen clips said to be of Claudia Schiffer, Victoria Principal and Jenny McCarthy, but, of course, they were just look alikes.  We assume the Marilyn Monroe video is also a look-alike.  We're trying to find solid proof one way or the other about the Barbra Streisand video, but so far no luck.  We believe it is a look-alike, but there are certainly a lot of people who believe that it is her.  If a celebrity actually did do such a video, the media would have a feeding frenzy over it in the same way as they did over the Pamela Anderson-Lee video.

We've seen the videos exposed in Cases #232 and #235, of course.  But these were very crude.  There are also some fake xxx videos of Christina Applegate from "Married With Children" that are much more expertly done, but they are still all obvious fakes.  There are others of Gillian Anderson and Alyssa Milano that are also very obvious fakes.  All seem to be the heads of celebrities put onto the bodies of porn actors, or the bodies of porn actors inserted over the bodies of the celebrities leaving the head and everything else in the video as real.  So far, none should fool anyone into thinking they are real, but that doesn't mean some realistic fakes won't appear soon.  These obvious fakes could be the first sign of things to come.  The technology is amazing, and we're not totally positive how such fake videos are created - but it requires a lot more expertise than a fake photograph.

There are a few real videos of true celebrities (who are not a porn stars) having sex.  Pamela's Anderson-Lee's tape was an intimate personal video taken by her husband.  Everyone knows that from countless articles in the media.  There may be another intimate personal video that was stolen from Vanna White's home, and possibly a paparazzi video taken with a telescopic lens of Elle MacPherson on a boat.  But these were not made as porn videos.  If someone says they have a video of a celebrity having sex, there are simple questions anyone can ask themself: (1) Where did it come from?   (2) Was the video taped close up by a cameraman?  If so, that means it is almost certainly a professional video and the woman in the clip is a professional porn actress. (3) Why would a well-known celebrity make such a video?  And (4) why does only some obscure web site know about it?

As with xxx still pictures, the vast majority are obvious fakes, so we assume an xxx video is a fake until proven otherwise.

17.  Why don't you consider "enhanced" images to be fakes?

In order to be a fake, we believe that there has to be something in the "fake" that isn't in the original picture (or it can be a "look-alike fake" which is a deliberately misidentified image).  If you can see certain parts of Sandra Bullock when the picture is in black and white that cannot be as clearly seen when the picture is in color, that isn't fakery.   It's just looking at a real picture in a different way.   Case #279 is a good example of this.  There are many different scans of the same picture.  Some show the nipple area more clearly than others, but no one "painted in" fake nipples on the images we used.  When scanning a picture, even if you don't deliberately adjust the color, contrast and intensity, different scanners produce different results.  Images from one scanner will show things more clearly than the same image from another scanner.  It's variations in technology, not fakery.

Another example of how the new digital technology can be used these days is the age-old question: Is she wearing underwear or isn't she? The best recent example is Geena Davis at the Emmy Awards.  By adjusting the brightness, contrast, color and intensity of a picture, you can see elements that were not AS VISIBLE in the original photograph. This isn't fakery, it's using the technology to investigate and find answers.

18.  Who are the best fakers?  What are the top 10 best fakes?

Since we collect real pictures, we don't really keep track of fakers nor attempt to determine which are the best.  Moreover, the best fakers sign their fakes and often state right on them that they are fakes, so they shouldn't fool anyone.  If they don't fool anyone, they might not be brought to our attention.  But we do try to keep abreast of what is happening in the world of fakers, so we have been in contact with a lot of them - and we know even more by name.  Fredd38, LaGrange-5 and Zeke are among the best fakers.  They each have created hundreds of fakes, and some have created over a thousand.  Other fakers may be better, but they are probably not as prolific and, therefore, we don't see them as often.

We couldn't possibly guess as which are the top ten best fakes.  95 percent of the 100,000 or more fakes in circulation on the Internet are pornographic.  They may be technically excellent, but they are of no interest to us.  We collect real pictures, not fakes.  We really only see the few fakes that end up in collections of real pictures, plus the ones that we are asked about via e-mail and newsgroup postings.  That is probably less than 5 percent of what's out there.