Rathgate continues: L and 1

Dan Rather has something to say that he claims will prove that the documents are real, not forgeries. In his own words:

"Richard Katz, a software designer, found other indications in the documents. He noticed the lower-case "l" is used in documents instead of the actual numeral "1". That would be difficult to reproduce on the computer today.

Um...no, no it wouldn't be difficult. Observe:

Yesterday, I left my l5 light blue, class-l books in l of my girlfriends' houses.

In case you are confused, I just typed a lower-case "l" instead of a "1" when I wanted to create that effect.

Nice try Dan. Better luck next time.




Update: Joseph Newcome of Flounder.com actually demonstrates that it is extremely unlikely that "1"s are lower-case "l"s due to the difference between mono-spacing and proportional spacing. If his technical discussion is a little hard to get through, Gerry from DalyThoughts.com (who is doing a fantastic job of covering the story) has a great post that just focuses on this issue with an excerpt from Mr. Newcome's post as well as a clarification for those less technically inclined.