All Images

Introduction

Figure 1

a cow with a large bag of chicken feed
humans and computers both read by structure and position

Figure 2

the Colossus computer of the Second World War filling an entire room
From a machine that covered an entire room…

Figure 3

a librarian using a desktop IBM computer in 1987.
To one that fits on your desk in less than forty years

Talking with Computers

Figure 1

a picture of a computer screen with lots of 0s and 1s on the screen
A photograph is also a long row of bytes.

Figure 2

a photograph of a dog

Figure 3

image of a green arrow pointing leftwards.

Figure 4

the same image file of a dog opened in a hex editor, showing its contents as hexadecimal and decoded text.

Figure 5

three cartoon faces with speech bubbles: the first speaks a long string of binary digits, the second speaks pairs of hexadecimal numbers, the third says I speak English.
The same sentence spoken in binary, in hexadecimal, and in English.

Hexadecimal

Figure 1

a handwritten letter annotated to show the page number, addressee, main message, sender and sign-off

Figure 2

a photograph of a pig, showing its contents as hexadecimal and decoded text.

Figure 3

image of a blue arrow pointing rightwards

Figure 4

the same image file of a pig shown as hexadecimal, annotated to show the magic bytes, the image header and the pixel specifications

Using a hex editor

Figure 1

image shows a screenshot of the https://hexed.it user interface in the web browser.
screenshot of hexed.it’s user interface.

Figure 2

image shows our plain-text file as it would be viewed in a standard text editor, e.g. MS Notepad.
Hello World! Plain-text file.

Figure 3

image shows the hexadecimal representation of a plain-text file in a hex editor's user interface.
Hello World! Plain-text file in hexadecimal.

Figure 4

image shows the hexadecimal representation of a PDF file in a hex editor's user interface.
A small part of a PDF file shown in a hex editor.

Looking for patterns

Figure 1

image shows the hexadecimal representation of a JPEG file in a hex editor's user interface.
What would Trinity do?

Figure 2

image shows the hexadecimal representation of another JPEG file in a hex editor allowing us to identify differences in patterns.
Another JPEG for comparison.

Introducing PRONOM syntax

Reversing PRONOM syntax

Figure 1

image shows a skeleton file in a hex editor and the hex editor\s layout and various panes
Example skeleton file in hexed.it

Creating signature files

Figure 1

image shows the user interface of the signature development utility.
The Signature Development Utility

Figure 2

image shows DROID user interface and where you would navigate to so that you can upload a new signature file.

Plugging it in

Figure 1

Image of Siegfried from IT for Archivists

Doing it for yourself

Teaching us how to do it!

Advanced PRONOM

Figure 1

Image shows how a format identification is constructed in PRONOM by combining signature, priority, and metadta
Format identification result using PRONOM data.

Final thoughts