Yesterday Wikileaks tweeted out a video that was recorded under the cover of darkness using night vision of 3 people in a car. The video is 2:20 minutes long and appears to be fairly recent. According to the time code the video was captured just after midnight on 12/24/2017. In the tweet Wikileaks refers to the 3 men in the video as a "grab team" therefore it seems logical that the video was taken from with inside the Ecuadorian Embassy.
There isn't a great deal online about "grab teams", but what I have found is pretty troublesome. Most references refer to military "grab teams" that have been involved in capturing high-level terrorist targets. In 2001 a "grab team" was deployed in Afghanistan to capture Bin Laden. While another more recently reported "grab team" was used by Delta Force to literally kidnapping an alleged Al-Qaeda linked Libyan terrorist. Below is the the best description I could find of a "grab team".
EMPLOY A SNATCH-AND-GRAB TEAM | Global Security
- Conditions: A Snatch-and-Grab Team is identified from within the company formation and instructed to detain an instigator from an on-going civil disturbance.
- Task Standard: The Snatch-and-Grab Team moves the instigator from the area per instructions of the OIC without injury to the instigator or team members, using the minimum amount of force necessary.
THE VIDEO
Included in the tweet was a download link to the original high-quality video. I downloaded the video and ran it through Adobe Premiere and Photoshop. The video properties are:
Name: assange-grabteam-K6-20171224002600_20171224003000-competition1.mpeg
Type: MPEG Movie
File Size: 124.7 MB
Image Size: 1920 x 1080
Frame Rate: 25.00
Total Duration: 00:03:59:00
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0
Throughout the video we see the person in the back of the vehicle reading what appears to be paper notes of some sort. At around the 2 minute mark he holds the papers still long enough for us to get a glimpse of what it says on one of the sheets. Below is a close up of one of the frames from the original video.
Between myself, suzi3d and another twitter user we have so far been able to decipher this.
TITLE: In the event of loss of Camera Coverage
1st LINE: xxxx xxxx single or multiple cameras failure, multiple feed failure and xx xxxx
2nd LINE: xxxxxx xxxxxx engineers are on call 24/7. xx(In) xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxx(can) xx(be) xxxxxxx by GSZ
3rd LINE: xxxx xxxxxxx.
4th LINE: xxxx xxxxxx xxx(the) surrounding circumstances and information(?) and relay the details to MET,
5th LINE: XXX, XXX, XXX. Of paramount importance is whether recording of xxxxxx from the
6th LINE: xxxx xxxxxxx. If images of OP Kudo are being xxxxxx, it(?) is(?) recognized(?) to(?)
7th LINE: xxxxxxxx will be necessary.
As the title on the document suggests it seems to be outlining protocol for if any or all of the covert video feeds that monitor the activity at the Ecuadorian embassy went down. The term Op Kudo is of particular interest as according to Wikileaks it's the code name of the UK operation to grab/kidnap Julian Assange.
GSZ likely stands for Government Security Zone. (Thanks to onausilo on Twitter.)
As you can see from the tweet Wikileaks included some examples of how to enhance the video using a method of resizing called super resolution. Unfortunately, in my opinion, I don't think this would help to enhance the text as the distortion and noise on the video is produced by motion blur and the relatively low frame rate, and not the size and amount of pixels. I have the feeling this is the best we're going to get.
If you're able to fill in any of the blanks feel free to leave your suggestions below.
