Dart mouth pro fes sor Hany Farid was called upon for an un usual task this week.

In the wake of a se ries of grue some pic tures of Osama bin Laden's body that have been cir­cu lat ing on line and in the press, The As so ci ated Press asked Farid (pic tured above), a com­puter sci ence pro fes sor with a focus on image analy sis, to take a look at the pic tures.

Farid con cluded that the pho tos had been doc tored,ac cord ing to The AP.

"In today's world where even the cheap est cam eras are a few megapix els in res o lu tion, it doesn't make sense why such an im por tant image would only be avail able at this very low res o lu tion," Farid told The AP. "From the per spec tive of photo tam per ing, how ever, smaller is bet ter since it makes it harder to an a lyze."

The num ber of fake pho tos in creased after Pres i dent Barack Obama an nounced that the gov ern ment's pho tographs of Osama's body will re main clas si fied.