Monahon, Peter B. wrote:
The image in question has no identifying markers on it, or in it, that indicate origin - EXIF and IPTC are empty. So, if the image lands in somebody's browser cache on their own PC, then it will be brought up in their (free) Picasa / Google drive self-search with nothing more identifying it than this type of location:
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\RICPZFAU\Rock_paper_scissors[1].jpg
Wrong! Just browse to C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files You'll get a nice two column system with the filenames and its URL. (and not being smart enough to find out doesn't mean "use at will"!)
Also, it appears just doing a search on google images with the filename... but not on commons! I suspect they copied it from http://sf.metblogs.com/archives/images/2006/05/250px-Rock_paper_scissors.jpg and saved it with a border at lower quality (note that metblogs file is called 250px but is 185px, so it's a resizing of thumbnail at en:Rock,_Paper,_Scissors of commons:Image:Rock_paper_scissors.jpg).
The process could have been: Vix929 creates and uploads Image:Rock_paper_scissors.jpg from several images, en:Rock,_Paper,_Scissors article includes it as 250px. sf.metblogs resizes it even more and puts at http://sf.metblogs.com/archives/2006/05/rock_paper_scissors.phtml the telegraph makes a border, lowers quality and publishes at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/12/19/sciscissor...