We use this as our primary metaphor for our work in forensic computing analysis. The image could be an artist's rendering of a real pipe. It could also be completely made up by the artist. It could be a seriously flawed copy of the real item. You can't tell the difference simply by looking at the image.
Computers are subject to the treachery of images as well.
The image on your computer screen is not a computer file - it's only an image on a computer screen. Images of files, processes and network connections are very distant cousins of the actual bits in memory, in network packets, or on disks. The images that you see are produced by layer upon layer of hardware and software. When an intruder compromises a system any of those layers could be tampered with. Application software can lie, operating system kernels can lie, boot PROMs can lie, even hard disk drives can lie.