It’s been widely reported that Fravia passed away on Sunday, May 3 2009.

Legendary searcher and programmer Fravia became widely known in the mid-to-late nineties for his essays on reverse engineering. Focusing on the ideological aspect of reversing, as a way to achieve knowledge of the inner workings of society and the market, rather than on piracy or software vandalism, Fravia influenced a whole generation of computer users who wished to learn more about x86 assembly language, software internals, undocumented operating system features and low level debugging.

During his later years he devoted to teaching and exploring the art of searching the Deep Web, focusing on techniques to enable a searcher(identified by ~S~) find any kind of information online. Fravia’s searching tutorials include advanced techniques for many types of information retrieval. Fravia made heavy use of symbolism and allegory to transmit information. Software reversers were often identified by placing a + prefix to their nicknames. A most senior reverser, known only as ORC had the highest ranked prefix, ++ORC, as a tribute to his higher knowledge of low level programming and binary software analysis.

In 2007 Fravia reported he had cancer. His battle with the disease lasted 2 years. When, in late April 2009, he finally got word from his physician that the metastasis had gotten out of control and that the situation was irreversible, he gave us a Sweet and Sour goodbye on a page called swangsong.htm.

As of May 11 2009 all of Fravia’s sites are down(update: they’ve been put back up as of late May 2009). A tribute was posted by members of his family on his home page shortly after his passing. I hope they can restore the sites and maintain them online as a most valuable source of timeless information, although Fravia did empower his followers to search and find caches and copies of his teachings even with his sites taken offline. As he put it, he gave us all “powerful weapons” for seeking knowledge.

May his memory live forever through the knowledge he so kindly shared with us all throughout the years.

2009-05-18 – Version 0.10

This is release 0.10 of Zen Twitter Tools and the Zen::Twitter library, which currently covers the following:

• Search
• Timeline
• Status
• User
• Direct Message
• Friendship
• Social Graph
• Account
• Favorite
• Notification
• Block
• Help

You can read more about the above function groups at the Twitter API documentation site.

The following scripts are currently included on Zen Twitter Tools v 0.10:

Account Management
account_rate_limit_status.pl – Check your current API limits and how many credits you have left.
account_update_delivery_device.pl – Update delivery device for Twitter notifications.
account_update_profile_color.pl – Update your profile colors.
account_update_profile.pl – Update your profile data.
account_verify_credentials.pl – Test the data on credentials.xml by logging in from the command line.

Block Management
block_blocking.pl – List users you are currently blocking.
block_create.pl – Block a user
block_destroy.pl – Unblock a user
block_exists.pl – Check whether you are currently blocking a user.
block_ids.pl – List IDs of all users you are blocking.

Direct Messages
direct_message_destroy.pl – Delete a Direct Message
direct_message_send.pl – Send a Direct Message
direct_messages.pl – List Direct Messages inbox
direct_messages_sent.pl – List Sent Direct Messages

Favorites
favorite_create.pl – Add a status to your Favorites
favorite_destroy.pl – Remove a status from your Favorites
favorites.pl – List your Favorites

Followers and Friends
followers_not_friends.pl – Lists which followers you have not yet befriended.
friendship_create.pl – Follow a user
friendship_destroy.pl – Unfollow a user
friendship_exists.pl – Check whether user_a follows user_b
friends_not_followers.pl – Lists which friends do not yet follow you back.
friends_timeline.pl – Your friends’ 20 latest updates
mentions.pl – The 20 latest mentions of @you
public_timeline.pl – The Twitter-wide latest 20 updates, updated every 60 seconds.

Notification (Mobile)
notification_follow.pl – Receive mobile notifications for a user.
notification_leave.pl – Stop receiving mobile notifications for a user.

Search
search.pl – CLI interfact to search.twitter.com. Searches Tweets for keywords. Example: search.pl ‘twitter tools’

Social Graph
socialgraph.pl – Simple friend/follower count.

Status
status_destroy.pl – Delete one of your status messages.
status_show.pl – Show the status of a user.
status_update.pl – Update your status.

Help
test.pl – Tests a simple exchange with the Twitter server to check connectivity.

Users
user_timeline.pl – Retrieve a USER’s timeline(Same data you see on http://twitter.com/USER’s page)
user.pl – Reports the current status of the user identified by screen_name

Sample Scripts
Sample scripts are provided with each module so you can implement/customize your own tools. The scripts can also be used to directly manipulate your account. All functions requiring authentication need a properly configured credentials.xml file. Setup is very simple, you should not have any problems using the scripts and library.

Not Implemented on v 0.10
The following functions were not implemented on 0.10 :
- Search trends (Reason: did not implement the JSON-only requests yet.)
- Profile image uploads(2 functions: background image and user image).
- Account signoff function. (Not applicable on a stateless CLI environment.)

Download: zen-twitter-tools-0.10.tar.gz

Note: I’ll be working on improving the documentation for the library. For now I’ve quickly annotated each function but did not provide standard CPAN-quality POD’s for all modules.

2009-05-14

I found some Twitter modules on CPAN but the Twitter API seemed fun, it’s well documented and getting more popular by the day, so I felt like having a go at it in Perl.

Bug reports, suggestions and constructive criticism are always welcome.

So far we have some base classes, authentication, HTTP and XML modules in place. The only demos available at this time are the Friend/Follower monitoring scripts.

The Zen::Twitter::User Object
Using Class::Accessor we automate the creation of accessor methods for each field returned in the Twitter user data structure. See below for the vast ammount of user information you can get from a single Zen::Twitter::User object.

Accessor Method	Description
id	Numeric Twitter ID
name	Users’s real name
screen_name	Twitter nickname, what goes twitter.com/HERE
location	Geolocation of the user
description	Self-description
profile_image_url	User’s photo image url
url	The user’s home page
protected	String boolean literally ‘true’ or ‘false’, whether user’s updates are protected
followers_count	Number of people following this user
profile_background_color	6 character html hex code without the traditional hash# (E.g. ffcc00 for bright orange)
profile_text_color	6 char html hex code for his text color
profile_link_color	6 char html hex code for profile link
profile_sidebar_fill_color	6 char html hex code for sidebar fill
profile_sidebar_border_color	6 char html hex code for profile border color
friends_count	Number of friends (people this user is following)
created_at	Signup date in format DAYOFWEEK MON DAYOFMONTH HH:MM:SS +-OFFSET YEAR
favourites_count	Number of favourites
utc_offset	UTC offset
time_zone	Time zone
profile_background_image_url	Profile background image URL
profile_background_tile	String boolean ‘true’ or ‘false’ whether the bg image is tiled
statuses_count	Number of updates
notifications	String boolean ‘true’ or ‘false’ whether user receives notifications
following	Number of people following this user

Zen::Twitter
The Zen::Twitter module is the general front-end employing direct Twitter functions to create added functionality. For instance, friends_not_followers() and it’s counterpart followers_not_friends() are implemented in it, using 2 direct Twitter functions from Zen::Twitter::Friends to obtain the respective lists and then diff them from each other.

Zen::UserAgent
This is currently a single-function stub really, all it does is create a single point from where our UserAgents are created. We might need to add functionality, so right now it might seem like overkill but it just might come in handy to have all our HTTP User Agent stuff tucked in one namespace.

Zen::Twitter::Authentication
Hides the details of finding and parsing credentials.xml and gives us a Credentials object to pass around wherever authentication is required.

Zen::Twitter::Credentials
A simple Credentials interface. Currently offers username() and password() methods only. Created it so we wouldn’t be passing a hashref around accessing its internals without a proper interface.

Zen::Twitter::Friends
Maybe this one should have been called Zen::Twitter::Users, keeping the names sync’d with Twitter’s. It contains 2 direct Twitter querying functions: friends() and followers(), both return an arrayref of Zen::Twitter::User objects for the user identified by the Credentials passed in.

Zen::Twitter::HTTP
Queries the Twitter XML services and returns Perl data structures parsed by XML::Simple. A Zen::Twitter::User can be directly instantiated from each user tag on the XML returned by the functions described here.

Download
zen-twitter-tools-0.01.tar.gz

That’s all folks! I hope you can use some of this code to create your own Twitter apps(I placed it all under the BSD License, just in case).

2009-05-17 – Version 0.08

- Implemented Block methods, with sample scripts.
Twitter API Sections now Available in Zen::Twitter :

• Search(without ‘trends’)
• Timeline
• Status
• User
• Direct Message
• Friendship
• Social Graph
• Favorite
• Notification
• Block
• Help

Next up in TO DO list: Account Methods

Download: zen-twitter-tools-0.08.tar.gz

Version 0.07

- Implemented Friendship methods, with samples.
- Implemented Social Graph methods. Included sample scripts.
- Implemented Favorite methods, with sample scripts.
- Implemented Notification methods, with sample scripts.

Twitter API Sections now Available in Zen::Twitter :

• Search(without ‘trends’)
• Timeline
• Status
• User
• Direct Message
• Friendship
• Social Graph
• Favorite
• Notification
• Help

Next up in TO DO list: Block Methods

Download: zen-twitter-tools-0.07.tar.gz

Version 0.04

- Implements the 4 Direct Message methods: direct_messages(), sent(), new() and destroy() which allow you to create and send direct messages as well as view the lists of sent and received messages.

Twitter API Sections now Available in Zen::Twitter : Search(without ‘trends’), Timeline, Status, User and Direct Message Methods.
Next up in TO DO list: Friendship Methods

Download: zen-twitter-tools-0.04.tar.gz

Version 0.03

- Implements all 3 Status methods: show(), update() and destroy() which allow you to view any status messages(authentication needed for protected updates), update your own status and destroy your own unwanted updates. Includes 3 example scripts implementing each.

- Implements the single test() Help method. Sample script allows you to “ping” the Twitter servers and test connectivity.

Twitter API Sections now Available in Zen::Twitter : Search(without ‘trends’), Timeline, Status and User Methods.
Next up in TO DO list: Direct Messaging.

Download: zen-twitter-tools-0.03.tar.gz

Version 0.02

- Implements all 4 Timeline Methods : Display public timeline, friends’ timeline, a specific user’s timeline and mentions of you.
- Zen:Twitter::User object is employed on all Timeline results where a user is mentioned
- 4 scripts added to demonstrate the Timeline methods

- Implements Search (No ‘trends’ functionality yet.)
- search.pl script added to demonstrate search functionality

- Filtering/sorting HTTP parameters unimplemented by the library are passed on to Twitter.

Download: zen-twitter-tools-0.02.tar.gz

Four pages definitely worth reading on this excellent article on issue 17.06(June) of Wired. The Internet revolution has barely started and for the 2nd decade in a row the communities formed through the Internet are somehow compared to socialism or some form of socialist society. The article raises several good points, including the communal aspects of the Wikipedia and wiki-like projects, massive collective collaboration that knows no national borders, Linux, OpenOffice, MySQL and several other successful projects realized 100% online.

Bill Gates once derided open source advocates with the worst epithet a capitalist can muster. These folks, he said, were a “new modern-day sort of communists,” a malevolent force bent on destroying the monopolistic incentive that helps support the American dream. Gates was wrong: Open source zealots are more likely to be libertarians than commie pinkos. Yet there is some truth to his allegation. The frantic global rush to connect everyone to everyone, all the time, is quietly giving rise to a revised version of socialism.

Full article here.

Today Brazil woke up to the terrible news that an Air France Airbus with over 200 passengers aboard had disappeared near the Fernando de Noronha archipelago, offshore the Northeast state of Pernambuco. It is one of Brazil’s closest places to Europe, on the tip of the continent. Air Force officials estimate the plane had just flown off Brazilian air space during last contact, but Fernando de Noronha will likely be the rescue efforts’ headquarters.

Early morning and everyone was anxious for some news, any news, maybe the transponder broke down but the pilot managed to land somewhere. Maybe we’d have our own Hudson River miracle…

Noronha is one of the most beautiful islands in Brazil. The natural reserve and strict regulations for tourism make it one of the most sought after tourism destinations in this country. The island is of difficult access and Brazil’s Navy ships will take until tomorrow to reach the region of a probable crash. Even the exact search area is still uncertain according to local officials. Helicopters need to refuel to reach the region and manage to get some work done. Only one local civilian airline is authorized to ferry tourists and resources there and back.

Rescue efforts will be bery difficult but nothing can be harder than the pain the families here and in Europe must be feeling today. My hopes for positive news are still alive, despite knowing the chances are small. My thoughts and prayers go to all of you who had friends and family aboard flight AF 447.