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The year 2006 at searchlores

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Autumn 2006
(The season everyone and his dog left windoze and went over to Ubuntu :-)

[linux.htm]: Going to Linux (Ubuntu) once for all.
by VVAA
Ahhh. What a bliss. What a speed. What a power. The idea behind this page is to help anybody to swap almost on the fly a windozian, slow, cumbersome, virus ridden and prone to errors computer, into a quick, stable and above all powerful linux box.
Updated in December!

[Bypassing Google's geotargeting ]
When there's a will, there's a way!
by Nemo, November 2006, part of the essays section.
Even with ncr, "Google still knows from where do you come from, as shown by the link present on google.com homepage –Go to Google your country here–. Searchers wouldn't care less, if it weren't for the fewer search results they get outside the USA. It goes without saying that this does not only affect non Americans, but also Americans travelling or working abroad... and perhaps even american soldiers and diplomats... and, btw, in fact, ahem, anyone else on this planet.

[End 2006: an early winter 'webbit' searching riddle ]
"It's hard to find stuff when you don't know how to describe it"
by fravia+, December 2006.
Fact is -unfortunately- that some targets are hard to describe, and hence hard to find.
A small winter riddle for seekers that want to try out some new techniques.

[Hidden function in Proxomitron ]
(In Memoriam Scott R. Lemon)
by have, November 2006
Finding and finding out a "hidden" function in Proxomitron, by using basic knowledge.
Part of the proxy/proxy essays section.

[operators.htm]: Search engine operators --- "lego bricks" for webbits writers
by VVAA
You see the inurl: and intitle: parameters? You understand what they do?

[How to find anything underneath the commercial web: Powersearching without google]
Fravia's Lecture 21 October 2006: Hack.lu, Luxembourg "Bridging ethics and security in computer science"
"Another interesting side effect of a correct web-seeking approach is that often, when searching for something, you will find on the same servers many other targets related to your topic, targets that you did not even know existed. We call this the "being inside the library" effect. Imagine you are not filling out a request form at the counter, imagine you are physically retrieving a book inside a library, with shelves and shelves of books around you and within your immediate reach. Thus you can scan with your eyes all other books in the proximity: books, more or less related to the topic you are searching for, that are, imagine, located on the same shelf, next to your target book and that you can also pick up at leisure.
Gee... the amazing power of knowing how to search!"

[bangla.htm]: Opening Windows: the legal approach
(or: How do you set up -legally- a full-fledged windows computer without any money at all)
by fravia+ (There's no need to pay for anything on the web, duh)
Part of the Introduction section.
Well ok, once again: you have windows. So you need some programs. So you "need" Word, you "need" Excel, etcetera... but... do you actually have to pay in order to have very good programs? The answer is NO!
Updated again! (October 2006: wireshark)

... as usual, some new (or slightly updated) pages:
[library.htm] ~ [softreve.htm] ~ [tools.htm] ~ [fobegano.htm] ~ [mines.htm] ~ [photos.htm] ~ [warning.htm] ~ [main.htm] ~ [info.htm] ~ [sehisinf.htm] ~ [rabbits.htm] ~

Sommer 2006
Holy Holydays! (A small image riddle - to solve before September)

[proxomitron_powerusing.htm]
collated and resuscitated by have
A set of examples and ideas for all proxomitron fanatics.
Part of the proxy/proxy essays section.
If you publish it, someone will start to write exploits to it - and the propaganda-world begin to tell terrible things about proxomitron, a software which is IMO a must for every netizen. But If you don't publish, does it make things better? If this thread about it should be eased, and the lore left to those able to figure it out alone, would it make a better future? Or is it better to publish this stuff everyhere - with a patch for the masses?
[A guide to relative anonymity]
by Mordred, Fravia, art20(iv) and alia
Part of the anonymity/anonyweb sections.
1) buy pc cash elsewhere (not with credit cards and not where they know you); 2) wardrive in another part of the town, not the one you live in; 3) download only, or if you upload, upload only anonymous things or PGP encrypted stuff; 4) rotate your wifi card mac address at every access point; 5) use wardriving laptop ONLY FOR THAT, no personal data whatsoever on it.
[reversing_our_searching_habits.htm]
16 June 2006: Fravia's talk @ the Recon 2006 in Montreal: "Reversing our searching habits - (Power searching without google)".
Part of the workshops section.
Unfortunately we are now in a phase where even clueless bystanders notice how google is getting spammed much too much. It's usefulness as the "best and only" search engine has been therefore severely reduced. This is sad, but it does not matter very much: we began long ago to prepare alternative paths to web-knowledge. Let's present some of them -today- to this community of distinguished reversers.
[filehosting.htm]
by Hoyeru
(repositories search lore for beginners)
Frankly I don't see why people would prefer a torrent instead of using Rapidshare.
Updated!
... as usual, some new (or slightly updated) pages:
[images.htm] ~ [anonyweb.htm] ~ [trolls.htm] ~ [effective_searching.htm] ~ [universallibrary.htm] (de re orientalia) ~ [mines.htm] ~ [password.htm] ~ [newsfeeds.htm] ~ [google.htm] ~ [targets.htm] ~ [maps.htm] ~ [usenet.htm] ~ [main.htm] ~

Spring 2006
A tiny searchers' riddle: a small music snippet that maybe will keep you searching for a little while

[ritz_debunks.htm]: "Link farmers: the snake oil seller kind" (How to evaluate fake sites)
by Various Authors
Part of the Evaluating lore.
"The way i hear him speak indicates that he's talking to an audience that wouldn't know the difference between an ad-infested labyrinth of cybersquatters and the info (without the dot) they're actually looking for..."
[bangla.htm]: Opening Windows: the legal approach
(or: How do you set up -legally- a full-fledged windows computer without any money at all)
by fravia+ (There's no need to pay for anything on the web, duh)
Part of the Introduction section.
Well ok, once again: you have windows. So you need some programs. So you "need" Word, you "need" Excel, etcetera... but... do you actually have to pay in order to have very good programs? The answer is NO!
Updated again! (late April 2006: mp3 encoding)
[thefollowingrough.htm], by Thoughts, April 2006:
it took almost TWO YEARS to solve the Entering a rough sea image riddle, part of the images searching lore section.
[a tool for winky's] useless but interesting tool (winky_proxy.html)
by Moonman
maybe useful maybe not...
[winky_stripper.htm]: Winky strips for Yahoo (A Yahoo results stripper)
by Winky ;-)
A further introduction to the power of python, by Winky.
Part of the bots section.
...on the board they where talking about "stripping" and searching html.
Anyway I decided to make one for yahoo, it is primative a learning tool, but could be expanded to handle next queries etc. yahoo_stripper.py -> is the actual script itself
clean.html -> is the "output from the script" To create the "docs" which reside in the html directory just run the script thru epydoc.
This sort of tactic of stripping webpages is much more effective then just blindly using regular expressions.
Not for beginners!
[inphrase.htm]: In Phrase Operators
by Elwood
Part of the Password lore.
What is an "In Phrase Operator" you'll ask? Well, in fact you already know them. They are the numrange and the Boolean OR operator. But did you know they possess a magical searching property? Both can be used within a phrase search.
... as usual, some new (or slightly updated) pages:
[compound.htm] with a riddle ~ [funny.htm] ~ [introd.htm] ~ [undergro.htm] ~ [index.html] ~ [bot-block.php.txt] ~ [info.htm] ~ [books.htm] (Introduction & poetry) ~ [google.htm] ~ [main.htm] ~ [links.htm] ~ [longtermsearching.htm] ~ [terminology.htm] ~ [newsfeeds.htm] ~ [tadimens.htm] ~ [links.htm] ~ [tips.htm] (re-vamped) ~ [journals.htm] ~ [bots.htm] ~ [targets.htm] (maps) ~ [son_font.htm] ~ [statoo.htm] ~ [leet_windozer.htm] ~ [local.htm] (invisible web) ~ [quickforms.htm] ~ [mines.htm] (Recon 2006) ~ [trolls.htm] ~

Winter 2006 (The season Google was spammed too much)

[bangla.htm]: Opening Windows: the legal approach
(or: How do you set up -legally- a full-fledged windows computer without any money at all)
by fravia+ (There's no need to pay for anything on the web, duh)
Part of the Introduction section.
Well ok, once again: you have windows. So you need some programs. So you "need" Word, you "need" Excel, etcetera... but... do you actually have to pay in order to have very good programs? The answer is NO!
Updated again! (Winter 2006)
[winky_proxy.html]: A Useless but intesting tool
by Winky ;-)
An introduction to the power of python (and of proxies), by Winky.
Part of the Essays about proxying section.
I purposely have not commented the code. Most code in the wild is not commented or very sparse commenting. When you read a book every line is not commented.
If stuck run the code through a debugger see what is happening.
Not for beginners!
[loki_yahoo.htm]: Loki on Yahoo's filter - a short pointer
by Loki
Part of the essays section.
Lately, all eyes are turned on the diva Google, and every sidestep is noticed, blogged, commented, flamed etc.. New interesting features coming out of Yahoo's labs are ignored, MSN sliders are underused, but nobody misses the latest crappy packaged solution promoted by Google and his partners.
[Content Based Image Recognition - a stab in PHP] (Part 1)
by Finn61
Part of the essays and of the images sections.
Even the .edu's aren't giving all this research away. You will find some doors closed, although I was amazed at how easy it is to find info that people would like you to pay for, freely lying around, sometimes mistakenly, in other places. If you get a closed/pay database that allows you to preview pages of papers, then you know what to do to find the rest. ;)
Warning!: use a proxy when visiting/using this essay.

and

[Content Based Image Recognition - a stab in PHP] (Part 2)
by Finn61
Part of the essays and of the images sections.
The design I finally decided to go with for image comparison was based on the frequency of colours in certain regions of the source and target images. I have chosen this design as a compromise for speed and experimentation. There are many variables to tweak, some values giving you good results and others terrible, but I wanted to build in flexibility so we can experiment and discover what works well for the sources and targets we have in mind.
Warning!: use a proxy when visiting/using this essay.

[A VERY promising spamfighting exercise].
by Loki
Part of the essays section.
Starting from a given website, try to determine if we're facing pure spam or poor content website. If it is spam, try to find patterns to gather more information about the spammer, determine what scheme is used to generate money, what are the technical means to achieve that, and finally what can be done to terminate the activity of this spammer.

[Googlex & Company: Find quickly any European Union (or United Nations) document]
by fravia+
Part of the essays and of the targets sections.
I have created the following masks in order to allow *anyone* to quickly fetch any EU (or United Nations') document, bypassing the labyrinthical slowness of the EU-servers and the clumsiness of their slow search engines.

[A talk in Berlin, Germany]
29 December 2005: 22C3 talk in Berlin: Private investigations in searching How to find any book (and many other roadkills) on the Information Super-Highway"
or "Private investigations for curious web-seekers: techniques, tools and magic tricks".
By Fravia+, part of the workshops section.
You'll most probably forget most of the things you'll learn here rather quickly, since nowadays most young people (and many elder ones as well) after having been heavily bombarded by advertisements from their birth onwards, have an attention span of just a few minutes and a memory as weak as an autumn leaf. But hopefully you'll gather the basics of searching correctly the web.

[Searching for DVDs and dvd information]
by Giggle the DVDs Gideon
Part of the essays and of the targets sections.
Alas! In their greed, the commercial powers that be have managed to introduce FOUR commercial scam methods inside the dvd format, whose aim is to restrict the user in various ways: Macrovision & CSS (scrambling techniques), region codes, and disabled user operations (UOPs). We could add to this the Remove Copy Generation Management System (CGMS) annoying flags which cause DVD recorders to display an error message stating that the source "is copy protected and cannot be recorded" (which of course isn't true) All these scams can be reversed, the user can thus be able to read his own disks, even if he bought them in Singapore or in Brasil.

... as usual, some new (or slightly updated) pages:
[local.htm] (Files and images repositories) ~ [mirrors.htm] (Luca's mirror) ~ [critics.htm] ~ [books.htm] ~ [universallibrary.htm] ~ [dererussica.htm] ~ [remobann.htm] ~ [antiadve.htm] ~ [bilingual_bookmarklets.htm] ~ [targets.htm] ~ [journals.htm] ~ [destream.htm] ~ [farewell.htm] ~ [further.htm] ~ [quickforms.htm] ~ [longtermsearching.htm] ~ [info.htm] ~ [rabbits.htm] (introduction) ~ [trolls.htm] ~ [dictiona.htm] ~ [dictionaries.htm] ~ [mines.htm] ~ [links.htm] ~ [compound.htm] with a riddle ~ [funny.htm] ~

Whanna more oldies?
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