{"id":1690,"date":"2009-07-31T23:52:49","date_gmt":"2009-08-01T06:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/multimedia.cx\/eggs\/?p=1690"},"modified":"2009-08-01T00:02:25","modified_gmt":"2009-08-01T07:02:25","slug":"remembering-fravia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/multimedia.cx\/eggs\/remembering-fravia\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Fravia"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was reading up on this year’s Pwnie Awards<\/a> — hoping that no nominations dealt with any software that I’m directly involved with — when I noticed someone named Fravia was up for a Lifetime Achievement Pwnie<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I remember Fravia<\/a>, or really, his site<\/a>. Back in 2000 when I became interested in reverse engineering due to its necessary if tangential relationship to understanding multimedia technology, I took to the web to search for tips. Fravia’s site was one of the first I found. It was apparently a goldmine of RE knowledge. But I could never know for sure– I always found the place packed with impenetrable jargon without a glossary in sight.<\/p>\n

Further, the site seemed to focus primarily on how to reverse engineer relatively simple stuff– copy protection schemes and key generators. The targets I was — and remain — interested in tend to involve reasonably complicated mathematical algorithms compiled into machine code. Different domain, different challenges.<\/p>\n

I think Fravia’s site was where I read an interesting document for programmers who wished to thwart reverse engineers. One tip was to load your program with blocks of NOP instructions. Apparently, these are harbingers of self-modifying code and in the context of counter-intelligence, a reverse engineer will go nuts anticipating and seeking out such aberrant code.<\/p>\n

Fravia is no longer with us, having passed away in May of this year. His site lives on, as engimatic, baffling, and aesthetically unsophisticated as I remember it being 9 years ago. It seems to have shifted focus somewhere along the line to studying how search engines operate. I wonder if all that RE knowledge is lost forever (or perhaps buried deep in the internet archive which doesn’t make it much more useful).<\/p>\n

In a way, Fravia was an inspiration for me– In addition to multimedia tech information, I wanted to publish data on practical reverse engineering matters<\/a> so that other people could get up and running as quickly as possible without having to wade through weird jargon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The late Fravia was a prominent, if eccentric and cryptic, reverse engineer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reverse-engineering"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t