Fravia is a pseudonym/handle for a Finnish cracker who is probably best known for his web archive of reverse engineering techniques and papers. Mirrors of the old web site (fravia.org) still exist (see, e.g., Internet Archive), though Fravia has publicly requested their removal in favor of his new web-searching-centric site. The word cracker can refer to: // Terms Cracker (computing), a person who engages in illegal system cracking or software cracking, circumventing computer security systems; also known as a black hat hacker. ... WWWs historical logo designed by Robert Cailliau The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is a system of interlinked, hypertext documents that runs over the Internet. ... Reverse engineering (RE) is the process of taking something (a device, an electrical component, a software program, etc. ... Internet Archive headquarters. ...

Fravia, abbreviated from his full name, Fjalar Ravia, was born in Oulu, Finland in 1952. He studied software at the Savonlinna campus of the University of Joensuu before moving to Berlin to study history of the early middle ages and rhetoric under his mentor, Frithjof Sielaff. City Oulu (1605) Administrative Province Oulu province Historical Province Ostrobothnia Area (2004-01-01)  â€“ Total (excl. ... The University of Joensuu was founded in 1969. ...

He leads people from becoming 'crackers' to reversers, both in the sense of software reverse engineering, and as an ideology. He is strongly against advertisements, software user-restrictions, and what he claimed to be needless software protectionism. Judging from his writings, it appears that he is well-educated and interested in written history, language, and information theory. He is known to speak Finnish, German, English, and French.

His principal interests are now advanced web searching techniques, e.g. how to write your own search bots, how to "cut through the web" to your targets using special search strings (webbits), and how to find unknown music pieces or images.

His anti-commercial attitude is well known: there is not a single banner or advertisement on his sites.

Similarly, his writings and workshops always underline and demonstrate his belief that the very structure of the web was made for sharing, not hoarding or selling.

Since October 2000, Fravia got in touch with Richard Stallman at a LinuxDay event in Milan to which they were invited by a common friend. This meeting induced Fravia to start exploring free software and free culture. Richard Matthew Stallman (nickname RMS) (born March 16, 1953) is an acclaimed software freedom activist, hacker, and software developer. ... This article is about free software as defined by the sociopolitical free software movement; for information on software distributed without charge, see freeware. ... Free Culture may refer to: Free Culture (book) by Lawrence Lessig Free Culture movement, a social movement for freer culture (inspired partly by the book) FreeCulture. ...

External links

• Fravia's auto-biography
• Last known mirror of the original "reversing site"
• "Please help me to close the old mirrors" notice
• Fravia's "Powersearching" page
• Fravia's "Webbits" page
• Fravia's "Long term searching" advice
• Video of a Fravia conference presentation at Recon 2005 in Montreal
• Biographical information about Fravia

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