+ORC's Martini-Wodka
+ORC Stalking
Is Fravia+ == +ORC?
Final News
+ORC's Martini-Wodka
+ORC Stalking
Is Fravia+ == +ORC?
Final News
Virtually every single reverser will have heard of the +ORC tutorials. Although they were written some years back, they still stubbornly infest the web. If you haven't read them yet and understood then you probably aren't ready to become a reverser yet and should try something less taxing before returning. There are many rumours circulating about +ORC even to this day, as well as sites dedicated to stalking him (even some claiming to have found him), yet no attempts thus far have been plausibly successful and the trail is now very cold and well-trodden :-), in other words, you are pretty much wasting your time even trying.
One rumour is that +ORC was nothing more than a student who translated some cracking notes and then posted them around the web (taking the credit when they became famous), another is that he was some sort of lone professor cracking against commercialistic trends, I remember somewhere even a proposition he was US military. Certainly most accept that the author is of East-European origin, the English texts available on the web are certainly not the original writings of a professor, there are too many poor grammar and spelling errors for this to be the case and the language is "net-cultured".
Analysis I've done on the texts also leads me to believe that +ORC has not visited recently some of the places he remarks on, the "red buses" in London is a very typical stereotype (there are many others). +ORC has obviously gone to great lengths to try and conceal his age at the time of writing these tutorials by littering contradictions throughout the texts, this leads me to believe he is younger than he is trying to suggest (a simple matter of credibility).
"I have for instance three massage sessions every week with my masseuse, which is half my age but strong enough to cure my rheumatisms..." "This very old EGA program is one of the first I cracked in my youth, ..." (1987)
He is obviously someone fairly familiar with UNIX systems and the university establishment. The anon.penet.fi anonymous re-mailer service existed until September 1996, when other notable crackers of that era (Swedish student ed1son) also used its services (more pointers to the theory +ORC was really a student at that time). The service was sensationally shut down when its pioneer (Finnish student Johan Helsingius) ran into a dispute with the Church of Scientology, one of the service users had allegedly committed copyright infringements and mass-mailed sensitive details regarding the Catholic churches attitudes towards certain groups of people (gays) to Usenet. Helsingius refused to name the culprit and was forced to shut-up shop (he was later reprieved by an injunction against the decision 3 months later).
+ORC now uses orc__@hotmail.com, yet he only replies to +crackers (in other words don't e-mail him), to be honest with you I'm not even sure he answers this one any more, it has been nearly 3 years since anyone last claimed to have heard from him, one suspects he might now have a lucrative security job and has wisely decided to leave his past behind him (a contradiction if ever there was one ;-) ). The choice to use MS Hotmail is perhaps an intriguing one if you bear in mind +ORC's supposed concern for security of communication / information, were I a conspiracy theorist I could easily believe that this isn't the same person as the texts author. On a final note, it is 100% accepted that Fravia+ is NOT +ORC. although he seems to enjoy perpetuating the myth that he just might be (those crazy Italians eh ;P), of that single fact we can be fairly certain.
You can download all of the public +ORC tutorials from +Greythorne, his long standing web page and FTP at http://greythorne.cjb.net will assist you more. If anyone out there has any of the missing lessons please feel free to e-mail them to me anonymously, I will be happy to refrain from publishing them.
Perhaps the most famous cocktail in the reverse engineering business, here the precise instructions how you might prepare for yourselves a 'real' drink before a long reversing session (Warning :- the Martini-Wodka is an acquired taste and I personally don't recommend the Olive).
Take a cylindrical "milk" glass.
- 2 ice cubes.
- 1/3rd dry Martini.
- 1/3rd Wodka Moskowskaia (don't use Smirnoff as a substitute).
- 1/3rd Schweppes Indian Tonic.
- Lemon zest and Green Olive.
I've reworked most of this information from posts at message boards. Before disappearing +ORC set up a gate which was locked by a riddle, no-one except the very capable +Hackmore Readwrite has ever claimed to have solved it. Follow the links below and judge for yourself.
"Gold, with six bars, or with the visor raised (in
full face) for royalty"
"Silver, with five bars, (in full face) for a duke or marquis"
"Silver, with four bars, with visor raised (in profile) for
an earl, viscount or baron"
"Steel, without bars, and with visor open (in full face)
for a knight or a baronet"
"Steel, with visor closed (in profile) for a squire or a
gentleman"
http://www.home.aone.net.au/byzantium/found/found.html
- The cracking of the riddle (courtesy of the Basilisk).
Allegedly +ORC destroyed his gates soon after they were discovered,
they led +Hackmore to a GeoCities page written by someone calling
himself LoLander (it crudely hosts some +ORC material, pretty
basic looking). You can still get a copy of this website in a
zip file at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Horizon/6682/
- does it look like a real +ORC site, well I don't know :-).
Since this information might all disappear sometime, I've mirrored the LoLander files on my site for your convenience, you may also find the archive at the WayBack Archives.
LoLander.zip (315k).
+Hackmore Readwrite also claimed he was able to find the real +ORC, right down to the nitty gritty personal details of his name, address & phone number (perhaps by combing cancelled UseNet posts eh?). At about the time all of this was revealed +ORC himself vanished without trace. More recently (in a private e-mail) +Hackmore has gone so far as to say the keys to +ORC's identity are verifiably inside the LoLander files (and that they still open the door to +ORC's real identity).
There was another published attempt at finding +ORC's gates, first documented as an essay on Fravia's site, the stalker (a troller) suggests that the great +ORC was a Swedish exchange student (as ed1son also used anon.penet.fi this seems a possibility, maybe they were friends at some point?, +Hackmore Readwrite has since discounted this as a theory). You can find this alleged gate at http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Stadium/9490 (Nosferatu). I'm not so convinced of this one but discerning readers can make up their own minds.
My thanks go to +Hackmore Readwrite and several others for the information contained here.
I received this e-mail fairly recently (20th December 2000 in fact) from an interested party speculating that Fravia+ & +ORC are in fact the one and same individual. Dare I say (as far as one can really know), that I'm pretty confident this is NOT the case, the speculation was always going to be there though as an occupational hazard of fravia.org, the following 'ideas' and reply are interesting nevertheless :-).
Original Message (edited somewhat by yours truly)
"I am not very good with introductions and politeness formulas, so I am going to skip right to the subject. Since I wrote you another e-mail, somehow cryptic, and you never answered it, I decided to write again, so here it is :- It is pretty much possible that Fravia is ORC (if Fjalar Ravia really exists)".
"The coincidences are :-
1). +ORC's address : an526164@anon.penet.fi
- your birth date : 1952 anno domini (==1952 ad =='52 6164).
- you were born in Finland (...penet.fi).
- the 'an' part appears in some tutorials, in others does not,
in others appears 'na' so there is some confusion .But 'an' is
the title of one web page belonging to you (The first letters
of your wife's and mother's name), could be nothing here."
"2). The old red cracker :-
- you are not young.
- you are a "Red" through the history of your country
and of your family, red is russian, so that put me into some trouble.
- you were also called "Red Avenger" ; See Fravia's
site for this."
"3). All those german related expressions in your tutorials + quotes, you studied in Berlin."
"4). All that stuff at the Byzantium site are linking somehow fravia+ with +ORC."
"5). Many other things like :-
- quotes from your tutorials that match your short 'sited' biography :-
a). ''A passing knowledge of ancient RHETORIC can help quite a lot. Rhetoric is the "SoftICE" debugger you need..."(from tutors). He later studied history of the early middle ages and rhetoric, in Berlin..."(from site).
b). The example with those propaganda newspapers from one of ORC's tuts, begins with a swiss newspaper. We know that the national languages in Finland are finnish and swedish.
c). The examples about the cars F. Ravia hates so much (like ORC) and the one about the classical music F. Ravia loves so much (like ORC) are so obvious that I am not even going to cut-paste the quotes."
"My unknowns, my other knowns and my questions :-
- I could not find any of your parents on the web ("Sekasaintuja"
- Disharmonies was written by a woman in 1904).
- I could not find your university essay.
- There are also some instructions at http://www.home.aone.net.au/byzantium/
made by the webmaster to associate hex numbers with letters, but
nowhere in his site he associates 526164 with 52aNNOdOMINI, your
birth date. There also are some other things about that webmaster
(he is your age, likes looking at the stars...) that made me give
you another secret identity in his person - I could be wrong here.
- You (Fjalar Ravia) left way too many clues on the page (io13.htm)
about youself. Why?..
- Do you like cartoons, or watch them with your children?
- "This very old EGA program is one of the first I cracked
in my youth..." - a quote from one of ORC's tuts in which
he
talks about a software simulator from 1987. At this time you (F.
Ravia) were 35 years old...that can be considered youthness by
some older people, but almost never by anyone that you cracked
your first programs at about 35 (you took your university diploma
in reverse engineering in your 20s).
- Why there are lessons missing? (I am asking for an answer besides
that with "IF AND ONLY IF" part, please). How could
ORC be sure that nobody will publish them, where is the part with
free knowledge for ALL?.. Do these "other" lessons even
exist?."
The Reply (slightly edited)
"Some good intuitions and some completely false thoughts in what you write...to cite but two false thoughts : there's no way you could have had an anon.penet number on request in those days and I'm not finnish...but you have a sharp mind nevertheless.
Many others riddles await you, some obvious, some hard to find. More riddles than solutions, eh? that's how things are in life, that's why we reverse my clever friend
work well, and "cauta" ; "cauta" ==
"search" in english
fravia+"
Just who is kidding who?, answers on an e-mail :-).
.....and just in case you fancied another theory.....
Hi,
I think +ORC is romanian, the reasons follows:
1). From Orc.htm :
"work well, and "cauta" ; "cauta" ==
"search" in english"
- "cauta" = search in romanian
- "Cauta si vei gasi!" = "Search and you will find!"
it is a very common reply in Romanian dialog.
2). From found2.htm, Part 3 :
"To Hackmore
(...............)
on the other hand...
accidit in puncto quod non speratur in anno
work well
+ORC"
(The Latin means, roughly, it happens in an instant what was not
expected in a year. Or, in other words, "Sometimes things
happen quicker than you think").
- Not quite, we have in Romania a proverb also very common that matches better :
"Nu aduce anul ce aduce ceasul!" = "A year
didn't bring that bring an hour!"
3). This argument could seems silly, but is true:
- Some dutch charity organisations & foundations justify their
sympathy for Romanian people because we say that :
"Ne tragem din daci!" = "We came from daci people" or "Our ancestors was daci from Dacia".
Before the Romans conquered, the romanian territory was called the Dacia, inhabited by the daci people. But, "daci" it sounds EXACTLY like "dutch". Even if it is not historically true, psychology has a great effect. Tell this to a dutchman.
4). Could be an anagram :
+ORC=CautaRO+, meaning Search on romanian sites (*.RO).
Hope I bring a little light, at least a new hypothesis. Please ask me national peculiarities if you want to search this angle. And, of course, if you find his hidden page in a .ro site, let me know.
Florin V.
Romania
Oh, and just in case you fancied yet another tidbit of information.....
Fjalar Ravia
Baron Lambert 11
Brussels EU 1000
B
Phone: 4401225703164
....any other theories I'll happily publish, but lets keep the whole thing in perspective.
My thanks go to disavowed for this.
"CodeBreakers:
When browsing your old pages, it is clear that you seem to have
had a special "connection" to +ORC. +ORC seems to be
like a ghost. Does +ORC really exists or is it just a myth/fake
like the JRR Tolkien photo created by you?
+Fravia:
+ORC is dead. Died in Egypt. RIP.
CodeBreakers:
There is still the myth that there are some "missing +ORC
lessons" existing. Do they really exist?
+Fravia:
Dunno. I have seen only one in all these years. Those that got
them were bound not to publish them on the web, guess they are
no more important now, anyway"
Another set of typical +Fravia answers (engaging in conspiracy theories, maybe?), or perhaps like me, he is of the opinion that the +ORC 'saga' has rumbled on now for far too long and should be honorably retired ;-).
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