
Renowned reverse engineer Fravia says goodbye - ilitirit
http://fravia.com/swansong.htm
======
ableal
I find it regrettable that Wikipedia, which has lengthy pages on cartoon and
soap opera characters, feels the need to save bytes by deleting a page about a
real person who publicly contributed knowledge to the community.

(Google cache still has it, as of today)

~~~
tptacek
The standard for inclusion in Wikipedia isn't "contributions to the
community", or else everybody who had ever worked on an open source project
would have a Wikipedia article. Wikipedia articles aren't lifetime achievement
awards.

The standard for inclusion is notability.

This argument is a tempest in a teacup. Either there are reliable independent
sources establishing that Fravia is notable, or there aren't. If there are,
you will have no real trouble getting and keeping an article. If there aren't,
the article will be repeatedly deleted, by people who don't know anything
about reverse engineering and thus won't care at all about your arguments.

When this exact topic came up yesterday, I spent 3-4 minutes looking for a
reliable source that established notability for Fravia, and I came up blank.
Who has written about him, outside of blogs? Surely, given how important he
was to reverse engineering, somebody has mentioned him, or he's been published
somewhere.

~~~
ableal
I half-regret bringing up the issue. I had wanted to know more, and was sad
the info had been deleted.

The half I don't regret is that maybe someone here can contribute better to
Wikipedia. Reverse engineering guys are mostly tight-lipped, but they're
family ...

------
pistoriusp
I find it strange how the imminent demise of another makes me reflect upon
myself: I found myself wondering what I would write in the same situation, and
then realizing that this is a fate that I cannot escape.

I like to watch Steve Jobs' Stanford commencement speech, every now and again,
to remind me of that fact:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA>

Transcribed: <http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html>

~~~
ilitirit
> imminent demise

Just in case some people don't know, Fravia passed away 2 days ago
(2009/05/03)

------
wallflower
> Yet my most cherished advice to all friends is the following: learn to enjoy
> your contingent present, don't be obsessed by the future. Carpe diem, and
> enjoy the current emotions: a starry sky, a fresh wind, the shells on the
> seashore, your love at your side in the night, a long talk in the evening
> twilight with a friend, the smile of your kids. Substituting _that_ with a
> TV -or a computer screen- is a very poor bargain... that is one of the few
> things I am now pretty sure of.

Gobsmacked by this. I've been starting to apply Stoicism towards my life and
I'm speechless.

Stoicism: This has been posted on News.YC before but this might impact you:

[http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/13/stoicism-101...](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/13/stoicism-101-a-practical-
guide-for-entrepreneurs/)

------
mgua
Redirecting Fravia page to reverse engineering is unacceptable.

He had been an expert in software reversing (which is related to software
reverse engineering) and in the last 10 years devoted a considerable amount of
efforts to the field Internet Information Searching.

I was a personal friend of mr Ravia, and knew him for more than 10 years. He
was able to build a considerable community of experts in the field around him.
The article will definitely be improved now, after is untimely death.

Revert back the redirect.

Regards, Marco Guardigli Technical Director TomWare Group

------
garply
fravia's writings were a big part of my motivation to learn how computers work
when I was just a fledgling programmer.

So long and thanks for all the info!

~~~
gommm
I remember when I was a kid and didn't have a very reliable internet
connection I mirrored fravia.org to make sure that I could read it when I
wanted to. I was fascinated with all his writings on reverse engineering and
learned a lot from him...

So thanks to Fravia and sorry to see him go...

------
statictype
Wow, I just got heavy nostalgia after going through the mirrors of his site.

His pages on reverse-engineering were my earliest findings on the internet.
When it used to take days to download a 20mb file.

------
andeka
goodbye fravia. We will miss you. I will catch you in the next life and use
what you taught us to not get lost in this one.

------
mgua
I managed to find some more information sources about fravia (pictures of him
and RMS, and a blog entry by Tommaso Dorigo, a scientist and a friend of him,
and updated my own version of WP page
([http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fravia&oldid=2...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fravia&oldid=288959514))
. I also refined language separated facts from opinions and tried to be more
objective, but it is not easy. WP Admin Matt_Crypto re-trashed again the page
while I was working on it, giving a very poor explanation. I think that a
better page will never come out if they dont allow community to work on it. I
am available to critics and I am not hiding my identity. I am a middle age
respected professional working and consulting internationally. I owe a lot to
mr. Fravia, for what I learned from him since 1996. By the way I was hacking
and cracking since the eighties.

Given the inadequate page on WP while he was alive, I felt the need and urge
of updating it, then this hell begun. I am registered in WP since 2005, and
seldom made some little contributes.

Seems that many of you benefited from Fravia's writings.

Yesterday, at Fravia's final burial, i was blowing a dandelion in the wind.
Tiny seeds flowing in the sky in the beautiful green valley. Those flying
little seeds were like the many teaching he left inside many of us. a suitable
picture could be this:
[http://photos.jibble.org/albums/Dandelions/dandelion_seeds_b...](http://photos.jibble.org/albums/Dandelions/dandelion_seeds_being_blown.jpg)

Please help me in fixing this Fravia Wikipedia Entry. I simply think he
deserves it.

\--Marco Guardigli

------
EvanK
as i understand it, the issue with the wikipedia article was that it [the
article] was badly put together, and had no citations.

rather than reverting the changes, try creating a better article from scratch.
(of course, its locked until the 12th to prevent a flood of people trying to
revert it, but just wait until the 13th)

------
noonespecial
Ahhh fravia.com...

One of the first things I found when joing the brave new world with my 28.8.
The first thing i found on that new "www" thing that made me realize its
potential, back in the bad old days when searching/finding anything on it was
a bit of a black art. We'll miss you.

 _"So long, and thanks for all the fish."_

------
paulgerhardt
there are a series of videos of him speaking available at the internet
archive: <http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=fravia>

------
jahan_26
I am jahan_26. I'm really sad that you're gone. I'm gonna to follow your way
and make your name big. R.I.P

------
iuguy
May $DEITY present Fravia with all the bounties $AFTERLIFE may offer him. You
will be missed.

------
gcabeza
fravia, ORC+, +HCU I guess that was my awakening in critical thinking. forever
grateful...

------
knightrider
Such sensationalist headlines should not be encouraged on HN.

