pitter patter on the keyboard

Twitter feeds can be obtained in XML with this URL scheme:

http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/$username.xml?count=$count

Where $username is the twitter user’s name and $count is how far back you want to go.

If your environment allows url_fopen you can load the whole thing directly into an object with simplexml_load_file().

Portability is good and allow_url_fopen is arguably very dangerous. For the sake of brevity let’s rip this class from the PHP manual’s fopen() comments:

class HTTPRequest
{
    var $_fp;        // HTTP socket
    var $_url;        // full URL
    var $_host;        // HTTP host
    var $_protocol;    // protocol (HTTP/HTTPS)
    var $_uri;        // request URI
    var $_port;        // port
   
    // scan url
    function _scan_url()
    {
        $req = $this->_url;
       
        $pos = strpos($req, '://');
        $this->_protocol = strtolower(substr($req, 0, $pos));
       
        $req = substr($req, $pos+3);
        $pos = strpos($req, '/');
        if($pos === false)
            $pos = strlen($req);
        $host = substr($req, 0, $pos);
       
        if(strpos($host, ':') !== false)
        {
            list($this->_host, $this->_port) = explode(':', $host);
        }
        else
        {
            $this->_host = $host;
            $this->_port = ($this->_protocol == 'https') ? 443 : 80;
        }
       
        $this->_uri = substr($req, $pos);
        if($this->_uri == '')
            $this->_uri = '/';
    }
   
    // constructor
    function HTTPRequest($url)
    {
        $this->_url = $url;
        $this->_scan_url();
    }
   
    // download URL to string
    function DownloadToString()
    {
        $crlf = "\r\n";
       
        // generate request
        $req = 'GET ' . $this->_uri . ' HTTP/1.0' . $crlf
            .    'Host: ' . $this->_host . $crlf
            .    $crlf;
       
        // fetch
        $this->_fp = fsockopen(($this->_protocol == 'https' ? 'ssl://' : '') . $this->_host, $this->_port);
        fwrite($this->_fp, $req);
        while(is_resource($this->_fp) && $this->_fp && !feof($this->_fp))
            $response .= fread($this->_fp, 1024);
        fclose($this->_fp);
       
        // split header and body
        $pos = strpos($response, $crlf . $crlf);
        if($pos === false)
            return($response);
        $header = substr($response, 0, $pos);
        $body = substr($response, $pos + 2 * strlen($crlf));
       
        // parse headers
        $headers = array();
        $lines = explode($crlf, $header);
        foreach($lines as $line)
            if(($pos = strpos($line, ':')) !== false)
                $headers[strtolower(trim(substr($line, 0, $pos)))] = trim(substr($line, $pos+1));
       
        // redirection?
        if(isset($headers['location']))
        {
            $http = new HTTPRequest($headers['location']);
            return($http->DownloadToString($http));
        }
        else
        {
            return($body);
        }
    }
}

We also need to give the links anchors, so we’ll modify Jonathan Sampson‘s clever little function to not shorten URLs since twitter already does this for us these days:

function auto_link_text($text)
{
   $pattern  = '#\b(([\w-]+://?|www[.])[^\s()<>]+(?:\([\w\d]+\)|([^[:punct:]\s]|/)))#';
   $callback = create_function('$matches', '
       $url       = array_shift($matches);
       $url_parts = parse_url($url);

       $text = parse_url($url, PHP_URL_HOST) . parse_url($url, PHP_URL_PATH);
       $text = preg_replace("/^www./", "", $text);

       $last = -(strlen(strrchr($text, "/"))) + 1;

       return sprintf(\'<a rel="nowfollow" href="%s">%s</a>\', $url, $text);
   ');

   return preg_replace_callback($pattern, $callback, $text);
}

Here we go:

$username = "username";
$count = 5;
$feed = "http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/$username.xml?count=$count";

$r = new HTTPRequest($feed);
$tweets = $r->DownloadToString();
$twitter_xml = simplexml_load_string($tweets);

$tweet_data = '';
foreach($twitter_xml->status as $status_object)
{
	$tweet_epoch = strtotime($status_object->created_at);
	$tweet_data .= "<div class=\"tweet\"><span class=\"tweet_date\">".date("F j g:ia", $tweet_epoch)."</span><div class=\"tweet_message\">".auto_link_text($status_object->text)."</div></div>";
}

print($tweet_data);

Before I begin this article I must point out that some of the subject matter is of an adult nature and some links may lead to pages that are NSFW, but within the confines of this site we will keep things thoroughly scientific and PG-13.

In a change from the usual format (neat doodads for the IT crowd) I’m going to do the whole “blogger” thing for the first time and share with you a relatively common personal experience from my position as the administrator of a chain of free, community-driven pornographic websites.

It began with an e-mail. Normally I don’t check the e-mail accounts associated with my furry crap but I was logged in last Saturday night to perform some managerial duties. While I was glazing over and staring at my Inbox a new e-mail popped in with the very succinct subject: Under Age / Child Pornography Notification

Delivered-To: karma.foxx[AT]gmail.com
Received: by 10.224.21.87 with SMTP id i23cs25818qab;
Sat, 29 Jan 2011 14:56:47 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.90.92.4 with SMTP id p4mr7150124agb.99.1296341805454;
Sat, 29 Jan 2011 14:56:45 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <jameskelson1987[AT]gmail.com>
Received: from mail-yw0-f66.google.com (mail-yw0-f66.google.com [209.85.213.66])
by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 3si45396094ano.164.2011.01.29.14.56.44
(version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5);
Sat, 29 Jan 2011 14:56:44 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of jameskelson1987[AT]gmail.com designates 209.85.213.66 as permitted sender) client-ip=209.85.213.66;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: domain of jameskelson1987[AT]gmail.com designates 209.85.213.66 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=jameskelson1987[AT]gmail.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=[AT]gmail.com
Received: by ywi6 with SMTP id 6so468195ywi.9
for <karma.foxx[AT]gmail.com>; Sat, 29 Jan 2011 14:56:44 -0800 (PST)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
d=gmail.com; s=gamma;
h=domainkey-signature:received-spf:dkim-signature:domainkey-signature
:mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type;
bh=xbnk/6fRuAYaYXS58hJ7gyTEoOaEfezGIyTwtwz5qX8=;
b=LAPRYWEbAPnL3IwEgfhrgAHIoZgHHGsDwgdzZhL1Cmo3nI7kGLFSWqlugbMw6WFLyS
HIaNHGkmVYiV8ePCadJUA3HwfuwsBsNiwLLZ4AhAJyHQjpoBVeq/vIOmK8Jh0+/q5gEK
/ehfDnMghQYQrG5v/QLNfyyQvedh7T7266M08=
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws;
d=gmail.com; s=gamma;
h=received-spf:authentication-results:dkim-signature
:domainkey-signature:mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to
:content-type;
b=v9fUmiXuP2tFHQ9FMsH2r1s1aXr5rsYj3QqPfsTUOisPuqM8WzEZLV/yJLhK9t4Fcq
i+l0wnJW0EHWApN9SmRSaV+PH8Ddu8s9ZG4T+IRmlvmxtqedJg5FsjR4YLNPAyGANIYa
fXsdEeFxCW3MADCuQMlMS/2nCYEl1t9NfKzQc=
Return-Path: <jameskelson1987[AT]gmail.com>
Received-SPF: pass (google.com: domain of jameskelson1987[AT]gmail.com designates 10.151.111.12 as permitted sender) client-ip=10.151.111.12;
Received: from mr.google.com ([10.151.111.12])
by 10.151.111.12 with SMTP id o12mr5937318ybm.438.1296341802183 (num_hops = 1);
Sat, 29 Jan 2011 14:56:42 -0800 (PST)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
d=gmail.com; s=gamma;
h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to
:content-type;
bh=xbnk/6fRuAYaYXS58hJ7gyTEoOaEfezGIyTwtwz5qX8=;
b=SqlIKTNiUmNBAWlsEFQhzcz250zYdHw/qfMB3gFiuHWlyE2WNCkSgx1Ezx+Rr9VRhU
7KEnqvvhbfv8smO8ldOAS4kMFEKs+wNaU0/CVIjAP18SRLDq/CPpDf7W+bCGK4W7m3wQ
Ifcst6Nho1OV9UtWzNvQdsP1EgKqoB6G+RGog=
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws;
d=gmail.com; s=gamma;
h=mime-version:date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type;
b=P8zEKnwEUyBd+dlgPE1zAIGnZrJY4Akpo/fqhxZKqhii2qFgCSVIUeMnQ8BcPPuSCg
0sY0jhuKz4SzGVnjVXr8ebpcIpXsL0Rwq9RbVeIop6gbUDQ8FCS3OciL/R1uc8MPvbJu
F5YZsdtgAWoN6pxXeOrf3IKGr9M1FPxOqh3hI=
MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: by 10.151.111.12 with SMTP id o12mr5937318ybm.438.1296341802176;
Sat, 29 Jan 2011 14:56:42 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.150.220.9 with HTTP; Sat, 29 Jan 2011 14:56:42 -0800 (PST)
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2011 15:56:42 -0700
Message-ID: <AANLkTimkRO5D3BZv83N0fqgJnvCQodHStnrSVEpFvA2Y[AT]mail.gmail.com>
Subject: Under Age / Child Pornography Notification
From: Ester Thompson <jameskelson1987[AT]gmail.com>
To: karma.foxx[AT]gmail.com
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=001517573dd6a04fd4049b04181d

–001517573dd6a04fd4049b04181d
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

http://chan.yiffy.tk/rl/straight+fursuit+sex/63418

This content is currently under a Federal Investigation due to one parties
is underage.
Being that you’re the domain owner, you’re legally hosting and serving the
above material.

If the material hasn’t been removed within 14days, All containing
information will be sent to both
PSI Networks and the Sex Crimes Unit of the Toronto Police Department as
well as US Federal
Court docket information in regards to the case in question for reference.

Thank you for your time,

–001517573dd6a04fd4049b04181d
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<a href=3D”http://chan.yiffy.tk/rl/straight+fursuit+sex/63418″ target=3D”_b=
lank”>http://chan.yiffy.tk/rl/straight+fursuit+sex/63418</a><br><br>This co=
ntent is currently under a Federal Investigation due to one parties is unde=
rage.=A0 <br>
Being that you’re the domain owner, you’re legally hosting and serv=
ing the above material.=A0 <br><br>
If the material hasn’t been removed within 14days, All containing infor=
mation will be sent to both <br><font size=3D”-1″>PSI Networks and the Sex =
Crimes Unit of the Toronto Police Department as well as US Federal <br>Cour=
t docket information in regards to the case in question for reference.<br>

<br>Thank you for your time, <br>=A0 <br></font><div style=3D”padding: 0px;=
margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow: hidden; word-wrap: break-word=
; color: black; font-size: 10px; text-align: left; line-height: 130%;”>
</div>
<div style=3D”visibility: hidden; left: -5000px; position: absolute; z-inde=
x: 9999; padding: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow: hidden;=
word-wrap: break-word; color: black; font-size: 10px; text-align: left; li=
ne-height: 130%;” id=3D”avg_ls_inline_popup”>
</div>

–001517573dd6a04fd4049b04181d–

Did I mention I’m really not very fond of e-mail? Normally I would ignore such a blatant fabrication but child pornography allegations are no laughing matter, so I decided to overlook their stumbling around legal terms and investigate anyway. Depending on how your state or nation divvies up the charges participants can be nailed with several different offenses, like:

• Production
• Possession
• Distribution
• Depending on age and position of trust, sex with a minor or “statutory rape”

The crazy part is these charges can often even be applied to the minor(s) involved as well!

The idea of pedophilia is so revolted by modern society that the mere suggestion that someone is involved in such activities can do plenty of damage regardless of whether the allegation is based in fact or fiction, proven to be true or false. Personally, I see making accusations of this nature falsely as a crime on par with the deed itself as both have the potential to destroy the lives of their victims.

As part of the investigation, I wanted to get to know the people behind this e-mail a little better. Let’s play a game:

Hi there,

If your attorney could forward the relevant documentation to us that
would be fantastic.

Thanks!

To which we received:

Ester Thompson to me show details 29 Jan (3 days ago)

No claim of ownership was made in previous notification by my self.
The notification was only “For you information”. No legal Counsel is required.

Your domain, among another three
have the same material hosted. My self among another few people are taking a stand
on child pornography on the internet and are doing our part to have such material
removed in a passive manner.

Any information regarding this issue / case will be made available via the
Toronto Police Department – Child Exploitation Section @ XXX-XXX-XXXX After February 12, 2011.
That is, if the said material is still being hosted at your contracted Colo on your registered domain.

Again, Thank you for your time.

No claim of ownership. That was fast. 11-minutes-fast. We never said anything about ownership.

“My self among another few people are taking a stand on child pornography on the internet and are doing our part to have such material removed in a passive manner.”

Myself among a few other people indeed. There are a number of professionally-run volunteer child advocacy groups monitoring the Internet. None of them deal with content providers in this fashion and it is unlikely that someone who is truly concerned about child exploitation would sacrifice the credibility these agencies lend to go the vigilante route.

Now, colour me old fashioned but my idea of “passive removal” is a nicely worded request. Not legal threats right-off-the-bat. Such manners. :/

“Any information regarding this issue / case will be made available via the Toronto Police Department – Child Exploitation Section @ XXX-XXX-XXXX After February 12, 2011.
That is, if the said material is still being hosted at your contracted Colo on your registered domain.”

Oh good, they can google too. It’s nice that these staunch child protectionists have given us a liberal two-week’s grace to keep hosting this alleged child porn while we launch or own investigation.

Speaking of investigations, remember that Federal Investigation (capital F, capital I) our friends mentioned was currently underway in the first e-mail? I think I’d quite like to know about it since our friends are so graciously withholding evidence from them:

That’s fine, you can put us in touch with the case manager of the
investigation. Please rest reassured that YI and affiliated sites take
a hardline stance against child exploitation and our legal team has
advised us to move forward once a duly qualified representative for
the ongoing federal investigation has contacted us.

By the way, is it Ester or James?

Thanks!

Of course, I don’t know of a single law enforcement agency in North America that would comment on an ongoing investigation but our friends aren’t so keen on the “law stuff” so I decided to take some liberties.

Liberties like the emergency red phone connected directly to my “legal team.”

My lawyer is Jewish. He doesn’t do Saturdays.

Ester got back to me in 15 minutes:

Hello,
This is nothing more than a notification. Either way, as stated in previous emails.
We’ll move forward on submit the information to the proper authorities once the said time frame has passed.
I legally have no power of authority. I can only notify parties of possible issues in a respectful manor.

This account is anonymous and such names are fictitious.

No reply is necessary.

Thank you for your time.

Isn’t it a mite bit peculiar how our friend is so quick to distance himself from the material? Don’t you think a well-intentioned child advocacy group would do everything in their power to assure us of their credibility and seriousness of intentions? Anonymous gmail accounts, poor command of the English language, ignorance of legal procedure and baseless accusations are hardly what one would expect of people who take this issue seriously.

At any rate, we had been accused of hosting child pornography and we supposedly had 14 days to investigate the matter. Perfect. We didn’t need 14 hours.

I assembled a research team from our wonderful, volunteer staff at YI and with little more than Google, a can of elbow grease and our trusty Handsome Boy Sleuthing Kit we were able to identify the participants in the video, their ages, phone numbers, some relatives, photographs and so on.

At first I gave “Ester” the benefit of the doubt and we worked based on the assumption that one of the participants actually was underage. Since the full-body fursuits rather obfuscated the identities of the participants one would probably either have to possess direct knowledge of the event (i.e. been involved) or be tremendously good at finding furries (Yiffy International has been serving the furry community for 8 years and we are very good at this) to know the ages of the participants. Based on the former we postured that our nervous friend could be involved in this video and therefore under the threat of all that entails. We thought it would be neat to try to “catch a predator” whom had greeted us with such airs.

Little did I know what steaming pile of furry we were getting into. Not long after identifying the “fursonas” of the participants we found this on Encyclopedia Dramatica’s Furfaggotry/Needed portal:

AzureCoyote – Furfagette got busted fucking in a fursuit, and sold the suit she was using on Furbuy (eBay for furfags) afterward. And she conveniently left out the fact that she fucked in the suit when she sold it. DFE’d everything about the specific suit after she got busted. High lulz potential.

DFE, if you haven’t already guessed, means Delete Fucking Everything. I don’t see why, I always thought fursuiters ate that kind of thing right up.

It turns out the female participant in the video was AzureCoyote and the male was one Balto Woof. I don’t want to draw any conclusions just yet, but wouldn’t it be tragic if the video we were researching was the video described above? Even more far-fetched, wouldn’t it be profoundly misguided if Azure and/or Balto were accusing themselves of participating in a kiddie porn vid in hopes of strong-arming a lesser-informed administrator into a quick and quiet deletion?

I’m generally very sensitive to people trying to get a second chance at privacy; parents today are ill-equipped to guide their children in the wise use of personal or potentially hazardous information online. It’s really not their fault, kids today just don’t know any better than to expose their life to God and everyone on the myface and the spacebook and so on. If that’s all this was about the whole thing could have been avoided by making a polite request rather than storming in with air-guns cocked and loaded. I’ve helped people in this situation before. Isn’t that silly?

Before I tell you anything about these folks I want to make it perfectly clear that we will only be publishing information that is readily available through google searches and has been published publicly, voluntarily by those involved. We’re not “out to get” anyone and we certainly don’t hold any animosity toward people we never knew existed until a day ago. We will, however, be retaining our full dossiers on these individuals in the event that we are contacted by a LEO concerning this matter in the future. It’s nice to be prepared.

AzureCoyote

AzureCoyote is [Name and DOB redacted]. She runs a fursuiting business with Balto Woof called Made Fur You. At the time the video was recorded she was 19 years old.

For verification. we found a photo of her from 2007, when she was 18:

This is the “Skittles” fursuit she was wearing in the video, posing with its current owner:

• http://syberwolf.deviantart.com/
• http://www.madefuryou.com/
• http://azurecoyote.livejournal.com/
• http://www.facebook.com/sleepingcoyote
• http://www.myspace.com/azulcoyote
• http://www.youtube.com/user/azurecoyote

The fursuit seems to have its own persona.

• http://www.furaffinity.net/user/skittlepaws
• http://www.formspring.me/skittlepaws

Balto Woof

We believe Balto is [Name Redacted]. He was 28 at the time of filming and is a business partner in Made Fur You.

There isn’t a lot to find on Balto, probably because he has been a furry (and automotive enthusiast) for a very long time and knows better.

We did find a lot on his brother [Name Redacted], whom you can see here wearing my hat:

We had a wee chuckle at the botched whois privacy on his website, http://saknetrepair.com/ :

Registration Service Provided By: JustHost.com
Contact: support@justhost-inc.com

Domain name: saknetrepair.com

Registrant Contact:
   Sak Net Repair
   [Name Redacted] ()

   Fax:
   4530 Parks Ave Apt 1
   San Diego, Ca 91942
   US

Administrative Contact:
   Domain Privacy
   Domain Privacy (privacy@pipedns.com)
   +1.1
   Fax: +1.1
   Domain Privacy
   Domain Privacy
   Domain Privacy, Domain Privacy Domain Privacy
   DO

Technical Contact:
   Domain Privacy
   Domain Privacy (privacy@pipedns.com)
   +1.1
   Fax: +1.1
   Domain Privacy
   Domain Privacy
   Domain Privacy, Domain Privacy Domain Privacy
   DO

Status: Locked

Name Servers:
   NS1.PIPEDNS.COM
   NS2.PIPEDNS.COM
   NS3.PIPEDNS.COM

We don’t understand why that was necessary when he publishes his address and phone number on his website anyway.

At any rate, [Name Redacted] seems like a nice enough chap with little to hide and since he and his brother are the administrative contacts for two of Azure’s domains we’re fairly convinced Balto is [Name Redacted]‘s little bro. [Name Redacted] likes to keep in touch:

It was thanks to Balto’s fursuit database entry we were able to establish the earliest possible time the video could have been produced:

This was verified by the page history on Balto’s WikiFur page. Balto also gives us his age on FA and in case we missed it, YouTube:

• http://www.furaffinity.net/user/baltowoof/
• http://db.fursuit.me/index.php?c=viewsuit&id=904
• http://balto-woof.livejournal.com/
• http://www.youtube.com/user/BaltoWoof
• http://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Balto_Woof
• http://www.meetup.com/furnow/

Now that we had established that the earliest possible time the video could have been created was in the summer of 2008 and that both of the participants were well of-age by then it was time to let Ester know he had been mistaken.

Hello,

As part of our good-faith effort to investigate reported cases of
child exploitation we have assembled a research team and positively
identified both participants in the video, along with a comprehensive
collection of names, addresses, phone numbers, relatives, business
associations, academic pursuits and photographs. We are happy to
inform you that based on the dates of fursuit construction, earliest
known release of the video in question and birth dates of the
participants that the female was 19 at the time of recording and the
male was 28.

As we take allegations of child exploitation very seriously and we
expect that in the interest of erring on the side of caution you will
be proceeding to contact the appropriate authorities regardless of
what our research indicates we have been advised to publish select
information from our dossiers on the participants publicly so that the
community can help verify the facts and add details which may be of
importance; we are currently preparing a brief detailing the results
of our investigation which will be forwarded to those law enforcement
agencies which contact us concerning this matter. For more information
on our law enforcement cooperation policy and how we have assisted
enforcement professionals in the past please see [link removed]

Keep up the good work!

The link is removed in this posting as I had rigged a little scriptlet to record data on anyone who clicked it, then send them to our generic 404 error page at YI. Unfortunately, in their haste they must have overlooked it. Or known better.

Thirty-nine minutes later, Ester surrendered:

I’ve been told the same thing by another party in regards to this media. My self and others
were giving information in regards to several videos posted online. The other party that informed
us our info was incorrect provided me with links to the owner of the shown costumes at are adult owned.

Since Ive seen no proof to reinforce this is underage material beyond a 3rd party source advising
anonymously that it was. As well as two separate parties proving the parties are of legal age. I don’t see any reason to pursue this further
Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. Thank you for clearing this up.

I don’t know about you but I can see the panic in their typing a mile away.

I thought it would be nice to reassure them that justice would be done.

Hello,

As I said, we take allegations of child exploitation very seriously
and this is doubly true for false or baseless allegations. The mere
suggestion that an individual has produced, possessed and distributed
child pornography can have life-devastating consequences. Therefore,
we feel it is our duty to set the public record straight. Being that
you are an anonymous organization we do not expect you to divulge your
sources but we know you will support us in our effort to ensure
justice for the victims of this libel.

We look forward to working with you again.

We may never know for certain whether or not Balto and Azure attempted their own character assassination but we can tell you one thing: when they made that particular video they were NOT child pornographers.

I chose the title of this article because as we find ourselves ever more easily manipulated into handing out our personal information to god knows what Internet entity carefree, we truly are our own worst enemies in the fight for personal privacy.

On that note I leave you with an excellent presentation Steve Rambam gave at The Last HOPE (Hackers on Planet Earth 2008), entitled Privacy is Dead, Get Over It.