Writing & patents

Article: php|architect
Webbots and Spiders, An Insider's Guide, Jul 2007
This article explains the basics of writing webbots while solving a common business problem.

Patent: #6418346, Jul 9, 2002
Apparatus and method for remote therapy and diagnosis in medical devices...
This patent describes a method to enhance remote monitoring of implanted medical devices to deliver clinical therapy in real time and to store and forward information to PCs and similar peripheral equipment. This concept was developed while I was a member of Medtronic's Advanced Concepts Group.

Patent: (pending) #20040117293, April 1, 2001
Automated auction sales management tool
An automated tool for submitting items to an auction site is presented that allows multiple users to share a single seller identity. The present invention maintains confidentiality from sales person to sales person, and allows a sales manager to input details about an auction that are hidden from the sales persons.

Article: Web Techniques Magazine
Writing Intelligent Web Agents, Mar 2000
This article describes methods for designing and writing intelligent web agent software, which use information available on the Internet in some very „non-browser-like„ ways. Read the story (now maintained by Dr. Dobbs).

Article: Computerworld Magazine
Fear and Hacking in Las Vegas, Aug 4 1997
In 1997, I covered DEFCON for Computerworld Magazine. DEFCON is the annual hacker convention held in Las Vegas for members of the computer underground, and those of us with an interest in data security.

This article is no longer on the ComputerWorld website.

Speaking

Presentation: DEFCON XV, Las Vegas NV
The Executable Image Exploit
Aug 3, 2007
Convert <img src='image.jpg'> into a program that executes when browsers download web 2.0 websites. These executable images are capable of anything a regular program can do, including: reading and writing cookies, manipulating databases, sending email, etc.

Read more at www.defcon.org or watch the entire video executable image exploit talk on Google Video.
 
As reviewed in The Register: "Even more fun, but still not illegal, is Michael Schrenk's idea of configuring your server to create executable images. That is, programs that, among other possible things, load images. Looks like an image, quacks like an image, but in fact it could be a PHP or Perl script doing�almost anything."

Presentation: DCPHP, Washington DC
Developing Webbots with PHP, Oct 20, 2006
This presentation at DCPHP highlighted the benefits of writing webbots in PHP/CURL. In addition to explaining how to capitalize on flaws in the current client/server model used by the web, attention was paid to methods for downloading and parsing media.

Presentation: DEFCON XI, Las Vegas NV
Online Corporate Intelligence, Aug 1, 2003
This was my second consecutive year to speak at DEFCON. I built on the previous year's web agent theme by discussing ideas for automating Corporate Intelligence gathering.

Presentation: DEFCON X, Las Vegas NV
Introduction to Writing Spiders and Agents, Aug 5, 2002
During the summer of 2002, I was honored to be a speaker at DEFCON X, the definitive computer security conference. Attendees of my session learned the basics of writing web spiders, which--unlike browsers--are special purpose programs that do very specific things on the Internet.

More importantly than basic knowledge of how to write spiders, people attending my lecture learned the capabilities of web spiders and left the conference armed with ideas for creating spiders and web agents of their own designs.

Contact Schrenk to speak at your next confrence or event.