2012-01-16 20:53:34 +01:00
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vRFC1149
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========
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This is an implementation of "IP over Avian Carrier", using tweets as
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virtualized avian carrier.
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2011-12-21 03:27:59 +01:00
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2012-01-16 20:53:34 +01:00
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Installation and requirements
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=============================
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2011-12-21 03:27:59 +01:00
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You need
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* tweepy >= 1.8 (https://github.com/tweepy/tweepy.git)
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* python-bytearray
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2012-01-16 20:53:34 +01:00
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Each client needs a twitter account to tweet network packets and one
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account to follow for incoming network packets. If the tweets of each account
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are public, the accounts don't need to follow each other. Currently, only point
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to point connections are possible, as specified by RFC1149.
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How it works
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============
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The script needs one Twitter account. It registers the account via oAuth, so it
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becomes accessible (see Authorization) and then pull tweets from it via Twitter's
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streaming-API. Tweets are en-/decoded and (de-)fragmented using packaging
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helper (see Encoding). Incoming tweets are parsed as incoming traffic, outgoing
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traffic is fragmented, encoded and then tweeted.
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Authorization
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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The script needs to be associated with Twitter through oAuth. If it is started
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without credentials, it gives you a link to twitter.com with a generated token
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and then asks for a PIN. After entering the PIN the script is fully
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authorized to both tweet and read tweets. The ACCESS_KEY and ACCESS_SECRET are
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saved into conf_auth.py.
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If the script already has an ACCESS_KEY and ACCESS_SECRET you won't be asked
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for credentials again.
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Encoding
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~~~~~~~~
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A tweet's maximum length is 140 characters. One character for twitter is one
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unicode character, meaning that one character can encode 20 bits (current
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uncode range is 0x0-0x110000). In vRFC1149's implementation two bytes are
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encoded in each character, leaving 4 bit of each char for metadata (the
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header).
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Sadly twitter removes, mangles or augmentates some of
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the characters. For more information about this look into the comments in the
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source (phelper.UPHelper.reassembleBrokenChars()).
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An alternative approach is to just tweet everything plain, reducing the payload
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of a tweet to 138 bytes (2 bytes reserved for header). Nevertheless, twitter
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transforms certain characters (<,> to <, >), so a workarround is needed,
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too.
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All available packaging helpers can be found in phelper.py.
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Twitter API Limits
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Twitter allows each client to do 1000 tweets a day. When considering a
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continuous connection and a tweet size of 280 bytes, the average speed is about
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3byte/s (273kb/day). Additional, twitter breaks down the 1000 tweets to an
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unspecified hourly limit.
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RFC1149 compability
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===================
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This implementation of RFC1149 does not reach 100% compability, since the
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general tweet comes without a leg on which the message could be taped to.
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Also, no duct tape is used (no taping whatsoever).
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Regarding the encoding, one could write a packaging helper more compatible
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with the RFC's frame format (hexadecimal representation with seperated octets).
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As a side effect, it would reduce the payload of one tweet to 46 bytes.
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What could be done
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==================
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* create network topologies with Twitter's "following" feature
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* support multiple clients
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* create a table of characters which are not "eaten" by twitter or what they
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get transformed to
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Licensing
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=========
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Written by Sebastian Lohff <seba@seba-geek.de>
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Published under the GPLv3 or later
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