Very sad news:
http://www.searchlores.org/swansong.htm

Thanks to wtbw for bringing this to my attention.

If any of you are religious/spiritual, I encourage you to pray for a miracle for fravia+.

There is way too much of this slow and/or quick wasting death. It is, in deed, very sad that such an interesting mind and personality may soon be stilled, but, if "the gods" will it, he will have left a lasting legacy for those of us who follow after and attempt, in our own small way, to emulate some of what he has taught us all.

Dying is most difficult on those who are left behind. For those who "pass over" the pain and difficulties have all gone away. While it is especially sad for his family, they have enjoyed a unique opportunity to be "up close and personal" with this most interesting man.

May the remainder of his journey be as pain free as possible without rendering the mind unable to function.

Regards,

Amazing person!!!!!!!!, may his name will never be forgotten in History!

I guess I know something about his condition as I work as a nurse in an oncology department and looking at the photo his skin looks icteric which basically means (as he writes) that his liver has either ceased to function or is about to. Which means he gets palliative care: no more cancer treatments just a lot of morphine and/or oxycodone based drugs.

Which basically means that it is a good time to start saying your farewells to people you know.

Thanks fravia+. You showed me a whole new world.

You are right on the money. The worst part of my job as a nurse is not seeing people die but seeing those that are left mourning. The sadness does go away eventually but the ones who have passed away will keep on living in our hearts and minds. And in the Internet in case of fravia+.

Howdy,

I'm glad I got the chance to know the man personally.
Am I sad, yes.

ORC was important in that he was the first to write publicly about software cracking.
Fravia took us to an entire different level.
When he gave us searchlores, he gave us another masterpiece.

Much like a great artist or composer.

The amount of knowledge he has given us has no value.

As a teacher he brought out the best qualities in everyone.
Patient and giving of himself and only asking that you take what you learn and share it with others.

Shit, I had to fight with him over paying for beers .

Woodmann

I've had the unfortunate personal experience of witnessing two individuals go through a similar experience within the last 60 days. The first went from apparent good health and no complaints to being wasted away and thin and gaunt and succumbing within 30 days to massive tumors throughout his body. His having also had a major tumor in the liver, I can also see the similarities in Fravia's face.

The other was diagnosed longer and, like fravia, went through several treatments of drugs and then radiation. Like fravia, she finally went home to die in the company of her family and a few friends. From discontinuance of treatment to passing was again approximately 30 days and morphine and/or oxycodine based drugs were barely sufficient to control the pain. I'm sure she considered her passage to the next plane of existence as a blessing on many levels.

Hopefully, fravia's own journey will not be as unpleasant and he will enjoy, for as long as possible, the company of his family and friends. In the end, that is really all there is in this life. You really don't get to take anything else with you, wherever one believe we go after we shuffle off this mortal coil.

Regards,

Sad. So so sad.

Thanks Fravia+ for the immense work you did for the community. Without your efforts many people, me included, won't have started the great adventure of RE. Fatti forza & Tieni duro!

You can send him a farewell / gratitude / thank you email, and write your appreciation while you still can.

JMI...I have been through similar experiences, the worst with my dad. I have a very low opinion of medical authorities, surgeons in particular. Many physicians are caught up in paradigms that make little sense, and hospitals are increasingly being run by surgeons who go beyond their technical abilities and become involved in diagnosing patients. I don't care how good a surgeon is with a knife, he/she is not qualified to diagnose patients in other disciplines. I had a student surgeon, studying gastroenterological surgery, for example, tell me he disagreed with a course of treatment given me by a cardiologist. Surgeons I have encountered are plain arrogant.

Linus Pauling was one of the premier researchers in the field of chemistry. Later in life, he turned his attention to what he called orthomolecular nutrition, which is essentially giving the body nutrients it needs to maintain and repair itself. In consultation with a Scottish cancer specialist, Ewan Cameron, Pauling commented that high doses (10 grams) of vitamin C could relieve the pain suffered by terminal cancer patients. As JMI points out, terminal cases are usually abandoned to pain-suppression using drugs, and they essentially starve to death.

The problem with starving to death is scurvy. It is a very painful disease in which the body literally falls apart due to a lack of collagen, the cement that sticks cells together. Collagen relies on vitmain C, and if there is not enough C, the body falls apart. Gums bleed and teeth loosen, and so on. Doctors will stand by and watch this happen, oblivious to any attempt at treating the patient.

When my dad was in his last days, the doctor gave him a prescription for Demarol, a cheap replacement for morphine. It's a terrible drug that gives the victim hallucinations while relieving pain. I had been giving him 10 grams of vitamin C mixed with a multivitamin and vitamin E, along with a liquid protein drink. The doctor called to see if I was giving him the Demarol, and I told him he didn't want it. The doctor arrogantly accused me of keeping it from him and came around to see my dad personally.

When asked if he was in pain, which the doctor was trained to believe he should be, my dad replied that he was uncomfortable but not in pain. The doctor tried to talk my dad into taking the pain killer but he did not want it. I would have given my dad the pain-killer in a minute if he'd wanted it, but in all the time I spent with him until the end, he did not appear to be in pain. I offered it to him several times, explaining what it was, but he didn't want it.

The body is capable of miraculous healing through it's own processes. One thing I have noticed with several terminal friends is their lack of willingness to fight the illness. Many people have no doubt heard of the curses placed on Africans by witchdoctors or shamans. I was just reading a book by a British Army officer who oversaw a battalion of Nigerian soldiers. He talked about several cases involving soldiers in which an African would simply lie down, with a fixed stare, and die within several days, after receiving a curse (Ju Ju). He noticed that as well in battle, in Burma, where some African soldiers died from superficial wounds. They had no desire to recover.

I can understand a person feeling so ill that he/she has no desire to survive, but I can't understand a profession that is willing to standby without trying to promote recovery. When Pauling and Cameron put out their book on Vitamin C and Cancer, a Dr. Moertell debunked their claim after studying their method. When asked by Pauling what he had done to reproduce Pauling's experiment, Moertell replied that he'd used 250 mg of C, which is 2.5% of the 10,000 mg dosage used by Pauling. Not only that, he kept a terminal patient on chemotherapy, a deadly poison. When asked why, Moertell replied that he felt a need to make it appear as if he was doing something.

Today, some doctors are using over 100 grams of C intravenously, to treat people for maladies including snake bite. One man who had a football sized tumour in his stomach, used over 100 grams a day in divided dosages, stopping the spread of the tumour. Cameron predicted that reaction as C helped the surrounding tissue to encase the tumour. Cancer research is so much in the dark ages about such treatment, however, that they regard it as a joke.

In their book, neither Pauling nor Cameron make unreasonable claims for vitamin C as an adjunct to cancer therapy, but they both noticed marked improvement in those cancer subjects who took the C. A few experienced spontaneous remission, and one had a remission, stopped taking the C and got the cancer back. When he started back on the C, the remission re-appeared.

It's terribly sad that arrogant SOB's in the medical profession are completely lacking in imagination and ingenuity. The moment a person contracts cancer, he/she should be subjected to a positive program of mental therapy along with the optimum level of nutrition with mega-vitamin therapy.

WaxfordSqueers,
Indeed, Doctors sometimes make a patient's situation become much more worse that it was initially was, all because of "words" and their inability to give a patient positive feedbak (Hope).

as it was in the case of Milton H. Erickson:

Fravia was one of the most amazing person I've seen throughout my whole life. It is a Huge loss to have to loose such a brilliant person. My utmost respect to him, and may he be remembered for centuries to come.

Sad news indeed...
Bon vent !

Surgeons are best when doing surgery and at least over here surgeons consult specialists from other fields and don't make any decisions (for example) about cancer treatments. About your case: gastroenterologist disagreeing about cardiological treatments is just plain wrong and I think your assessment of the surgeon is correct: a plain arrogant bastard who should spend rest of his career doing autopsies. Of cows.

There's and old joke about surgeons "The surgery was a success but the patient died".



There's a thing about treating patients: doctors give the guidelines and give permissions to administer drugs and *nurses* do the actual work. It the nurses who have constant contact with the patients and are responsible for the actual caretaking. If a patient is clearly malnutritioned (it shouldn't go that far...) then it is nurses' job to find out what patient wants to eat and can eat. If eating is impossible orally then there are other ways of getting the patient to eat: for example a PEG-tube (a gastric feeding tube). Proper nutrition is one of the keys to recovery.



About your dad's treatment: if patient does not want a drug then it is doctor's job to find a different one with similar qualities. Also Demerol (pethidine) should never be used when treating cancer patients. Or any patients for that matter. Newer opioids are far better and the way to get almost all the pain to go away is to give the drug as much as is needed (when treating terminal patients, that is) and to combine several different drugs.



That is true, some cancer patients seem to live as long as they still have the fight in them. Just today I had two patients who just could not go on anymore and said that they would want to die and I expect that neither will be there tomorrow morning when I go to work...



I have no idea where you live but in my country this is not true. Then again my country has socialized healthcare so the doctors don't have to think about what the patient can afford but what the patient needs.



I really don't know about vitamin C and cancer so I have to read about it and ask the doctors at work about this. I did find the following link and it shows that the subject is under study. The problem with studying cancer treatments, especially cytostatics (chemotherapy) is that it is ethically wrong to perform double-blind testing as it would most likely kill a lot of healthy people.

http://pt.wkhealth.com/pt/re/anon/abstract.00002352-200811000-00024.htm;jsessionid=JwKZH2J9gX0MzQCpyYJXHjRjmXLDTK771LyfWG09w9nt2P36qnXN!928310026!181195629!8091!-1

I am really sorry what your father and you had to experience but some doctors seem to be oblivious to the fact that there is a thing called palliative treatment.

very sad to see a pesron with such an enormous contribution to his chosen field or chosen hobby is fated to endure such enormous pains in his life

i pray that he gets so much strenght that his minds faith doesnt get weakened

I cannot begin to explain the levels of influence fravia's work has had on me. I first heard about this sometime last year, and was hoping things would turn around. This will be a significant loss to the community.

Rest In Peace, fravia+. Your work is well regarded and respected, and you will be remembered.

The Hell!!????

He's still ALIVE man!!!

Have Phun

where to read about fravias personal favors, like painting, music..

I followed Bengaly's advice and sent him an email that he kindly answered. He said he was proud of friends he met all over the world. I dunno if it's a good idea (could bother him etc) but if you feel like it, express yourself it could cheer him up.

Aimless +1.

hey guys,
I don't know him in person,still I send him an appreciation letter.Whether he reads it or not its not important,its just a matter of appreciation

did you wrote in: >> Flame no Teach
?

Sometimes real life transcends the boundaries we surround ourselves within this "scene of ours".

I wish fravia and his family all the best whatever the future holds for them.

I have sent my own private e-mail of support and ask that others do the same.

Regards,

CrackZ.

Its really moving.
Even i started cracking after reading from Fravia's essays

He is a person with multiple talents having an open perspective(usually correct) about things and i must say he is an exceptional writer

I wish fravia and his family all the best.

GEEK

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand - Randy Pausch

Fravia+ you are an outstanding contributor in the field of RE, Searching plus more...

I'll type for all a small para from the book "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch

"I heard from a man in his early forties with serious heart problems. He wrote to tell me about Krishnamurti, a spiritual leader in India who died in 1986. Krishnamurti was once asked what is the most appropriate thing to say to a friend who as about to die. He answered: "Tell your friend that in his death, a part of you dies and goes with him. Whereever he goes, you also go. He will not be alone".

Thank you for shareing your knowledge, will be shared for generations to come.

Sope!

I'm not trying to rain on your parade, but I'm pretty sure Krishnamurti would have been unimpressed to have such a statement attributed to him. I say that not to be argumentative but to bring it to people's attention in the hope they might read Krishnamurti. BTW...there was another Krishnamurti who is often confused with Jiddu Krishnamurti.

K. was not a spiritual leader by his own choosing. He was found in India as a child by the Theosophical Society and chosen as their world leader. They educated him at the Sourbonne, but in his twenties, he dissolved the society claiming that people should not have a leader, or a guru, and should look into their own minds for guidance. He thought intelligence was a natural process beyond thought, and related to love and compassion, whereas traditional thought was bound by memory and its distorted content. If that statement came from him, it was when he was quite young and long before he formed the basis of his work.

K. thought the problem with humans was thought itself. He claimed it was biased and distorted and that truth could not be ascertained through such distortion. He was not a philosopher, not religious, and definitely not a spiritual leader. He urged people to become aware of the limitations of their minds through direct observation of their thought processes.

If there is comfort in the work of K., it is in the silence that comes when thought stops. He claimed it is not an empty silence but filled with immensity. He claimed that he sometimes sat for half an hour without a single thought entering his mind. He also thought that fear, especially of death, was related to thought, and that death to most of us was fear of mental death, not the physical. We fear the loss of the material world, of pleasure.

In his own way, K. described a mental death before the physical death. He urged people to die to the thought processes that imprison us: to the beliefs, the opinions, the ego, the prejudice, the racism, etc. He claimed that could all be done in an instant simply by seeing the process of mind that creates that kind of thought. Many of his dialogs were with the theoretical physicist David Bohm.

He was not opposed to thought itself if it was intelligent, meaning it has no self-centre. He refered to that as occuring when the observer is not the observed. He called meditation the simple process of observing our thought processes on an ongoing basis, becoming totally aware of the relationship between reality and the illusions we tend to create and call reality. He refered to traditional meditation as being mechanical and a product of the distorted mind.

This is very sad news indeed. I know that I would not be where I am today without having spent so much time on Fravia's site so many years ago. More to the point, even if it's not well-publicized, it's not exactly a secret that many of the "original" vulnerability researchers in the late 90s (and many of the more recent folks) were ex-crackers, many of whom owed a debt to Fravia and the student essays for the development of their skills. On the malware analysis front, the modern packer arms race had its genesis on Fravia's site, and perhaps even more ex-crackers are malware analysts than vulnerability analysts. For as long as I have been following reverse engineering, Fravia's site had the biggest effect on the state of the art of any such force (neglecting recent developments in program analysis).

I am not exaggerating when I say that Fravia has had one of the biggest, if not the single biggest, indirect effect on modern binary security of any single individual. For that, he will never be forgotten. Pour one out for your old friend tonight, or do whatever it is that they do in your neighborhood.

Thanks Rolf,

You pretty much put the perfect description on the role that f+'s works have had on the community.

I could not have said it better.

Some for my homey.

Woodmann

I'm depply sorry to hear that.
I wish there will be a miracle.

Consider that there may, already, have been "a miracle" in the creating and shaping of a mind which has had such a wide ranging and profound impact on many areas of what we loosely call "the Internet." He has taught those who would learn, new ways of thinking about things and about thinking, itself. Teaching one to re-examine one's premise and to look at a complex world from a totally different perspective is, indeed, "a miracle".

It is a gift, and an opportunity given to few, and few have used such a gift with as much wisdom, and/or with as much grace and refreshing charm as has "our" Fravia +. I say "our" not in the sense that we have claim on him, but in the sense that "he" has claimed many of us and helped shape the way we perceive, react, and interact with this wondrously complex universe that surrounds us.

Simply put, the world has been, and hopefully will remain, a better place for his having shared such a significant part of his life and philosophy selflessly with so many and for having done so with a grace and style few have matched.

It is better that we just simply say:

Fravia ... Thank you for having invited us to travel along with you on your most interesting and enlightening journey. Who knows where the roads will lead in the days to come, but we go forth armed with the knowledge you have shared with all who would care to listen.

We are still listening and we try, and we will continue to try, to pass on that which we may have learned to those who join this journey at those stations simply a little further down that road less well traveled.

Regards,

I came across fravia's site in 99-2000 and started cracking because of that. Thank you for everything, fravia.

Krishnamurti was mentioned earlier. He said that a person could change the world simply by changing himself. Fravia certainly changed it for a lot of us simply by following his path and sharing it with others.

I recall email correspondence with him and greythorne. Does anyone remember the small red orbs Fravia had dotted about his pages and what they meant at times?

Anyway, Popeye loved spinach. If fravia tunes in he'll know exactly what I mean. Good luck to you, my friend.

I wanted to also say thank you to +Fravia and that I wish him well. He provided a fantastic website that started me on reverse engineering and a whole path of interesting knowledge. One of my favorite sites that was purely non-commercial, full of raw unfiltered information, and helped provide persepective in many ways.

Exactly. BTW, was the identity of +ORC demystified? Or was that +fravia himself? I remember red orbs, but can't really remember what they meant.

+ORC != +Fravia , this has been discussed for ages, confirmed by Fravia.

Stay on track guys

Howdy,

I was told by f+ himself that ORC was a real person.
And it was not f+.

Is ORC really dead? We shall never know .

Woodmann

Sorry, but look here:

http://searchlores.org/photos.htm

See 2 pics in the middle of the page. +f describes them as nasty & dangerous guys. I thought about one of them as +ORC.

Howdy,

The first blurry photo looks like someone I may have met a few times.
If it is who I think then it is not ORC.
The second one I have no idea.

f+ said he never met ORC. Then again he may have met the man who uses the ORC nick.

Woodmann

Apparently Fravia passed away yesterday (May 3rd). RIP old friend.

Yes, our old friend passed away this weekend (http://www.2113.ch/phplab/mbs.php3/mb001?num=1241367858&thread=1241367858). I'm sorry that I haven't the necessary words to tell how this only men could contribute to the evolution of so many thinking minds, counting searchlores and RCE communities.

To +Fravia, you inspired me and so many others. Thank you!!

Thanks for all Fravia, you was a master for me, and you will ever be.
RIP master.
ricnar

Rip

Farewell to an old friend. Thanks again for the good times.

CrackZ.

May He Reverse the place he has gone and search the unknown in places still unknown to those of us whom he has left behind

Life is but a stopping place,
A pause in what's to be,
A resting place along the road,
to sweet eternity.
We all have different journeys,
Different paths along the way,
We all were meant to learn some things,
but never meant to stay...
Our destination is a place,
Far greater than we know.
For some the journey's quicker,
For some the journey's slow.
And when the journey finally ends,
We'll claim a great reward,
And find an everlasting peace,
Together with the lord

good bye +Fravia

See you soon f+

Farewell +Fravia

Almost ALL the world's greatest inventions and progress have *ALWAYS* been made by an individual, NEVER a team (contrary to what you read in books).

Psychology had Sigmund Freud
Science had Einstein
Boxing had Muhammed Ali

And I firmly believe cracking had Fravia.

No matter how or what ORC had done in INITIATING the cracking revolution, or making the knowledge available to the 'select' few, it was Fravia who actually brought it to the common man. What I considered magical years ago, is now simple to do. And there is, in great part, Fravia to thank for.

The sheer knowledge available on cracking is NOWHERE to be found as EXTENSIVELY and WIDE IN SCOPE as his old rce pages. His was the widest and deepest. Bar none!

And like the fields above, I also believe that cracking will return back to its days of mediocrity and secrets. What with most of the older ones working for securty firms now and quite reluctant to pass on their secrets now.

I feel quite despondent to hear upon his passing. But feel proud that he has made a place in history. For generations to come. He made me feel like a part of a club that a very, very privileged few have access to. And his opinions did give me reason to pause and think many-a-times. So yes, I am sad to hear of his passing.

But I am also very happy knowing that a new Fravia is must be re-born somewhere in this world of ours. After all, didn't he always say, everything is a cycle?

Have Phun

see you, f+

Farewell +Fravia, a great thinker, achiever and pioneer. May be your spirit renewed in the circle of life.

RIP. Missing you.

Rest in peace +Fravia.

Fravia has a permanent place in history.

In the future, people will talk about this era... this golden age of cracking. And they will take the names of all greats, including Fravia. Of how it must have been when he was alive. What it was to communicate with him. How it felt to be under his tutelage.

Me?

I didn't see it. I didn't hear of it.


I LIVED IT!!


RIP F+ circa 2009.

Have Phun

R.I.P F+

He was an inspiration for many people including myself.

I hope there will be a new Fravia in our time coz I'm not an old timer and I only read about him when I started this hobby.

Rest in peace +Fravia

1 May 2009

The date i finally started in the security business and the moment i where in the position to attend one of the great lectures he gave at various security conferences around the world.

2 days after i set my first steps in the world he helped create he stepped out of life

Rest is peace Fravia, your work will never be forgotten and will keep guiding me in the future

Peace
LibX

I feel urged to add my condolences "publicly" here too, even though I've already delivered them "personally"...

Rest in peace dear master, we will keep doing our best to carry on your legacy.

I'm hesitant about posting, not out of any disrespect for fravia, but out of my own feelings about death. fravia was a good guy, a regular guy. He helped me several times personally and even gave me a little code I could use so he'd know my communication was legit. It's sad to lose him.

I used to fear death, and I can't say that I welcome it now, but getting older puts a different slant on it. Life has a way of preparing you, if you let it, and don't force you're way through it using ego. My dad used to say there is a harmony in life, meaning there is a special interaction for each person with life. If you force it by going against your natural feelings, using a forced logic, you break the harmony.

fravia struck me as being a humble, joyful person. I'm sure he was in harmony with life and that the harmony carried him through. I don't know what to make of death. To many people, the thought of a life after death is preposterous. However, the universe is so vastly complex that nothing would surprise me. fravia will know, and hopefully he's having a hoot.

R.I.P F+

Rest in Peace wherever you are Fravia.

Late reply but only one word:sad.

he helped me a lot through all the knowledges shared all the years long.

i hate the me2 reply but:Rest in Peace wherever you are Fravia!

Late reply but only one word:sad.

he helped me a lot through all the knowledges shared all the years long.

i hate the me2 reply but:Rest in Peace wherever you are Fravia!

He said in his last mail that he wouldn't go for the experimental treatment, so I guess he didn't and I am glad for it so he didn't need to suffer in the end.

Goodbye.

Rest in peace...
It blurs my eyes to go to his page and feel his presense, then realize he is no longer here... Your soul has drifted away to some other demenension, but your name will live forever in our world in history. You have taught us well.
Gooe bye +Fravia

Goodbye to Fravia+. He has contributed a great deal and will continue to teach and inspire many.

i one suspended idea for guess-me/crackme.
when i read Fravias swansong, i remembered this idea & planned to build this crackme for him.
but so quick cames death..

today i sit & written this guess-me. i want publish it at some good place. where it can be?
can be it on F+ page?

RIP +Fravia

and thanks for all that you have taught us.

I was sifting through my Frige today and something occured to me reminding me of +Fravia's sense of humor.

http://i725.photobucket.com/albums/ww255/anon10101/FreeAmericans.jpg
Free Choicefull American is Reminded Why by a Ketchup Corporation


RIP, we'll forget not what we've learned

+Fravia, what a person. His altruism was as elevated as his knowledge. I remembered started learning Latin thanks to him, oh those golden years. Printing every lesson he had coming out, waiting for the official European handbooks of AT&T and Intel 8086 ASM in the door of my house every four months; I am proud to still feel the veil of mistery, romanticism and passion for reverse engineering that +FRAVIA left us as his eternal gift for the rest of us.

Reverse the friendly skies, my friend.

Verba volant, scripta manent.

!!nees reve evaH I erutciP tseddaS ehT

A Man I did not know, yet I have seen such a outpouring of support and come to realize through investigation..that this is not just a loss to the RE scene but to the general populace of the internet, and in lookin at him and his site, and reading some of his work.. I to feel a loss, not the loss of a dear freind or comrade.. but a loss all the same.. the loss is of a kindred spirit and someone who also dared to not only question things and ask about them, he also dared to search for those answers and active work in helping others attain there answers with his site searchlores.. truely a amazing man..and a exceptional human being. My thoughts and prayers go out to his freinds and family.

sincerly BanMe

Rest in peace my friend. We will meet again.

Regards, kugi

very sad.....really really sad news...........

RIP old friend, it's been so many years and such a long journey, I feel so sad for being away for so long

I can't help but feeling that it would be a sort of small tribute to his memory if his final search challenge could be solved.

http://www.searchlores.org/searching_image_challenge_2008_1.htm

Every once in a while I think of that and spend some time trying a new search strategy. I haven't found an answer yet, but I have learned quite a bit about Impressionist painting, so I'm still learning from +Fravia

The challenge was discussed a bit here, beginning at post #28

http://www.woodmann.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11109

and here (+fravia post dated 29/01/08)

http://fravia.2113.ch/phplab/mbs.php3/mb001?thread=1210068487

I printed that painting and I put it up on my wall.. still unresolved =)
Thinking about it everytime I lay back on my chair.
I'm in !

Edward Potthast painted a lot of children playing on the beach...
This one http://www.columbusmuseum.org/exhibitions/american/edward_potthast.jpg is matching for almost all the criteria (impressionist 3 children playing beach sand see/ocean 2 women 1 umbrella...) but it's not the good one. It's not the same style neither (too much colors) and looks younger. E.Potthast is a painter from US. I'm pretty sure it's a French beach. The "béret" (the hat) on the kid's head playing with the little boat looks like a French mariner one. As Kayaker said, the little boat looks like a French boat too.
With some imagination, we can think it's "bretagne" or "normandie" beach.

So maybe the key is to use French keywords? (I'm French so it's maybe why I'm thinking that :-))
But French search sucks. I found more difficult to search in French than in English (maybe just because there are less results lol)

Should be nice to resolve it before the end of the (sade) year as a tribute to +Fravia.

Orkblutt

I dont even want to think about the time I invested looking for that one .

I would also be interested in seeing an answer found.

Woodmann

Just spent another 2 hours on it and still didn't solve it. Arghhh.
But Kayaker, thanks for linking to the old motorcycle video thread. That was a fun one

Kayaker, thank you for reminding us of this challenge! Though not helpful in this case, I wanted to share an interesting image search engine I came across while searching (yet again) for the answer to this challenge: www.tineye.com. Still beta but worth bookmarking for future queries.

Heh, that motorcycle vid was fun disa, it took me a few minutes to find the answer to it again but in doing so I found another reference to it on a really cool site:

Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest
http://illusioncontest.neuralcorrelate.com/

I am almost certain that the artist is Eugène Bodin but haven't found an exact match.

Anyways, I came across http://www.gazopa.com which is IMHO the best Similar Image search engine so far.

Yeah the case of Eugène Boudin has been invoked because of Monet's influence and his works as Marine painter (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_(peinture)), however my spider senses tells me this is not quite the same technique in his paintings and +f riddle (see http://www.ricci-art.net/img001/791.jpg), plus he schooled several painter in this area. One of the evocated location is Trouville (north of France, near his birth location)...but this is only my personal view here.

Thanks for sharing your link btw.

Maybe instead of Who we could try asking Where, as in where might the picture be seen, other than on some obscure art gallery wall. Someone had the good idea it might be from a wine bottle. That is quite possible, but I found nothing yet up that avenue.

The ladies sure aren't smoking Camels, so it probably wouldn't be on a pack of cigarettes. What other product might feature Renaissance/Impressionist art?


I was curious about the missing part. F+ said the image "has been cropped on the right side (the signature of the painter was there), one wonders what the two ladies are looking at..."

I wanted to try to find out HOW MUCH of the painting was missing, to see if there was room for a possible ship or lighthouse or something. It was reported that painters of that era often proportioned their works to approximate the aesthetically pleasing Golden Rectangle, or Phi, roughly 1:1.618.

The image is 830x1193 pixels. Assuming that the height wasn't also cropped, this would give an uncropped Phi proportion length of 1343 pixels. I added the "missing" part in Paint Shop Pro and the result is shown below as white space on the right hand side.

IF the Golden Ratio assumption is correct, this doesn't leave a heck of a lot of space for any details other than the artist's name. Maybe a distant ship, who knows.


Fravia must have chosen this image for some reason, other than it's just hard to find. Maybe that's just the case, but I like to think there is something unique about the choice, its significance, its history, its artistic value...

Maybe I'm just being sentimental, but I'm looking for some Ahah! revelation when the answer is found, beyond the artists name and its location in cyberspace.

Kayaker

Yes there was some motivation for him to choose that image.
Why else would he.
I know he was somewhat of a sailor. To what degree I dont know.
Although what he told me could have been half truths .

Since he was found of sailing I would think that should be a focus.

Woodmann

dumn thing is, i know this image.. but can't remember.
only thing in my mind ticks is: this looks like impressionism but painter really is not impressionist.
i reviewed impressionist's works & not found such pic.

also i remember, tittle was like "ladies are promenading with children", while actually picture not looked so..

Yeah, I thought it's a work by Monet, but couldn't find the image on google. However, doesn't mean it's not Monet. Is there any higher resolution available. Since evaluator already mentioned it looks like impressionism but is not. A higher resolution could answer this question 100%

I stumbled on this thread again, and decided I should publish an email F+ has sent to me few days before he passed away on Sunday, 3rd May 2009. I feel it doesn't belong only to me, but for everyone.



If you feel a need to share any of your emails with F+ with us please do, I think that's what he would want us to do too.

I did a post about this and that. http://silkcut.wordpress.com/2009/12/23/search-lord/
my 0.2cts.

http://www.searchlores.org/searching_image_challenge_2008_1.htm

well, F, did said that one should study the image and it's time frame to be able to help dechiper who is the artist.
from a fast search:

1. the Ship the children are playing is a sail boat called a 'Sloop' which was mostly a trading ship & fishing ship.
2. clothes (women, children's hat) gives that its in the 1800+- 's fashion period
3. Location highly possible to be France
4. the women possibly watching over a coming sloop ship (back from trading) or a sloop ship that's fishing.

Best matching artist i found around this 'facts' was 'Winslow Homer' who is an american painter who visited in France and usually paints women, sailboats and beaches. Although he's not impressionist.

I thought it might be Italy. Both (France and Italy) match Fravia's hint to think about it while having a glass of wine.

had F mentioned any museum (he loves) at his site?

Man I know this is a little late but I actually just found out recently about +Fravia's death. Growing up I remember running into his site numerous amount of times and always enjoyed reading the material on it. Even though I never met him or even talked to him I was still inspired by all the effort and work that he did. You could easily tell he was very passionate about exploring the world around him and even more passionate about teaching others about it. I'll miss you man.

Hopefully we can solve this challenge. Since I recently was just reading his searching papers I believe the combing technique should work well. Like xenakis mentioned he found a image search engine. I'll start throwing some queries around and see if i can find anything else in some others. Monet keeps popping up but like everyone else I can't seem to find the picture yet. I'll do some searching on Eugène Bodin. I think though "parasol" would probably be in text that is trying to depict the image. Hopefully paying attention to the more overlooked details like the wind blowing, cloudy sky, and time of day will help to.

parasol or umbrella (ella ella...), it was trendy at the supposed time it is representing.

2 years tomorrow, or today depending on where you live.

The date is written on the wall next to me.

Woodmann