Book Image

Python for Secret Agents - Volume II - Second Edition

By : Steven F. Lott, Steven F. Lott
Book Image

Python for Secret Agents - Volume II - Second Edition

By: Steven F. Lott, Steven F. Lott

Overview of this book

Python is easy to learn and extensible programming language that allows any manner of secret agent to work with a variety of data. Agents from beginners to seasoned veterans will benefit from Python's simplicity and sophistication. The standard library provides numerous packages that move beyond simple beginner missions. The Python ecosystem of related packages and libraries supports deep information processing. This book will guide you through the process of upgrading your Python-based toolset for intelligence gathering, analysis, and communication. You'll explore the ways Python is used to analyze web logs to discover the trails of activities that can be found in web and database servers. We'll also look at how we can use Python to discover details of the social network by looking at the data available from social networking websites. Finally, you'll see how to extract history from PDF files, which opens up new sources of data, and you’ll learn about the ways you can gather data using an Arduino-based sensor device.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)
Python for Secret Agents Volume II
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Who's doing the talking?


We'll use the TwitterAPI module to gather information about people by using the Twitter social network. This is not necessarily the "best" social network. It's widely-used and has a good API. Other social networking software is also important, and worthy of study. We have to begin somewhere, and Twitter seems to have a fairly low barrier to entry.

In Chapter 1, New Missions, New Tools, we downloaded the Twitter API. For information on how to use this package, visit http://pythonhosted.org/TwitterAPI/.

The first step to using Twitter is to have a Twitter account. This is easy and free. Agents who don't have a Twitter account can sign up at http://www.twitter.com. Once signed up, agents might want to follow the Twitter feed of PacktPub (https://twitter.com/PacktPub) to see how Twitter works.

An agent will need to provide a mobile phone number to Twitter to create applications. The information is available here: https://support.twitter.com/articles/110250-adding-your-mobile...