Book Image

Python for Secret Agents - Volume II - Second Edition

By : Steven F. Lott
Book Image

Python for Secret Agents - Volume II - Second Edition

By: 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 (7 chapters)
6
Index

Who this book is for

This book is for field agents who know a little bit of Python and are very comfortable installing new software. Agents must be ready, willing, and able to write some new and clever programs in Python. An agent who has never done any programming before may find some of this a bit advanced; a beginner's tutorial in the basics of Python may be helpful as preparation.

We'll expect that an agent using this book is comfortable with simple mathematics. This involves some basic statistics and elementary geometry.

We expect that secret agents using this book will be doing their own investigations as well. The book's examples are designed to get the agent started down the road to develop interesting and useful applications. Each agent will have to explore further afield on their own.