Los Angeles/2010 Meetings/March 17

Topic: BOOK PREVIEW: Webbots, Spiders, and Screen Scrapers SECOND EDITION

Michael Schrenk will provide a preview of the largely expanded second edition of his book "Webbots, Spiders, and Screen Scrapers". This second edition describes how technologies like JavaScript, AJAX and Flash challenge webbot developers and how those challenges are met. He will also talk about defeating CAPTCHAs, scalability and other related topics.

Speaker: Michael Schrenk

Michael Schrenk is a software developer, author and instructor, who specializes in automated web browsing agents known as webbots. Michael uses the Internet in new and innovative (odd?) ways to provide competitive advantages for his clients in The US, Europe and Asia.

He also helps journalists more effectively use computers to conduct online research through automation and by describing where and how to find otherwise hidden online information. No stranger to Europe--he's lived and worked for clients in Moscow and Madrid, Mike taught at the 2008 European Investigative Journalism Conference (Brussels Belgium), twice in 2009 he lectured at The Center for Investigative Journalism (London England) and later in 2009, he lead several sessions at the VVOJ Journalism conference (Utrecht The Netherlands).

Last August, Mike made his fourth speaking appearance at the DEFCON computer hacking conference. Mike lives in sunny Las Vegas, Nevada (USA). You can contact him at http://www.schrenk.com or follow him on Twitter @mgschrenk.