ethicalhack3r

rfc in your pocket

I wanted to start reading the RFC 2616 HTTP/1.1, because who knows more about how HTTP works than the inventors right?! The only problem was, is that I hate reading large documents from screens, I lose concentration after very little time and end up on Twitter or some other social networking site.

So I started looking for printed RFCs, someone must have put these in a book?! Well, it turns out that I couldn’t find any. I thought about printing the entire RFC from my university library (£0.10 a page) however RFC 2616 contains 176 pages (£17.60 total). I remembered that OWASP use lulu.com for printing their awesome books, so I decided to print my own RFC and make it into a book. After many hours of trying to fit the A4 RFC into a pocket-size (4.25″ x 6.88″) book, getting the font size right, aligning the page numbers and getting the formatting just right on all 176 pages, ‘rfc in your pocket’ was ready to upload! After lots of trial and error with reformatting and trying to get the whole thing to fit I decided to order one for myself.

I was really surprised with the quality of the finished product! It even fits in my pocket!

So now I figure why not sell it and let other people have their very own RFC in their pocket with out having to go through all the hassle I went through. It turns out that RFCs can be distributed etc, as long as you keep in the original copy-write notice intact. But I’m making money of other peoples work! That’s not very ethical.

Here’s how much the whole thing costs:

Manufacturing: £4.29

My Revenue: £0.57

Lulu’s Revenue: £0.14

Book selling price: £5

What I have decided to do is give 50% of my revenue per book sale to ihackcharities, that means that I earn £0.285 per book sale and so does ihackcharities. That way I get something for my hard work and the rest goes to a good cause.

You can buy the ‘RFC 2616 -HTTP/1.1′ rfc in your pocket book from here:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/rfc-2616—http11/6007891

I plan to do more if this one sells enough and there is demand for other rfc’s in your pocket.

Posted on 22 November, 2009 by admin