These are hook scripts for the CIA notification service at <http://cia.vc/> They are maintained by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>. There is an upstream resource page for them at <http://www.catb.org/esr/ciabot/>, but they are unlikely to change rapidly. You probably want the Python version; it's faster, more capable, and better documented. The shell version is maintained only as a fallback for use on hosting sites that don't permit Python hook scripts. See the file INSTALL for installation instructions.