use IO::Socket;
my $sock = new IO::Socket::INET("$remote_server:43") || 
               die $!;

my $n = 5; # do this 5 times every 12 hours
while (1) # loop forever
{
  my $time = time(); # keep track of when we start
  print $sock "$data\r\n";
  my @output = <$sock>;
  $output = join('', @output);
  if ($output =~ /$no_match/gi) {
    &true;
  } else {
    &false;
  }

  # sleep for the PERIOD, minus the DURATION
  sleep( int(43200 / $n) - ( time() - $time) );
}