"The immediate threat from the Millennium Bomb is bigger
than BSE, global warming and AIDs combined. Irresponsible
reporting is very unhelpful"
- ROB GUENIER, executive director, Taskforce 2000
wild overexaggeration isn't exactly clearing the air
>> HARD NEWS <<
soft shoes
It's been a bi-polar month for crypto fans, with this week
heavy on the manic curve. Remember the SAFE bill, the US
legislative proposal intended to allow strong crypto to be
exported from the US to former evil foreign potentates,
like Britain and Germany? Well, some Congress wiseguys have
been crippling the bill by inserting clauses that would not
only stop export, but oblige crypto companies to put in a
back-door for the US security services. Not everyone
agreed, though, and now there are four versions of the same
bill kicking around Congress. Incredibly, the US have even
more government committees than we do, so the chances of
this being sorted out in the next year are zilch. Indeed,
the only clear statement about the issue to come out of
Washington so far was from a bunch of local hackers, who
this week demonstrated the dangers of forbidding strong
crypto by cracking the Whitehouse staff's pagers. Well, at
least they had a chance of finding out what's the hell's
going on...
http://www.inch.com/~esoteric/pam_suggestion/formal.html
- check out the Air Force 1 lost luggage. Not like that in
the movie, is it?
http://www.cdt.org/crypto/
- the hell is going on, explained
No chance of discovering such clarity here. Amongst the weird
governmental spooking going on this week was an apparent volte
face by the DTI, who are currently sorting out the UK's own
approach to strong crypto. DTI officials have, over the last
few months, carefully listened to various groups moan about
their original plan, which was to hand over everyone's secret
keys to banks and telecommunication companies. Since then, of
course, a new government has been elected - on a manifesto that
stated its intent not to legislate on this issue. So it was
weird to hear DTI officials at last week's Cambridge conference
on white collar crime start implying that the legislation will
go ahead anyway. Why the (no) change? Surely not because of the
security services continuing eagerness to get hold of those
lovely, lovely keys?
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/fapp2/15thISEC/programme.html
- just what colour collar do civil servants wear, anyway?
http://www.dti.gov.uk/pubs those proposals. *Again*
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/pgs/yaman/ukpriva.htm
- more po-faced data - do we have to be funny about everything?
One thing - kind of - is for sure: spook or not, somebody
tried to squelch the Campaign For Internet Freedom's site
this week. EASYNET, who hosted - then killed - the site,
initially implied to Internet Freedom's Chris Ellison that
the Anti-Terrorist Squad had demanded that it die - perhaps
for the site's inclusion of the Basque separatist journal
Euskal Herria in its anti-censorship section. Easynet later
modified the story somewhat, claiming that they were just
"cleaning up their servers" (someone has *very* bad
handwriting). Then they said that IF could stay up for
another 2.5 months, until it found another site. Then they
stopped talking, and started coughing and pointing at a
concealed microphone in the corner of the room. Then all
these black helicopters flew over.
http://www.netfreedom.org like they could make it go away?
http://www.easynet.co.uk
- maybe Easynet didn't want any negative publicity because...
Investors in said ISP got to taste the Silicon Valley high
life this Tuesday, when stocks in EASYNET GROUP leaped from
13p to 84.25p. The reason? Easynet received an
International Simple Resale license from the DTI - the same
license that allows baby telcos to offer low-cost calls on
international numbers. So is Easynet going to diversify
into a chain of those dodgy "call India for cheap" shops?
Err, maybe. Or maybe what's getting the traders excited is
that Easynet can now set up its own domestic phone switch -
and gets a cash credit on every call made via another telco
to its exchange (say, all those dial-up Net customers). And
the longer people spend calling Easynet POPs, the more
money they make. Net access for #0 a month, anyone?
http://www.easynetgroup.net/
- too busy celebrating to put out a press release, huh, guys?
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
berating the obvious
"Banner Ads Are Annoying", reveals DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF...
CONNECT to cease publishing... "Infants Have Keen Memory
For Learning Words", psychologists uncover... PLAYSTATION
PLUS "relaunching".. Julia Roberts to appear in FOUR
WEDDINGS sequel... Economists "still can't measure any
productivity gain" from billions spent on IT... mobile
phones cause "lapses in concentration"... Mute relaunches
in handy new 2000AD-style format... CD-ROM TODAY merging
with PC GUIDE... British Interactive Broadcasting boss
plans to "overtake Internet use within 18 months"... Larry
Ellison demo backfires when NC application freezes, entire
network crashes... "Intel suspected of unfair practice", PC
PRO guesses wildly... SHIFT CONTROL to end publication...
NZ hero teenager didn't "solve" Y2K bug after all...
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
celebrate your inner geek
We're *so* worthy this week. If you're hanging out in
Brighton this week, you could pop in and say hello to
Communities Online, who are hosting a fringe Labour Party
Conference event on their campaign to secure funding for a
subsidised network infrastructure for community projects.
As well as a general discussion, there will also be reports
from Trimdon Digital Village, the community networking
project in Tony Blair's constituency. The event is at 1pm
on Sunday 28/09/97 at Stakis Brighton Hotel.
http://www.communities.org.uk/events/welcome.html#anchor1216673
- come on people - it's for the kids!
Andrew Ross (American Studies, NYU) is sticking it to the
Californian libertarian hegemony next week at - guess where
- the ICA. He'll be speaking on "Jobs in Cyberspace", and
trotting out all the old, well-worn, yet actually rather
accurate critiques of Web-coding sweatshop labour. It's on
at 11am on Saturday 26/9/97, so he's sure to get *loads* of
people who've been up until 3am Friday fixing broken code
on the client's bloody idiot-childfool site.
http://www.factory.org/nettime/archive/0810.html
- never trust a pundit who can't format plaintext.
>> TRACKING <<
Web site come by this way two moons past
Okay, worthiness over. Here's a utility that pulls
passwords from a Windows 95 machine. REVELATION is 15KB
long, pulls the passwords from the cache, and exposes this
whole "storing passwords in memory as plaintext" nightmare
we've been on about before. Many security analysts have
been using it as a way of showing Windoze users the
benefits of NT's secure systems. Right. Excuse me while we
choke on our cola.
http://www.snadboy.com/ can we have our fix now, Mr Gates?
The REALAUDIO 5 BETA hits the already punch-drunk Net
listeners next week, promising "even nearer CD quality over
28.8". Well, we'll believe *that* when we hear it. Oh, and
something calling itself "THE INTERNET EXPLORER - VERSION
4.0" is being released by Microsoft in a characteristically
tasteful and low-key manner. Apparently it's a utility for
PC users who feel their machines run too fast. Look out
mentions of it on TV, radio, food, drink, and
subcutaneously tattooed onto the inside of your eyelids as
you sleep.
http://www.real.com battling those bad MP3 boys
http://www.microsoft.com can *anyone* get on this site anymore?
DR HERMANS' new Web site offers the online purchase of
bongs, pipes, seeds, and "smoking paraphernalia" in the UK.
Hmm. This isn't some sort of drug thing that we're missing
out on, is it?
http://www.hermans.co.uk bet he's not a real doctor
>> MEMEPOOL <<
hasta la altavista
XXX Prize offers $1 million to first sub-orbital sex act...
Are there really 100,000 copies of Peter Gabriel's Eve
lying in a warehouse?... keep cool, Cyberjunky et al...
Jenni off of Jennicam to launch weekly streaming video
show... MicroAnvika's hold music... Bill Jillians is
back... Demon's IP number sneaked into "Hackers"...
www.osk.threewebnet.or.jp/~vacuum05/goods.html ... Steve
Bennett, Kevin Warwick - MEDIA WHORES... the Army used the
Welsh to carry codes in the War... the Campaign Against "
double-you-double-you-double-you-dot"...
www.spesh.com/thoughts.txt ... the handbag contained
cocaine... "Teach yourself COBOL in 21 days" hits tech
bestseller list: Y2K hero teens suspected... Mir to use
docking program from Elite... Congrats, Dave Garaffa... so
what does Compaq need a $4 billion credit line for?...
"Like a cheapo knock-off Maglite with dead batteries in"...
Telehouse is on the Greenwich Meridian (and a nexus of
celtic laylines)
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
watch more tv
TV >> If only Nick Hancock was a guest in this new series
of SHOOTING STARS (9.30pm, Fri, BBC2) then you could watch
wacky, off-beat, increasingly similar "Bloke Quiz" shows 3
or 4 times a week... still, maybe you don't even need to
switch the TV on, according to the claims of "remote
viewing" researchers in STRANGE BUT TRUE? (8.30pm, Fri,
ITV)... hardly seems like 6 months since the last Spice
Girls single, but that's more than enough reason to run
thinly disguised promo film SPICE UP YOUR LIFE (5.45pm,
Sat, ITV)... the title character in sassy new animation
DARIA (2.30pm, Sat, C5) is *nothing like* Janeane Garofalo,
so why does everyone reckon that she is?... in his
otherwise excellent novel Distress, sci-fi author Greg Egan
dismisses Yahoo Serious's YOUNG EINSTEIN (12.45am, Sat, LWT
+ some regions) as the work of "professional Australians" -
but he doesn't speak for everyone... STEPHEN HAWKING'S
UNIVERSE (7.20pm, Sun, BBC2) asks if the dark side really
*is* more powerful, while the subsequent OUTER LIMITS
series seems to have been replaced by the even more
Twilight-Zone-ish ALAN CLARK'S HISTORY OF THE TORY PARTY...
making Tomorrow's World look interesting, EQUINOX (9pm,
Mon, C4) examines - wait for it - icebergs, and DECISIVE
WEAPONS (8pm, Mon, BBC2) sounds like it's struggling with
"the story of anti-submarine warfare and short-wave
radar"... on the track Burn Hollywood Burn (from Fear Of A
Black Planet), Public Enemy succinctly describe DRIVING
MISS DAISY (9pm, Wed, C4) as "shit"... oh, and Aussie drama
WALKABOUT (9pm, Thu, C4) features a performance from a
young Jenny Agutter; does she get her kit off? what do
*you* think?
MOVIES >> CONTACT (imdb: "sci-fi / drama / faith / atheist
/ scientists / astronomy / father-daughter / alien-contact
/ prime-numbers ") is appallingly acted, has some daft
sentimental moments plus an ending that's almost not 2001-
ish enough, yet - thanks mainly to a different twist to the
book (www.spesh.com/contact.html) - is arguably *the best
geek film of the year*... alternatively, don't let that
Hamish Macbeth guy, Damon Albarn or yet another failed-
heist plot put you off FACE (imdb: drama / gangs) - still,
probably more laughs than the usual Canadian gloom from
Atom "Exotica" Egoyan in THE SWEET HEREAFTER (imdb: drama /
road accident / lawyers / dead kids - alright, I'm making
it up now...)
BOOKS >> Now that Amazon's revamped and all those dull
Updike clones have checked out, it's time for *you* to
check out the latest batch of US-only book releases.
Straight in at the heart of the NTK demographic is Richard
Handley's THE METAPHYSICS OF STAR TREK (ISBN: 0465091245) -
a sub-Hofstadter muse on identity, time-paradoxes and that
old is-Data-isn't-Data-human dichotomy. Logic-choppers will
love to debate whether this is, in fact, the same book as
THE MEANING OF STAR TREK (ISBN: 0385484372)... IRC's
Eggdrop, CancelMOOSE and - most bizarrely - Hunt the Wumpus
are part of the rich tapestry of Andrew LEONARD'S BOTS: THE
ORIGIN OF A NEW SPECIES (ISBN: 1888869054), but somehow he
pulls it off in a storming read... For the committed
americanophobe, we recommend Jim Goad's scouring defence of
Poor White Trash in THE REDNECK MANIFESTO (ISBN:
0684831139) - not quite up to his Answer Me! Days, but
worth checking out on Amazon for the table of contents
alone. And it'll pass the time while you await with
something close to stark terror pomo-funster Mark Leyner's
new opus, THE TETHERBALLS OF BOUGAINVILLE (ISBN:
0517701014), billed by the author as his "first 100 percent
BONA FIDE NOVEL--story, characters, everything!". Wh-wh-
what, *everything*?
>> CORRIGENDA <<
Look, we did say we were slacking off during the MiniNTK
interregnum, didn't we? Thanks to Joseph Gallivan for
pointing out that our "US campsites to pay $1 per camper
for campsong rights" story was, and we quote, "bollocks".
The correct figure was $1, for all rights, for everyone;
somewhat different. NTK regrets the error. Also, we picked
up an mistake in the US Delphi/Mindspring deal snipe -
Mindspring didn't get all the Delphi customer base: just
the dial-up guys. All 1,100 of them. NTK regrets this error
a bit less, because that's *such* a pathetic figure (thanks
to Robert Seidman for both story and correction). Also, in
last week's issue, in the sentence promising an exciting
competition next week, "next week" should be amended to
read "the week after next", the word "exciting" should be
replaced with "long overdue", and the word "promise" should
be altered to "hope in vain".
>> SMALL PRINT <<
Need to Know is a useful and interesting UK digest of things that
happened last week or might happen next week. You can read it
on Friday afternoon or print it out then take it home if you have
nothing better to do. It is compiled by NTK from stuff they get sent.
It is registered at the Post Office as "on a mission from God".
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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(K) 1997 Special Projects. Non-biz copying ok, but retain SMALL PRINT.
Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com.