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            "You look at France and Germany - and to a lesser degree
                             the UK - and it's like the Third World"
         - NICHOLAS NEGROPONTE, keynote address, European IT Conference
                                                        oh, fuck off


                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                               weak lemon drink

         "The only tunnelling you'll be doing is out of Statesville
         Prison!" Thus chuckled the gathered ISPs of the London
         Internet Exchange (LINX) this week, after throwing rogue
         ISP BACTEL off the shared network and into Net oblivion.
         Bactel had been caught smuggling data to the US via
         transatlantic bandwidth belonging to three other companies:
         a simple enough error, caused by Bactel accidentally
         reprogramming their two principal routers to hide their
         packets within an entirely spurious protocol, then - by
         chance - setting the routes of that protocol to tunnel the
         data via another ISP (or three). Whoops. Reports say that
         Bactel's tech representative at the LINX was "very quiet
         indeed" during the excommunication meeting. Ah, but maybe
         he was throwing his voice?
         http://www.linx.net/bactel-suspend.html
         and we woulda gotten away with it too if it wasn't for you kids
         http://www.linx.net/tunnel-advisory.txt
                                 - admit it, you'd have been tempted

         Suave scene hacker KUJI strolled away from court this week,
         with all charges regarding his alleged "infowar" with the
         US military dropped. The judge said that conducting a trial
         wasn't worth the expense. Funny - that wasn't what the
         Americans were saying at the time of the 1994 attacks.
         Then, Kuji and his "accomplice" (penitent music student THE
         DATASTREAM COWBOY) were twin Satans, stealing valuable
         secrets for foreign powers, wreaking havoc on sensitive
         mainframes, and almost tipping North Korea into war. Or
         that's what Air Force Office of Special Investigations told
         Congress, in an attempt to increase "awareness" (*cough*
         funds *cough* status) of the hacker threat. As it turned
         out, the AFOSI had little evidence of any serious breach of
         security - and what they did have was profoundly flawed
         through their own sloppy procedures. Still, plenty more
         young hackers to demonise, and if the authorities are more
         careful, they'll ruin peoples lives properly next time.
         http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~crypt/other/crypt38
                         - George Smith de-crypts the media brouhaha
         http://online.guardian.co.uk/theweb/880564579-fumble.html
         - Duncan "the other, famous Duncan Campbell" Campbell's take

         After the first and second World Wars, the Treaty of
         Versailles and the Geneva Convention decreed that such
         horrors must never happen again. And now, according to
         COMPUTER TRADE WEEKLY, the portentously named BERKELEY
         GROUP are attempting an similarly laudable (if foolhardy)
         mission: "to tackle the obstacles currently hindering PC
         games sales in the UK". The industry working party will be
         trying to figure out why only few PC titles sell in
         comparable quantities to console releases. They reckon they
         can sort it out it by targetting the "non-standard
         packaging sizes and materials" used by PC releases, the
         "possible introduction of a kitemark" to show that a game
         may run at an almost-acceptable speed without a top-end CPU
         or 3D card, plus, perhaps most adventurously, the "need to
         reduce number of titles released with bugs".
         http://www.paragon.co.uk/charts/
            - oh, and that PC games are so easy to rip off, perhaps?
         http://www.bsi.org.uk/bsi/services/kitemark.html
               - that notoriously safe and stable aircraft, the kite


                               >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         MICHAEL HUTCHENCE was about to start his "Lose Your Head"
         tour... full daily newsfeed 4.5 gigs in Jan, now 9 gigs...
         Japanese naturally name their first divorce magazine LIZ -
         after international break-up icon Elizabeth Taylor... IBM
         closing down OS/2 unit... parents complain that REBOOT's
         bad guys "too realistic"... Bill Gates' roving eye...
         www.stim.com tries to "go mainstream"... HUTCHENCE hanging
         prompts recall of INXS INTERACTIVE SONGBOOK CD-ROM
         (singalong to "Suicide Blonde")... Anastasia CD-ROM "isn't
         as good as the movie", NANDO is amazed to discover...
         DRUDGE REPORT seeks donations for legal defence fund...
         "Y2K" now copyrighted... old couple drive 50 miles to BBC
         monitoring station, hoping to see the "BBC Web site"... is
         it just us, or is the whole HUTCHENCE/GELDOF thing just a
         bit too much like the plot of FACE/OFF (on whose soundtrack
         INXS coincidentally appear)...


                              >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                           pointers with references

         Not perhaps the obvious way to celebrate World AIDS Day,
         but each to their own: EROTICA '97 takes over London
         Olympia this weekend (perhaps better known to NTK readers
         as the venue for rather more chaste gatherings, like Mac
         Expo and the ECTS). The Website both criticises a
         Victorian-era attitude to sex, then adopts its terminology,
         promising an "erotic extravaganza in the form of a Public
         Exhibition... entertainment designed to tantalise and
         fascinate." No info yet on exactly what the seedy
         attractions might be, but even the stand specifications
         sound a bit racey: "White Octanorm with white infill wall
         panels... Ceiling Grid with muslin ceiling... Black Fascia
         infill with white letters for exhibitor name..."
         http://www.erotica-uk.com
              - of course, that depends what you mean by "exhibitor"

         Eroticism of a more subdued form takes the stage as LEE AND
         HERRING continue their live try-outs before returning to TV
         early next year. The show's called THIS MORNING WITH
         RICHARD NOT JUDY II, and it's at the Battersea Arts Centre
         (near Clapham Junction rail station, and the big Asda) for
         at least the next couple of Sunday lunchtimes, tickets
         UKP5. Mail us if you're going and we'll see you there.
         http://www.bac.org.uk
         - we'll be the dweeby studenty-looking blokes laughing at all
                            the obscure references... oh, never mind


                                >> TRACKING <<
                   Web site come by this way two moons past

         FACEIT! is a PC facial recognition program that, barring
         Travolta/Cage-style test-cases, actually works. The free
         time-limited download can use QuickCam and standard video
         inputs: featured progs are an access-control screensaver
         which will only unlock when it sees your face, and an
         encryption program that uses your head as a key. But our
         correspondents agree that the best bit is the passive-
         recognition system, which will pluck out and circle up to
         six faces from a continuous realtime video feed. "It's like
         having a desktop-mounted gunsight", they are pleased to
         report.
         http://www.faceit.com/pcaccess/pcaccess.html
           - now we want one of those "Resurrection" breath scanners

         ICQ failing to scale; Microsoft submitting its own
         competing standard to the W3C; Netscape teaming up with AOL
         - are these the last days of the "buddy list" pioneers?
         Hell, no! Out of the wilder fringes of Appledom comes
         HOTLINE! A palpable hit with Mac users for months, HOTLINE
         has been billed "the BBS for the Nineties". It's got
         threaded discussion groups, chat, and a fast ftp system.
         It's also eminently hackable, with all kinds of nice
         extensions to try out. Out on the PC by the end of year,
         too, although apparently there's some sort of bootleg PC
         version going around the Hotline sites. As it is, the
         downloadable Mac client is time-limited to 15 minutes.
         Although apparently there's some sort of bootleg crack...
         ah, you get the picture.
         http://www.hotlinesw.com/
                   - talk about creating a Frankenstein's monster...

         We haven't covered record releases much recently (well, not
         since the MPEG3 scene took off again), but here's two
         import curiosities you can order now so your family can
         enjoy them this Christmas. First up, THE MOOG COOKBOOK's
         second album, YE OLDE SPACE BAND, sees the retro-synthers
         re-cheesing rock classics like More Than A Feeling, Whole
         Lotta Love, and Born To Be Wild. And second, that new
         WARREN G single (an imaginatively neo-classical cover of
         Prince Igor, by Borodin) is but the tip of the hip-hopera
         crossover scene - there's a whole German-originated album
         of it, called RAPSODY, and featuring rap versions of Tosca,
         Swan Lake, and Mobb Deep's Nessun Dorma.
         http://www.tpu.ee/~ryytel/lyrics/prince_igor.html
                              - Warren's biggest MP3 hit so far, btw
         http://bubblegum.uark.edu/Moog_Cookbook/
                                - rhymes with "vogue"? yeah, *right*


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                              hasta la altavista

         BT to buy DEMON?... BIO TETRIS... case-insensitive URLs on
         MICROSOFT ads... death of SUCK? Or is it just Thanksgiving?
         ... LOUISE NURDING follows NTK advice in her new video,
         attacks CCTV camera with laser pen... GameBoy digital
         camera... JESSE BIRST - the new Pournelle... Barbie-size
         Realdolls: www.racydoll.com ... Meat Bomb...
         www.xtra.co.nz/content/loveman/cag-v0.9b/part3/ ... HARRY
         "ain't it cool" KNOWLES tempted by high life...
         www.fiorella.com/equipment.html ... BLADE RUNNER movie
         sequel to reunite original cast... speleonics
         http://members.tripod.com/~cnet_truth ... BUGTRAQ finds
         security vulnerability in John Madden Football '97...
         easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~stephenbalchin/zoe.html
         spizzerinctum... and if *anyone* can take over the world,
         CANON can: www.canon.co.jp/Philosophy/century-e.html ...


                               >> MO' MEDIA <<
           why don't you turn in and do something less interesting?

         TV>> well, we're convinced - TFI FRIDAY (6pm & 11.25pm,
         Fri, C4) would *never* circulate bizarre rumours about its
         guests for cheap PR purposes - like last week's ill-timed
         "Paul Weller has committed suicide"... more delightful
         Niles/Daphne awkwardness in FRASIER (10pm, Fri, C4)... a
         "predominantly female" crowd constitute AN AUDIENCE WITH
         THE SPICE GIRLS (7.30pm, Sat, ITV) while, equally true to
         its title, INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (10.35pm, Sat, ITV)
         genuinely drains your will to live... you're never too
         young to learn Klingon, growls maybe-not-as-good-as-it-
         used-to-be AS SEEN ON TV (11.20am, Sun, BBC2)... the
         promisingly titled AGAINST NATURE (8pm, Sun, C4) says a
         long-overdue hoorah for industrialisation - a sentiment
         later queried by PLANET OF THE APES (10pm, Sun, C4)...
         autism may be a continuum, with Rain Man at one end and
         "normal male behaviour" at the other, drones EQUINOX (9pm,
         Mon, C4), at the start of Autism Awareness Week... heck,
         Tuesday sounds weird: Zoe Ball "explains ESP" on IT'LL
         NEVER WORK (4.35pm, Tue, BBC1), followed by AQUILA (5.10pm,
         Tue & Thu, BBC1) - a "comedy drama series about two boys
         who discover an ancient spaceship"... but nowt so weird as
         Wednesday: Jodie Foster voices the talking tattoo that
         brings out Scully's "darker side" in the X FILES (10pm,
         Wed, BBC1), some spooky anti-cloning arguments in creepy
         docu TWINS - THE DIVIDED SELF (9pm, Wed, ITV), and - more
         sinister still - there's THE REAL HOLIDAY SHOW (8.30pm,
         Wed, C4), where "a teenager goes to Yorkshire... and comes
         back with a special boyfriend in a box"...

         MOVIES>> there's three big challenges in an Alien film: 1)
         be more extreme than your predecessors; 2) continue the
         weird childbirth metaphors. ALIEN RESURRECTION (imdb:
         action / sci-fi / horror / aliens / genetics / android /
         human-duplication) pretty much succeeds on the first two,
         but not even a script from Joss "Buffy The Vampire Slayer"
         Wheedon can achieve the third - generating genuine suspense
         when you figure "they can always bring them back from the
         dead anyway"... some interesting elements (Kyle
         MacLachlan?) fail to reconcile Wesley Snipes and Nastassja
         Kinski's ONE NIGHT STAND (imdb: drama / advertising /
         affair-extramarital / hospital / adultery / fidelity /
         marital-crisis / aids / love / relationship /
         miscegenation)... and Julianne Moore, Roy Scheider and Noah
         "ER" Wyle would probably have more fun battling monsters
         than Thanksgiving family tension in THE MYTH OF
         FINGERPRINTS (imdb: drama)... hard to decide which is less
         funny: Richard E Grant as George Orwell in 1930s class
         tourism KEEP THE ASPIDISTRA FLYING, or Joe Pesci's
         decapitation-friendly Home Alone variant, 8 HEADS IN A
         DUFFEL BAG (both imdb: "comedy")...

         BOOKS>> somehow we doubt that the K FOUNDATION BURN A
         MILLION QUID will be up to the standard of their previous
         "manual" on how to make a number one record; it's equally
         unlikely to feature the same money-back guarantee -
         www.ellipsis.com/k/ ... tragically, JC Herz's vidgame
         odyssey JOYSTICK NATION (How Videogames Ate Our Quarters,
         Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds) is a Rise Of The
         Robots-sized disappointment. Some good moments, but they're
         buried in so much Rushkoff-style "outsider's guide to the
         crazy world of games" bullshit, and the slightly out-of-
         datedness that endeared in her previous SURFING ON THE
         INTERNET is here just embarrassing (eg, no mention of
         Quake)... conversely, Mark Leyner's THE TETHERBALLS OF
         BOUGAINVILLE is indeed much better than we could ever have
         hoped, like a sophisticatedly remixed ET TU, BABE, that's
         almost a "proper" novel too (despite being listed on
         www.randomhouse.com under "Literary Criticism & Essays")...
         California uberzine BEN IS DEAD have compiled their epic
         RETRO HELL: LIFE IN THE 70s AND 80s issues into handy book
         form - "from Atari to the A-Team, Boogie Boarding to
         Blaxploitation, Disco Duck to Day-glo, Square Pegs to
         Studio 54, Weird Al to Wonderama, Zoom! to Zots -
         www.benisdead.com ... yikes, even the current issue of
         Escape magazine is getting into culture jamming, but for a
         less breast-fixated approach, try Gareth Branwyn's JAMMING
         THE MEDIA (http://home.earthlink.net/%7Egarethb2/jamming/ )
         ... and finally, NOIR, next year's novel from cyberpunk god
         (and Blade Runner sequeliser) KW Jeter depicts a future
         where "intellectual property is so valuable that copyright
         infringement is punishable by death". If anyone knows
         anything more about this, do get in touch (preferably with
         a photocopy of the manuscript)...


                                 >> COMPO <<
                        congratulations. you're fired.

         An emotional competition last week, as competition winner
         Jay slipped in on Thursday after a week of struggling
         through every foodstuff URL known to man - "Did you know
         even *Ryvita* have a Website?", he writes. The eureka
         moment came as "we were massaging hungover headaches in a
         greasy cafe. A friend of mine buys a can of Diet [CLUE
         CENSORED], we all look at each other, look at the [OBJECT
         DELETED], look back at each other again - and slap our
         heads in unison". It's just like Willy Wonka, isn't it? Jay
         and friends win the new Metallica album RELOAD, sci-fi
         Command & Conquer clone DARK REIGN,and a child's T-shirt
         advertising Shell smart cards. (Oh and special kudos to the
         perpetrator of the URL, who "resigned" from his job on the
         same day as the competition. Webmasters should check out
         http://www.ntk.net/compo/ to find out how they too can
         spend Christmas poor and alone.)

         To this weeks URL. It takes the form http://www.a*****o.com
         and it's the answer to this question: "cosa significa
         'absurd'?". Answers to tips@spesh.com. Corporate queries to
         ourlawyers@spesh.com.


                              >> SMALL PRINT <<

      Need to Know is a useful and interesting UK digest of things that
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