Need To Know 1998-01-30

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"We're not a push company. We never have been in the push market and never will be." - DAVE COPE, Vice Pres of MARIMBA You got wrong number! Marimba now chinese laundry shop, OK? >> HARD NEWS << livid bruise COMPAQ, the company that started life in 1982 on a "House of Pies" napkin, ate up DIGITAL "big in the seventies" EQUIPMENT this week for a cool $9.6 billion. Compaq promised not to spit out any of DEC's UNIX or VMS users, but, you know, those Windows NT platters look veerry tempting. Meanwhile, 72 year old DEC founder Ken Olsen must be spitting chips: it was he who in 1977 said "there's no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home". Meanwhile, if you're wondering what this means for you, use this simple mnemonic for the company's roadmap: Microsoft will own the software, Intel will own the processor, Compaq will own the hardware platform, and they will all own yo ass. http://usis.intnet.mu/smith/0/NA378.htm#tc35 - "people don't want computers. They want terminals" http://www.compaq.com/ - Altavista running on NT. Can't wait. Or rather, will. http://www.ibm.com/ - thank goodness those bold clone-makers saved us from this evil monolith, hey? Bad news for cypherpunks who thought legislation against strong crypto had been laughed out of court. Jack Straw, it seems, has been nobbled by the "lock up these PGP guerrillas and throw away their keys" contingent. At a meeting of European Justice ministers in Birmingham this week, Jack said "we are using 19th century procedures to pursue 21st century criminals" - the standard argument for introducing key-grabbing policies. And despite a conspicuous lack of evidence for these "Flash Gordons of crime", a smokescreen that could hide the governments' crypto U-turn is beginning to billow. In the latest edition of COMPUTER WEEKLY, sources suggest that Downing Street "will have no objection to potential certificate authorities offering key recovery encryption. However, any such services might have to provide access to law enforcement agencies, for example in the prevention of terrorism." So, they've played the terrorist card. Now, it's just a matter of bringing up the evil pornographers and drug barons... http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/hofront.htm - maybe we shouldn't have spammed William Straw's name to USENET, then http://www.epic.org/privacy/tools.html - get 'em while they're still legal Shy retiring billionaire Bill G. went on a publicity offensive this week: emphasis, unfortunately for him, on "offensive". In Silicon Valley, he tried the libertarian- fighting-State guise, saying that it was intolerable that third-parties were crippling his products (rather than, as is traditional, the other way around). He also said that Microsoft was being picked on for being too "sexy": "We have a very sexy industry", he said, "if you worked for the Department of Justice, which would you rather investigate - - bread or software?". I don't know - are bakers demanding you buy the rest of your food from them? Watch out for repeats of his Friday ABC TV interview, in which Bill is interrogated by the usual razor-sharp US interview techniques ("Now Mr Gates, sir, perhaps we could move on to your favourite colour?"). Then we'll see how far he can take this "too sexy for your courts" meme. http://www.microsoft.com/ - we only put this here to see if MS check their referrer logs >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious it's not just the browser that's free: Netscape sends Word virus to all UK resellers... confused Ziff Davis editor asks "if Apache is free, how come it needs disk space to store it?"... "Gillian Anderson Is Queen Of The Net", calculates ASSOCIATED PRESS after Yahoo trawl...NATHAN MYHRVOLD building a working Difference Engine "for his home" - what, Windows not fast enough or something?... EXCITE reports loss of nearly $8m - "less than expected" ... unable to quit while ahead, slashdot.org now demands RealAudio, Motif give source away... "Apple Needs New Customers, New Products for Comeback" uncovers New York Times... "British Watchdog Warns Against Internet Sperm", cautions REUTERS... Ministry of Sound doing "sitcom"; says it is "interactive"... Aladdin goes belly-up... Ch4 has rights to South Park, "no plans as yet to show it"... WIRED cancels its fiction book series CORETEXT : some sort of cash-for-pages scandal brewing over this month's lamer Wit Investment article... Queen Mother "may already be dead"... >> EVENT QUEUE << reasons to wear clothes He's gone legit, but he just won't quit! PETER SOMMER (aka Hugo Cornwall, author of the "Hacker's Handbook") is hosting a series of Security Colloquia at the LSE again this term, and, in a shameless breach of security, they're open to the public. This week's (1800GMT, Thurs 5/2/98) is on Controlling and Censoring the Net, from a kinda ISP point-o'-view, and there's one on the 19th about the Datastream/Kuji hack case (with special guest stars!). Entrance is free, but mail P.M.Sommer@lse.ac.uk for passwords. http://csrc.lse.ac.uk/ - No details on the official Web site... http://www.ntk.net/lse/ but obscurity's no security You may know him as the bloke off the Phineas Fogg tortilla chip adverts, or the fighting telegram from Men Behaving Badly, or a thousand minutely observed roles in those interminable Armando Ianucci BBC2 shows. But to us, he continues to be just BEN MOOR, the guy that we hang out with to make *us* seem less geeky. His new one-man live comedy show, A SUPERCOLLIDER FOR THE FAMILY, blends high- energy physics, kitchen-sink drama, the sinister machinations of "the military/ industrial/ entertainment complex" - and a super bit of string. The Times said: "The jokes are... so beautifully constructed that the audience is unable to laugh for fear they may not hear the next one." That tautly pleasurable silence will descend every Mon from 09/02/98 to 23/02/98 (inclusive) at the Old Red Lion pub, 418 St John St, London EC1 (nearest tube: Angel), box office: 0171 837 7816. (Well, it's in a room above the pub, probably. He's weird - but not *that* weird...) http://www.spesh.com/pix/us.gif (artist's impression) >> TRACKING << putting the "rad" back into "radar" We've been taken down the garden path by funky idea organisers as often as you have, and still we like Natrificial's THE BRAIN. Certainly, it's showing all the danger signs of a doomed tech - small company, proprietary data format, use of "mind maps", cutesy terminology, 30 day free trial. But the interface is sparky, and it will, at least, impress your workmates. Come on, spend another week re-entering your entire life into your PC for no clear reason. Go awwwn. http://www.thebrain.com/ - "You must register and pay for The Brain within that period, or you will lose your ability to add any new thoughts" Having received our free e-mailed transcription from SpeechMachines ("record dictations anytime, anywhere"), we are now convinced that either a) they have some *very* good computerised speech recognition tech behind them or b) they're cheating, and getting 3rd-world sweat labour to type it all in. Evidence for a) is that it's all ex- ministry of defence tech. Evidence for b) is that it's based in the UK. http://194.42.246.182/frames/trilindx.htm - try reading out C code, and see if they indent it properly Killer Namco coin-op TIME CRISIS 2 packed the serious heat at this week's Amusement Trade Exhibition International (see NTK 23/01/98), and now comes with: Simultaneous two- player link-ups (from different perspectives - though no deathmatch mode)! Same recoiling guns, new System 23 graphics (whatever that means)! And, sadly, enemies wearing body armour! According to the brochure, "players also benefit from perceived added value - when their time runs out a life is lost and play continues". Also new at the ATEI, the usual mix of Sega Rally 2, novelty photo booths, and mad Japanese fishing sims - but no sign of genuine terror-engines like TOP ELIMINATOR (from Canada's ThrillTime Entertainment), a "genuine" 0-75mph dragster ride that sets new records for ratio of attraction cost/duration. http://www.namco.co.uk/cgi-bin/forum/namco/sublist.html - "Give a man a gun, and he's superman. Give him two and he's God." http://www.aimsintl.org/dragster.htm - $15 for a 8-second ride = $112.50/minute >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista Cameron said it'd have been cheaper to *build* the Titanic in a Gdansk shipyard: so let's do it! www.powerup.com.au/~nicw/gigantic/gigantic.htm ... scouse losers THE FARM injunct LA MACARENA - but why did they let the world suffer so long?... Altoids as blowjob aid... Phrack 52 out... for your gullible Edge-reading friends: www.telepolis.de/ix/artikel/E/1997/04/036/ ... why your GIFs look shit in Netscape 4: www.artware.de/nc4petition/ ... PERSIAN KITTY goes to print... mail your INTERACTIVE BAFTA nominations (cough, cough) to helenw@bafta.org... mail your "EFF Pioneer" award nominations to pioneer@eff.org (cough cough)... Babelfish the new Roland: http://users.skynet.be/xpinchar/mc505.html ... Bored of Rocky Horror? Apply the same audience participation spirit to showings of Apocalypse Now!... think you're an old hand? www.clark.net/pub/kfl/history.net ... >> GEEK MEDIA << consume more media than you produce TV>> given the current "reality TV" craze, you'd be forgiven for assuming that THE GRAND (9pm, Fri, ITV) is actually a fly-on-the-wall docu about the staff of a hotel who like dressing up in period costumes... E Nesbit, Tolkien, Dr Seuss - some promising choices for the classic kids' authors profiled in AN AWFULLY BIG ADVENTURE (6pm, Sat, BBC2) - but where's cutaway king Richard Scarry?... Saturday night: kill yourself - it's an Ecstacy criminalisation debate on C4, or (god, no) another lame Wil "Wesley Crusher" Wheaton movie on ITV... plus, over on satellite, woeful wannabe waste-of-disk-space HACKERS (10pm, Sat, Sky Movies 2) - notwithstanding its freeze- frame and RISC/ "PCI bus" chat-up lines... FITZ (10pm, Sun, ITV) is the oddly pointless US remake of Cracker... Data gets emotions in Kirk/ Picard romp STAR TREK: GENERATIONS (7.10pm, Sun, BBC1) - though, notably, not including disgust at his dreadful make-up... WATCHDOG HEALTHCHECK (7.30pm, Mon, BBC1) takes an obsessively detailed look at high-functioning autistic disorder Asperger's Syndrome... politico-prankster Mark Thomas bangs on about tax exempt properties in LIE OF THE LAND (7.50pm, Mon-Thu, C4)... and not too many rollercoaster disasters in the behind-the- scenes look at Blackpool PLEASURE BEACH (9.30pm, Mon, BBC1) - just another attempt to make a drama out of a workplace... the Watch The Skies season audibly scrapes the barrel with BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES (10pm, Tue, C4) and David Bowie yawn-fest THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (11.45pm, Tue, C4)... babies with tails! - it's a long- overdue "funny" episode of THE X FILES (10pm, Wed, BBC1), with Darin "brother of Glen" Morgan now writing better roles for himself than his debut as "Flukeman"... and LOUIS THEROUX'S WEIRD WEEKENDS (9.30pm, Thu, BBC2) conclude - not literally, one hopes - with trips to a militia hideout and a survivalist superstore... FILM>> possibly the worst date movie of all time, yet the vicious suits in IN THE COMPANY OF MEN (MPAA rated: R - for "language and emotional abuse") remain, American Psycho- style, enthrallingly appalling... seems not even Total Film could contrive a ridiculously enthusiatic quote about the ultraviolent troubles-drama RESURRECTION MAN (imdb: not listed!)... more gritty Britty life-on-the-street frolics in STELLA DOES TRICKS (imdb: drama) - clue: it's not about a magic act, though cheery sitcom bloke James Bolam does get turned into an evil pimp... and finally, it's got Bill "Twister" Paxton, Mark "Marky Mark" Wahlberg, and Julianna "ER" Margulies, but TRAVELLER (imdb: con-artists / drama) is actually about a pair of nomadic semi-Irish swindlers, rather than the popular sci-fi role-playing game (http://www.hooked.net/~dberry/gateway.html)... SKIENCE>> Great insights of our time department: "living birds are nothing less than small, feathered, short-tailed therapod dinosaurs."... Ancient astronauts myths are true: 78 year-old Right-Stuffer John Glenn will fly again on the Space Shuttle, which has NOTHING TO DO with who sits on the committee which approves NASA's budgets... The Universe _will_ go on expanding forever after all, according to new measurements of supernova red shifts _ you can stop holding your breath now... Lego launches "intelligent bricks" http://el.www.media.mit.edu/people/fredm/projects/cricket/: expect the NTK "build an (oversized) nanotechnology assembler out of Lego Technic" competition to be revived any time now... Forget batteries, and recharge your cell- phone with a large jigger of 120-proof, using a miniature methanol-powered fuel cell 50 times more powerful than Ni- Cds developed by Los Alamos nuke-meister Bob Hockaday in his basement workshop... worried about sweaty palms on that all-important first date? Jeff Schweitzer MD can cure you with a few deft strokes of the scalpel, severing the nerves that control the sweat glands... Top new science paper title at the xxx: e-print archive: "Spacetime foam as a quantum thermal bath"... - mattb@spesh.com >> 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 "bigger than the average US ISP". <http://www.openmarket.com/intindex/98-01.htm> NEED TO KNOW THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK. Archive - http://www.ntk.net/ Excuses - http://www.spesh.com/ntk/ Unsubscribe? Mail majordomo@unfortu.net with 'unsubscribe ntknow'. Subscribe? Mail majordomo@unfortu.net with 'subscribe ntknow'. NTK now is helped by VIRGIN NET, VENUS INTERNET and UNFORTU.NET. They worry about us, but we don't worry about them. (K) 1998 Special Projects. Non-business copying is fine, but retain SMALL PRINT. 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