Need To Know 1998-05-01

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"More than two million people visit a BT payphone every day. Results from past BT promotional activity have shown that advertising in kiosks really works" - STEVE DAVIS, head of BT Payphone marketing BUSTY MODEL, NEW IN TOWN, OFFERS "PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES" >> HARD NEWS << short fuse "So where were you when they took your private keys away, Daddy?" "If I remember rightly, young lady, I was voting for 'Hank the Angry, Drunken Dwarf'". Labour announced their CRYPTO POLICY on Monday. Having managed to postpone in the week Whit Diffie was in town, this time they stumbled it out when Phil Zimmermann was here to take the calls. His reactions, at a hastily-convened meeting in Cambridge? To their request that government authorities endorse your signing key, fine. And handing over your private key? "Extra code in PGP 6.0 so you can switch your private key, without changing your sig key. You can switch it as soon as they leave." Also on the agenda: Phil's trying to switch the license on the Free Unix implementation of PGP to a more Open Softwarish tune. Meanwhile, watch out for the new legislation; but be prepared to wait, because writing law takes so much longer than patching code. Thank God. http://www.liberty.org.uk/cacib/legal/crypto/dti-crypto.html - those proposals in full http://online.guardian.co.uk/computing/893871217-encrypt.html - the good Duncan Campbell reports... http://www.angelfire.com/ok/yoa/ - Sod that! We want pictures of Hank! The BPI this week discovered that RealAudio streams *could* be recorded, after all. Shocked, *shocked*, by this discovery, and feeling betrayed by assurances that Web users could never in a million years have worked out what that "Line Out" socket was for, they immediately demanded compensation from all the music Websites. In a typically brave stand, the BBC shut down all their Radio 1 RA streams. We're just hoping no-one snitches to the BPI about that "taping the John Peel Show off the radio onto a C60" scam. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/listeningbooth/listeningbooth.html - FLASH! BBC closes down all RealAudio streams! http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/listeningbooth/ - UPDATE! Wily hackers find secret backdoor to RA files! "We never imagined directories could be listed", say experts http://www.focus-asia.com/home/mad96/cracks.htm - go on, just intercept the data going to your sound card And, finally, a bit of good news. The INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE, our favourite site in all the world, has successfully sold its soul to Amazon. Bundled with UK book sites BookPages (who he?) and German company Telebook (wer er?), Amazon is spending 55 million dollars on European content. And, naturally, since the content on IMDb is written by its visitors, you can be expecting your cut any day now. http://uk.imdb.com/ - only joking, plucky Celtic movie people http://www.bookpages.co.uk/ - oh, right. That's... nice. >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious Demon bought by SCOTTISH TELECOM, as predicted - Roy Bliss to be MD: that we didn't... MSN IRELAND "disappears" ... NOVELL says spam costing UK $8 billion a year... www.next- generation.com's article on the Chris Anderson FUTURE buyout ended with "resistance is futile. You will be assimilated": tagline mysteriously disappears... NOVELL UK HQ still has sendmail configured to relay spam... INDEPENDENT says Netscape strikes deal with "the electronic massaging company USA.NET" ... Our favourite hack, RICHARD BARRY, spams Ziff Davis journalists: requests they help "a sick boy" who is "collecting business cards to get into the Guinness Book of Records"... Times' INTERFACE reports "President Bill Clinton recently took the unprecedented step of restricting the export of cryptographic software": just how recently was this, then? ... RICHARD BARRY recants: apparently it is all "a sick hoax"... theDJ.com launches an all-weather EL NINO music channel... "Gorilla not impressed by Net chat"... Paranoia.com, sadly, dead... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful So when did the LONDON 2600 MEETINGS get so stylish? They're having a live RealAudio broadcast this Friday, with a DJ and everything. Although it's unclear from the press release, either the Shaftesbury Avenue McDonalds has a brand new ISDN feed, or the gentlemen dudes of the Home Counties Elite are mixing it at Backspace or other cyber- hangout where we're sure they've got advance permission. Still, some things never change: it's still 7.00pm, 1/5/98, next to the VR machines at the Trocadero. Look out for the dark coats, black t-shirts and - if any of them went to last week's DNS, the very, very hungover stares. http://www.abel.net.uk/~dms/broadcast - you people should be *ashamed* of yourselves >> TRACKING << geeks-geeks copy program Quick! While Rob Malda's still doing celebrating his finals, we'll quickly slip in the MPEG3 player in your car, which Rob's slashdot covered earlier this week, but we think we can get away repeating here. It's British, it's Linux-based, and you'll probably have to devote the next 6 months of your life getting yours to work. But it beats waiting for them to ban the MPMan, doesn't it? http://utter.chaos.org.uk/~altman/mp3mobile/ - already moved from Demon, so you've probably seen it http://slashdot.org - how can we *not* love them, damn it all to heck http://www.ccc.de/CRD/CRD240498.html - and while you're there, here's that GSM Card SIMulator... The CYPHERPUNKS mailing list has always been, search form reflecting content, a little hard to track down. It's a shame, since it's hard to find a better technical and historical resource on cryptography, cyberlibertarianism and watching Tim May hurl insults at every newbie who crosses his mantrap-spiked path. The search engine code isn't *quite* working yet, but when your day job is toppling governments, it's hard to find the time. http://sof.mit.edu/cypherpunks/ - it stands for "Soldier Of Fortune": setting the tone for you? >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista http://www.hizbollah.org/ ... He-Hog the Atomic Pig... ULYSSES 31 movie? Nah... Open Cola!... The GUARDIAN Unlimited - to six sites... pronouncing "www" as "yadda yadda yadda"... http://freeweb.pdq.net/headstrong/ ... unsubstantiated rumours indicate WINDOWS 3.1 disks mysterious fail to install after 1/1/98... www.leif.com ... Wu Tang's OL' DIRTY BASTARD renames himself "Big Baby Jesus" ... US BUREAU OF EXPORT sniffing ftp sites for baad crypto... this proves - something: www.mormons.org/humor/index.htm ... also contrary to God's plan: www3.mistral.co.uk/whitedot/ ... searching for "_vti_inf.html"... our favourite URL of the year so far: http://www.cardhouse.com/g/moj/mojave.htm ... >> GEEK MEDIA << the color of television tuned to a dead Sky channel TV>> after years in the post Big-Breakfast wilderness, Mark Little's back with NO WORRIES WEEKEND (from 22.45pm, Fri- Sun, ITV), though his broad definition appears to include deeply worrisome failed Leslie Nielsen spoof REPOSSESSED (11.20pm, Fri, ITV), superb spaghetti sequel THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (2.55am, Fri, ITV), plus that paean to easygoing Aussie lifestyles MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOME (11pm, Sat, ITV)... anyway, beats appalling Stallone sound- stage schlocker CLIFFHANGER (9.35pm, Fri, BBC1), though repeats of THE ADAM AND JOE SHOW (11.05pm, Fri, C4) pick up with bad portrait drawing on the streets of London, and the casting sessions for Smack Me Up, Gun-Bitch... odd scheduling for Kevin "Scream" Williamson's semi-self- referential teen-dram DAWSON'S CREEK (7pm, Sat, C4); spot the geek in Film Threat T-shirt later this series... and, it being Saturday, the theme nights peak a little early with EUROVISION'S WATERLOO (from 9pm, Sat, C4), plus equally Abba-obsessed MURIEL'S WEDDING the day after (9pm, Sun, C4)... SUPERGIRL (1.45pm, Mon, BBC1) looks most puny beside superior sequel SUPERMAN II (3.35pm, Mon, ITV)... former Doogie Howser plays a village idiot in THE OUTER LIMITS (11.35pm, Mon, BBC2)... and, as the BBC plans its 1998 "Computers Don't Bite" campaign, Lynda La Plante goes and launches the - truly awful - KILLER NET (10pm, Tue, C4); please add your comments to our critique at http://www.spesh.com/killer ... while the SLIDERS (6.45pm, Wed, BBC2) visit the oddly familiar-sounding world "where mass entertainment is provided by an extremely violent video game" (maybe it's QuakeWorld!)... starting a Sharon Stone double-bill - though she hardly "stars" in the other one - is CCTV thriller SLIVER (10.15pm, Wed, BBC1), with William Baldwin as a possibly murderous C programmer, though that isn't part of the evidence used against him... FILM>> [NB: just for a change, NTK's swearing correspondent, Charlie Brooker, proposed that instead of our usual imdb.com categories, we quoted the warnings/ recommendations from the parents' "entertainment guide" at http://www.screenit.com/ , which details every instance of: (among other things) Sex/Nudity, Disrespectful Attitude, Inappropriate Music, Tense Family Scenes and Profanity - and, as a result, often reads like Barry Norman with Tourette's Syndrome]... anyway, true to its premise, it's a similar cast, similar plot, similar ideas - and sequels do *still* suck, even when they're SCREAM 2 [ScreenIt: "Extreme profanity - at least 29 "f" words (1 used with "mother"), 21 "s" words, 1 slang term each for male and female genitals (the "d" and "p" words), 12 asses (1 used with "hole"), 3 hells, 1 crap, and 3 uses each of "G-damn" and "Oh my God," 2 uses of "Jesus," and 1 use each of "For Christ's sakes," "Jesus Christ," "Oh God," and "My God" as exclamations]... the rehab of B-list '80s action heroes continutes with Kurt Russell in surprisingly tense road- noir romp BREAKDOWN [ScreenIt: "Extreme profanity - 21 "f" words (1 with the prefix "mother"), 14 "s" words, 1 slang term for breasts (the "t" word), 14 hells, 8 "ass" words (3 used with "hole"), 7 S.O.B.'s, 4 damns, and 7 uses of "God damn," 4 uses of "Jesus," 2 uses of "Swear to God," and 1 use each of "Oh Christ," "Christ," and "For Christ's sakes" as exclamations]... you'll always wonder what might have happened if you hadn't gone to see Gwyneth Paltrow's London Underground-product-placed parallel-universe (and Sliders- title influenced?) love comedy SLIDING DOORS [ScreenIt: "Heavy Profanity - with the English accents and regional slang, there may be more than listed below. For instance, the term "shagging" seems to be used as a replacement for the "f" word (both sexually and non-sexually), and the terms "wanker" (derogatory for masturbation) and "bollocks" (testicles) also seem to be used as profanities... At least 7 uses of "shagging", what sounded like 2 slang terms using female genitals ("twat"), etc etc..."] And, needless to say, various uses of "God" and "Oh God" as exclamations. back to the imdb next week, I think... ERROR!>> Oh, it's so easy to knock isn't it, but what happens when the shoe is on the other foot, and that foot is in our own mouths? We admit it: Demon *didn't* eliminate the alt.b.mp3 newsgroup; *someone* misconfigured their newsreader. The ICA didn't have an E10000, and if they did, it wouldn't have cost 250,000UKP, nor would it have been one of fifteen (closer to 750,000; and they've sold more than that, easy, though not in the UK). Also, we taste- tested Nestle's new Pretzel Flipz - salty pretzel shapes coated in "delicious" white fudge. And a big fucking mistake that proved to be. For the fatals mistakes of others, tune once again to www.teammanager.com/falco/ - first results out next week! >> 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 "lights out, good". 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. 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