Need To Know 1999-05-14

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"Due to the conflict in Kosovo, we will not be showing the pay-per-view movie 'Wag the Dog'. Instead, we will be offering 'Mortal Kombat:Annihilation'." - Cable and Wireless cable TV customer helpline, 1999-05-10 ...sure, don't offend war-torn Albanians, but what about all the viewers in the "Outworld" reception area? >> HARD NEWS << lack of clues As lists of SECRET INTELLIGENCE SERVICE spies go, it wasn't exactly the most credible. Its source (allegedly) was an agent who'd barely completed his training. As well as names and dates, it included additional information like "wanker" (potential weakness, or special skill?). And it appeared on Lyndon LaRouche's site - tucked between tirades on how Prince Philip runs the world heroin trade, and how Tony Blair's government tricked the US into war with Iraq. Even they seemed unsure of it: it had vanished by Wednesday. At that point, the only person who ever seemed to have spotted it was harmless Usenet eccentric Raymond Amundson, who reposted it in a flurry of noise on alt.talk.royalty ("O Geez...even the loony bin is HOSTILE to me.", added Amundson, clarifying his reputation). And this, no doubt, is where it would have languished - had the Secret Intelligence Service not abruptly announced to all media to definitely NOT look for or publicise a list which they exclusively revealed "identifies a large number of SIS (MI6) officers". Oh, and certainly don't look for a list with around 110 names on it. And don't look on a Website in America. Astoundingly, instead of running standard disinfo tactics to delay the spread of the list as they quietly shifted the agents out of harm's way, the SIS actively confirmed the story, then encouraged thousands of Net users to seek out, mirror, and propagate this juicy bit of info. Not very intelligent, not much of a service to anyone. And not, any more, very secret. http://jya.com/crypto.htm - like you didn't already know http://jya.com/rfurl-dc.htm - "widely disclosed or discussed"? Well, it is now. http://www7.big.or.jp/~katsurao/fp/f-inax.htm - and this is the treatment Apple gives its traitors! Sadly, we're under a D-Notice ourselves, as dozens of people e-mail us with FALCO nominations for one of the UK's most distinguished Web houses <cough>. While we examine how the damage of this disclosure might be minimised, we ask you to not spend time working out who it is from the fact that they're thinking of relaunching the company based on a demo Website two of their staff hacked up in five weeks as an idle exercise. Two people who, we note, who have already left... http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=a98/now0213.txt&l=306#l - FALCO! (because you're always asking what it means) And we're probably not supposed to tell you that the Trade and Industry SELECT COMMITTEE REPORT on E-Commerce is due next week, and that it's going to give the government a kicking over key escrow. And we're probably not even meant to *know* that the government are going to publicly abandon all their krazy krypto key-management by the end of the month. And if we catch any of you grinning about how, occasionally, Net activism does work and even governments can listen, we'll deny we said a thing. http://www.parliament.uk/commons/selcom/t&ihome.htm - it doesn't sound like the sort of thing we'd say >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious MICROSOFT breach copyright on ELSPA "age rating" logo... DAVID BOWIE to appear in video game... "Anyone with a computer is a potential pirate", says RIAA spokesman... AOL *not* going free this week... newly launched 24 HOUR MUSEUM http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/ claims to be "UK Museums, Galleries and Heritage for Everyone"- except if you're blind/disabled/using a non-frames/non-java/non-flash browser... marketeer asks "Does anyone know of any published books that have a comprehensive list of web addresses?" on UKNM; has "http:\\" in his .sig... ABBEY NATIONAL tells its consumers to check websites for SSL or "Secure Socket Locker"... FUTURE do a GameBoy magazine - a full decade after the console is released... THE PHANTOM MENACE opens with timeless, self-fulfilling dialogue "I've got a bad feeling about this"... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful SchNEWS launch their new book on Wed (from 7pm, Bar Centro, Ship Street, Brighton), and the ACM are showing their holiday SIGGRAPH movies on Thu (6pm, The Faraday Room, IEE, Savoy Place, London WC2R). But we suspect the real hardcore will be hoovering up the tea and biscuits at UKIP11, a gathering of radio amateurs with a shared interest in TCP/IP networking (Sat 1999-04-15, Woking, Surrey). Last we heard, transmitting anything other than "messages relating to technical investigations or remarks of a personal character" was officially frowned upon - maybe they're evolving the wireless protocols of the future from subtle variations in "Hello how's things?" "Not too bad thanks - and yourself?" http://www.tvipug.freeserve.co.uk/ - gives NGR for GPS, map users, cruise missiles... http://www.l0pht.com/~oblivion/radionet/radionet.html - hope it's compatible with these guys http://www.bcs.org.uk/diary2.htm#MAY99 - but is their "ELITE" group really e133t? http://www.schnews.org.uk/ - SchNEWS Survival Guide: best of issues 151-200, UKP6 And for anyone who missed last week's "National Masturbation Day" (1999-05-07), interactive award-winners AUDIOROM are doing a talk and workshop at some gallery in Sheffield. http://www.site-map.u-net.com/ - nowt about it here http://www.audiorom.com/ - nor here (are they the same as "AntiRom"? oh who cares) http://www.goodvibes.com/releases/nmm.html - perhaps more info than you required >> TRACKING << making good use of the things that we find Is it so *very* unfashionable to love your poster of Darth whose scary frame is made up of hundreds of ickle stills from the original trilogy? Well, possibly, yes: partly because you're supposed to pity the treacherous brat, but principally because hey, *anyone* can knock out those photomosaics nowadays. Just downloading TYLER allows people with no artistic (and worse, no programming) skills create their own feasts of pixelated myopia. Just throw it a target GIF, and a huge stack of images and voila! Recursive fashion! http://www.smalleranimals.com/tyler.htm - well, two levels of recursion anyway. Unless... http://www.smalleranimals.com/tylergalleryboard/lara.jpg - Lara Croft constructed from porn snapshots. As if that was news. >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista "specific Biblical threats relating to the Apocalypse, End Days, Armageddon or Tribulations are interpreted differently from Client to Client": http://www.hardenstructures.com/apoc.cfm ... GORE launches competition for open source screensaver: jwz resigns - could this be the dream ticket?... BT hint ADSL launch in Autumn... for your work colleague with the monitor shield: http://www.berk.com/~lessemf/personal.html TEXAS INSTRUMENTS oral tradition: http://listen.to/sass ... Kevin Smith's "CHASING AMIDALA" ... worth it (just) at http://www.cant-be-arsed.com ... "There shall be no peace until KIRK lives!" http://www.BringBackKirk.com/main.shtml ... the smart way to harvest girls' email addresses: http://www.salon.com/health/sex/urge/1999/05/11/bryan_winter/ ... bring back the old days with http://www.deja.com/=dnc/ ... "Everyone's free - to spoof SUNSCREEN": http://bofh.gits.co.uk/pfy/leatherman.txt ... LINUS as Yoko: http://www.deja.com/=dnc/getdoc.xp?AN=476049836 ... >> GEEK MEDIA << the less rude http://www.ntk.net/tvgohome/ TV>> deranged Euro co-pro sci-fi LEXX (10.50pm, Fri, C5) somehow makes it to a second series... not sure how this affects the licensing of BBC's "Record Breakers", but GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS (9pm, Fri, ITV) starts as it means to go on, with a round-up of the world's freakiest disfigurements... and U2's Bono is among those paying tribute to the Scandinavian "The Smiths" in THE ABBA STORY - THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL (9pm, Sat, ITV)... ROBOCOP 3 (10.15pm, Sat, ITV) succeeds where OCP and Frank Miller both failed, and kills off the movie franchise for good... wife-beating martial arts action with Jet Li in THE LEGEND OF FONG SAI-YUK I (2.30am, Sat, C4) - did they ever make FONG SAI-YUK II?... and it's a bit harsh devoting only 10 minutes to the best of 4 LATER (10.20pm, Sat, C4)... well, obviously science will ultimately explain the arts, but the arts can never fully explain science - which should settle once and for all which is the best out of THE TWO CULTURES? (11pm, Sun, C4)... Bill Maher's overrated topical chat THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT SHOW (11.45pm; then 11ish, Mon-Fri, C4) spends a week in the UK, and oddly acquires the prefix "THE" and postfix "SHOW" in the process... and THE EQUINOX SHOW (9pm, Mon, C4) chips in with some helpful hints on ethnically targetted bioweapons... as far as we can recall, the terrible Van Damme / Minogue / Steven de "Tomb Raider" Souza live-action STREET FIGHTER (9pm, Tue, C5) is in fact based on the game Street Fighter II - which is presumably why they never made a sequel based on the film's own spin-off video-game, or they'd have had to call it "Street Fighter II: The Movie: The Game: The Movie II" or something... ubercomic Simon "League Against Tedium" Munnery creates his own ON-digital weirdness slot and calls it THE FUTURTV SHOW (9.30pm, Tue & Thu, UK Play)... and, sorry, we forgot to plug the planet-of-the-whip-women Space: 1999 last week, but enthusiasts can still look forward to a futuristic female-dominated society in Gene Roddenberry's one-off nonsense fun PLANET EARTH (1.05am, Mon BBC1)... it's US government vs cypherpunks in a paintball battle - to the death! - in HOSTILE INTENT (9pm, Wed, C5) described by one imdb user as "An outrageously fascist movie!", though it's unclear whether that's intended as a recommendation... Republica's Saffron picks her THE MUSIC OF THE MILLENNIUM SHOW (12.20am, Wed, C4) - surely a toss-up between "Drop Dead Gorgeous" and "Ready To Go"?... and worthwhile Star Trek title sequence compilation THE "THE PLANETS" SHOW (9pm, Thu, BBC2) unapologetically extends its remit to tackle that notoriously non-planetary satellite, The Moon... FILM>> the director of lame Brit crime comedy The James Gang at last gets his act together for twisty-turny US-set neo-noir BEST LAID PLANS (MPAA: Rated R for language and sexuality), featuring Reese "Pleasantville" Witherspoon and the geeky bomb-making younger brother from Face/Off... the real TRUE CRIME (imdb: adultery / journalism / lethal-injection / murder / prison / womaniser / zoo / capital-punishment / car-crash / death-penalty / death-row / failing-marriage) is of course doddery Clint Eastwood passing himself off as an irresistible journo Lothario, racing against time to save a condemned man (journalists and deadlines, eh?) - one for James Woods/ Denis Leary completists only... together at last!: Chris Rea, Felicity Kendal, John Cleese, Joanna Lumley, Bob Hoskins, the late Oliver Reed *and* Michael Winner combine to make terminal-illness revenge farce PARTING SHOTS (imbd: black-comedy) incomparably strange... and Jackie Chan 1992 separated-at-birth knock-off TWIN DRAGONS (imdb: concert / farce / hong-kong / martial-arts / mistaken-identity / twins) is showing its age a bit too... leaving you a tricky choice between Lars von Trier's latest controvo-Danish art-porn THE IDIOTS (imdb: dogme-95 / cult / fake-documentary / essay / experimental / group-sex / improvisation / mental-illness / nudity / sex / stupidity / community)... which at least has more "spazzing off" than touching gay Grange Hill feelgooder GET REAL (imdb: not a movie version of the 1998 Lindsay Duncan/ Simon Godley ITV sitcom of the same name)... FEEBDACK>> a flurry of responses to our quest for "internal" music biz piracy, [NTK 1999-04-23] with MARCUS AUSTIN - of "Internet.Works" magazine fame - claiming that the "first 5 seconds" of Martine McCutcheon's "Perfect Moment" is "When Love Breaks Down" by Prefab Sprout, and that The Offspring's "Why Don't You Get A Job" is The Beatles' "Ob-bla-di Ob-bla-da"... never mind whether the new Chemical Bros single is more like the KLF's "What Time Is Love?" or the theme from "Knight Rider", argues ADRIAN MOULDER, who's spotted even more imaginative soundalikes: Robbie Williams' "Strong" (Oasis' "Champagne Supernova"), Westside's "This I Swear" (Bette Midler's "The Wind Beneath My Wings"), plus "the music off the new Mobil ad with the Tron cars racing through the engine is *obviously* off the giant generator bit of Total Recall". Moulder concludes that "the so-called New Radicals are clearly soluble in the Old Waterboys" and further inquires: "are Gay Dad the band off 'A Young Person's Guide To Being A Rock Star'?"... forced to re-record his old '80s stuff on the discs "Yin" and "Yang", Fish out of Marillion was in fact the first person to become his own tribute band, contends TONY BLEWS, adding - perhaps unnecessarily - that his new album is "a bit of a dog's log"... "Surely GEM predates any Microsoft Windows attempt by some considerable period?" corrects ANDREW MARSHALL [re NTK 1999-04-23 again], adding the laudable disclaimer "My brain may be faulty (I am over 40 now, after all)"... "Easynet already has a free ISP", asserts SIMON H LE G BISSON [re NTK 1999-04-16], poignantly pointing out "they took my old baby UKOL free nearly a month ago, without telling anyone"... and finally: last week's namecheck of Christopher Bidmead prompted widespread unsolicited reminiscing over Dr Who episodes, including "Frontios", which apparently has characters called "Kerningham and Ritchie" in it, plus "Logopolis" itself - "There's a scene where Adric has to comb through ten pages of hexadecimal by hand to find a bug that's making weird evil things happen," recalls IAN HOLMES, "though why he couldn't have just done a 'diff' I'm not sure". NTK regrets that this correspondence is now closed... >> 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 "Bun-loving Criminals" http://www.ntk.net/bun/ 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@lists.ntk.net with 'unsubscribe ntknow'. Subscribe? Mail majordomo@lists.ntk.net with 'subscribe ntknow'. NTK now is supported by UNFORTU.NET, and by you: http://www.ntk.net/books (K) 1999 Special Projects. Non-business copying is fine, but retain SMALL PRINT. Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com - remember your work email may be monitored if sending sensitive material.