Need To Know 2000-02-11

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"This much is known: Mallett made clear in statements Monday that Yahoo's routers were overwhelmed during the attack. Routers act like mechanical air traffic controllers for traffic coming in and out of computer networks." - Yahoo COO and man-in-the-middle JEFF MALLETT calms MSNBC ..the FBI seeking steampunk hackers with difference engine skills >> HARD NEWS << loods of trinoos As of going to server, there's still no news on who is behind the concerted DoS attacks that so crippled America's ability to buy Pokemon trading cards earlier this week. Allow us to add our 200 words of fact-free speculation. As The Edge likes to say: cui bono? Let's look at the clues. The sites chosen are, so far, exclusively American, with a reputation for being rather well run (well, apart from E-Bay). All the first hits took place right in the center of the individual site's peak periods; probably a coincidence, but if deliberate, that requires a high degree of proprietary knowledge. Then there's the end results. We've seen the FBI going open source and releasing code to help prevent and detect the attack, we've seen network providers like GlobalCenter realising they're going to have to be more responsive, and smaller sysadmins admit they're going have to tighten security at the edge of the network, and install more clueful filtering. Everything veteran administrators have been suggesting for years. None of which benefits the presumed miscreants, script kiddies, who would anyway have blurted by now and been transported to world fame and a prison sentence. Our confident conclusion, then: it was an inside job _by the sysadmins at the big sites themselves_ Oh, sure, they all have the perfect alibi: that they were at NANOG listening to a talk on DoS attacks when the first wave broke. But what do you think they were talking *about*, you *sheep*? As we like to say at every opportunity, Mr President: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000211/bs/hackers_clinton_1.html - they're in the room with you! http://www.washington.edu/People/dad/ - motive, ability, calls himself "Dad" http://www.realnames.com/ - *and* real names hacked? round up the DNS guys! Of course, it could be Jack Straw, trying to curry a bit more support for his *spectacularly* rights-trampling REGULATION OF INVESTIGATORY POWERS. We're still tramping through the marshes of this bill - which on first glance introduces all the worst bits of the DTI's E-Commerce bill, plus some extra special mass surveillance clauses, and a smattering of no parliamentary oversight whatsoever. We particularly like the fact that you're now obliged to hand over the key, if the prosecution proves that you "have, or have had" it. So if you did have it, but it's gone now, you go to jail. And if you forget your passphrase? Well, you forget your chance of a fair trial, too. More soon. Unfortunately. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmbills/064/2000064.htm - e-mail us your favourite bits http://www.fipr.org/rip/ - or just ask Casper and the boys It's the "Turkish Guy" the broadsheets won't touch! In October 1999, people started sending us the AMAZON.CO.UK page for "A Hand in the Bush", Deborah Addington's amusingly titled guide to "vaginal fisting". We didn't feature it at the time, but people kept sending the URL to their friends until, in an act of inadvertent memetic sabotage, the page became one of the site's most popular search results for *any* sufficiently vague query featuring the word "in" (discovered this Monday by a cam.misc poster searching for "pointers in c", forwarded to us endlessly, and now, from the look of things, fixed). As well as highlighting Amazon's limited range of stopwords (hint: don't "search by artist" for albums by "The The"), it also reveals how their "Hot 100 Bestsellers" list is compiled, with the "Temporarily out of stock" sex manual currently nestling at number 4, above Whitbread winner "Beowulf" and "The Beach", and just below "Harry Potter Book 4 (Not Yet Published)". http://www.ntk.net/2000/02/11/dohamazon.jpg - you know, we thought you'd moan more about the Java book http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/cache/lists/best/amazon-bestsellers.html - it probably won't stop you sending us it, but anything's worth a try http://www.fpo.at/englisch/welcome.htm - ...oh, and while we're at it: fake site, people! use "whois" next time! >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious DANDO killer may have used www.192.com: well, that cuts it down ... If this is what an award does to your network: finger @info.netcom.net.uk ... "There's a myth that if we legalise a substance it would somehow take the illegality out of it." - we'll have whatever the Drugs Czar is doing at http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsid_363000/363872.stm ... Monday's book extract in TIMES "Smoothing out the bugs in the machine." pastes in HTML from webpage, including <'s and hyperlink to image file ... "Internet time" getting ever faster http://www.freeserve.net/cserve/about.htm - and Martha Lane "22nd Century" Fox's site stretches the lastminute credo: http://www.ntk.net/2000/02/11/dohlastmin.gif ... not the new Jakob Nielsen: http://www.ntk.net/2000/02/11/dohreal.jpg ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful And if you can't face those traditional Valentine's Day activities (sitting alone at home, weeping, masturbating, introducing assault weapons into the workplace, etc), why not vent your perfectly healthy frustrations in some sort of online frag-fest? That seemed to be the rationale behind The Playing Fields' ST VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE - from 9pm, 2000- 02-14 - the heavily pre-advertised finals of their Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament leagues (though now they don't seem to be listed on their website). Of course, first-person shooters and romance aren't completely incompatible, as proved by the "world's first" QUAKE WEDDING (7pm same day South African time, Quake2 Battleground Server TBA) - the newlyweds could even honeymoon at Cannes' constantly-reinventing-itself MILIA show for a taste of that famously sensual "broadband et multimedia Francaise"... http://www.playingfields.co.uk/ - oh come on, like they'd have anything better to do http://gamezone.mweb.co.za/quakewedding/ - winner goes on to fight "bride of Carmack" boss monster http://www.milia.com - "Pantene iTV personalised hair consultation"? Ooh la la! >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering It's not often we give space to programs that you have to *acht*-*pttht* pay for, but we've had a couple of requests to mention THE SIMS, which they say is "ace". We have nothing to add, except to say that it is like Little Computer People, but available on platforms other than the Commodore 64. There. Now, anyone know any Sims torture sites (similar to the Norn abuse sites that popped up a while back)? Also, we're looking for more celebrity skins along the lines of the Princess Diana and Ivanka Trump models designed by Donna Erikson. None of your business why. http://www.thesims.com/ - as if these games weren't behaviour-modifying enough http://thesimscenter.simstuff.com/skins/donna.html - work-shy icons sponging off your hard won clock-cycles >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista searching av.com for +"Microsoft VBScript runtime error" +".inc, " then checking out the .inc ... "Daytime tv doesn't give us the unrush it used to." http://www.myrtle.co.uk/stupid.html ... life imitates onion, part of an ongoing series: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_625000/625846.stm vs http://www.theonion.com/onion3511/college_drinking.html ... SQL exploits ... http://www.ask.com/docs/peek/ruq.asp?reloads=1 vs asking http://support.microsoft.com/support/help/aboutmaxwell.asp whether *he's* gay ... MAVIS BEACON teaches typing, kicking butt http://headline.gamespot.com/news/00_02/01_vg_streettype/ ... http://ntk.really.fuckingsucks.net ...this week's Not That I'm Bitter http://www.angelfire.com/ca/stonedcold/ex.html ... next week's Not That I'm Bitter; http://www.b0rk.co.uk/columns.php3?author=paul2 (search for "****") ... PICARD goes back in time to found America http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/kennewick000202.html >> GEEK MEDIA << the less rude http://www.tvgohome.com/ TV>> REACH FOR THE MOON (9pm, Fri, ITV) is some modern-day romantic weepie (with Lynda "Oxo mum" Bellingham), but you can watch it 'cos the guy is an amateur rocket fan... there was a time when *all* Arnie movies were like the quip-laden COMMANDO (10.25pm, Fri, BBC1)... and catch the from-the-start repeats of BLAKE'S 7 quickly (4.05pm, Sat, BBC2), before they're replaced by snooker or Space: 1999... Ant and Dec's full series of relationship-straining gameshow FRIENDS LIKE THESE (6.15pm, Sat, BBC1) unlikely to reach the audience-abusing heights of either "Wonky Donkey" (part of SM:TV, 9.25am, Sat, ITV) or their previous BBC kids' show where they cut off all that girl's hair... C4's science coverage presents SIX EXPERIMENTS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD (7pm, Sun, C4) - presumably the first being giving Ken Campbell another presenting job... while Red Dwarf credentials and funny talking (something about "schizoid embolisms") don't bode too well for fish-out-of- water aliens sitcom THE STRANGERERS (9pm, Tue, Sky1)... in other sci-tech highlights, Cronenberg apparently planned to follow up chilly head-popper SCANNERS (11.30pm, Tue, C4) with films based around other popular PC peripherals... TRUST ME, I'M A DOCTOR (7.30pm, Wed, BBC2) *says* it's giving you an in- depth analysis of placebos... while HORIZON (9.30pm, Thu, BBC2) gives its sober scientific analysis of those weirdos who get turned on by amputees - just like KW Jeter's Dr Adder! http://www.cpreview.com/reviews/Jeter_DrAdder.html ... FILM>> clearly desperate for work after his dreadful child- star efforts, Leo DiCaprio gets to present an extended Thailand segment from BBC1's "Holiday" show in part video-game populist teenage travel tosh THE BEACH (imdb comment: "Racist dope story without any sense")... while this week's other big release - a la-di-da religious romance based on a book by some dead guy - may require revision of previous NTK heuristic ("down to earth Neil Jordan: good, supernatural Neil Jordan bad") in THE END OF THE AFFAIR (http://www.cndb.com: Ralph Fiennes - "a side view of his naked body followed by a full length shot of his rear"; Julianne Moore - "we see her breasts several times, even when they repeatedly switch positions Another scene in which they're having sex shows just the side of her butt. Later, while she's getting dressed, we briefly see one of her breasts")... which leaves just one pressing question: just *how bad* is straight-to-VCD William Gibson adaptation NEW ROSE HOTEL (MPAA: "some sex-related dialogue")? Well, pretty darned bad: Abel "Bad Lieutenant" Ferrara looks like he made it with surveillance footage and out-takes from "The Blackout"; Christopher Walken's predictable by even his rent-a-psycho standards - and you know that thing where they have a "twist" at the end of the film to make you watch it (and "reassess" it) a second time? New Rose Hotel, generously, replays about *20 minutes* of key scenes at the end, to its credit, both acknowledging - and ensuring - that you'll never want to sit through the whole experience again... "LOVE MUFFIN" ROUND-UP>> the usual delightfully edible Valentine's specialities: most unpleasant concept goes to Seven Seas' PURE OYSTER CONCENTRATE vitamin supplement (each tablet contains the "extract" of "five oysters"); most unfortunate, League Of Gentlemen-style name goes to The New Covent Garden Soup Company's LOVE SOUP, brimming with "natural aphrodisiacs"... yeah, we give CADBURY'S a hard time, but only 'cos their new products are always so revolting: following the non-runaway success of their CRAZE peanut bar [see NTK 1999- 06-25], they've struck again with P'NUT CRISP - a layered wafer bar with a suggestion of peanut, available "for a limited period only" (!), and presumably pronounced like the Klingon "K'Pla!"... plus, their "new" MAD ABOUT CHOCOLATE mini-egg is just their fricking "Velvet" egg, but in a different wrapper! [NTK 1998-01-23]... CADBURY'S MUFFIN BAR (currently appearing in Tescos, from makers of "Mr Kipling Muffin Bars", about 57p!) feature nice packaging, moist - no, *damp* pastry, acrid chunks of "real" Cadbury's chocolate, and flavours including "Outrageous Orange" and "Cranked-up Caramel" - the latter, you may be disappointed to learn, *not* featuring the great taste of crystal methamphetamine... but this month's "taste abomination", appearing near the Sunny-D in our local Sainsburys, has to be Sundora's "New, Low Fat FRUTTI MAX soft apple pieces (29p for 25g pack), presumably being positioned as a healthily natural snack alternative to crisps (or sweets?), in such enthusiastically unnatural flavours as Toffee, Fruits Of The Forest, Fizzy Orange (our favourite), Fizzy Lemon And Lime, and Strawberry (did they not conside a "ready salted" plain-apple option?). Closer examination reveals that, with a staggering 70 per cent sugar content (depending on flavour), one of the few things they actually are a healthy alternative to is: pure sugar... >> 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. Registered at the Post Office as "having a burning passion to encourage teenage girls to take control of their lives." http://www.jobsunlimited.co.uk/Browse/Fulltextjob/0,1755,888833633,00.html NEED TO KNOW THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK. Archive - http://www.ntk.net/ Unsubscribe? Mail ntknow-unsubscribe@lists.ntk.net Subscribe? Mail ntknow-subscribe@lists.ntk.net NTK now is supported by UNFORTU.NET, and by you: http://www.ntk.net/books (K) 2000 Special Projects. 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