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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
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