Need To Know 2000-02-18

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"XML sounds scary. Stuff that begins with the letter X usually does. There's a reason they didn't call it 'The C Files.'" http://macworld.zdnet.com/2000/02/seybold/reports/onepersonweb.html ...because only cable would show pointer arithmetic in prime time? >> HARD NEWS << ruses reviewed RSA hacked? My God: are not even the highest citadels safe from the heterogenous swarm of DoS script kiddies? Well, not quite: it turned out to be just the usual "lone hacker" using DNS poisoning to redirect the requests. Although the traceroutes leading to Columbia were a nice touch - and doesn't poisoning sound exotic? Certainly a bit more dangerous than January's VIRGIN NET e-mail password breach. Despite hushed comments in the papers about the coteries of sophisticated cyberterrorists holding the company to ransom, the truth turned out to be a little simpler. Virgin's managed to lose the machine with the data on. One minute, it was sitting there happily in their ultra-secure operations center. The next: gone. Or at least, nobody could find it, so they gave up, and passed the onus onto their customers. The lessons? Always change your passwords: and do try to remember where you parked that drive. http://www.attrition.org/mirror/attrition/2000/02/12/www.rsa.com/ - pretty l33t http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,3949158,00.html - "on the Net you can have criminals coming from countries with no extradition treaties". Or from the dodgy market down the road Of course, ISP's data centers are going to be the last place safe from external interference if the new Regulation of Interception Powers bill makes it to the statute books. A distinct lack of the usual governmental grinding on this one: second reading is on March 8th, giving just three weeks for doubters to marshal their objections. But never fear, SCRAMBLING FOR SAFETY, the rapid response security con, is out to intercept. Given the time limits, the organisers would like to be able to get an idea of numbers to pass on to sponsors and interested spooks^H^H^H^H^Hparties. So if you'd like to hear the details of the how, exactly, the government plan to drop a black box in between you and the rest of the Net, e-mail your interest with a message to i.want.sfs2000@fipr.org saying who you'd like as speakers, and other topics you'd like discussed. Your privacy is guaranteed! http://www.fipr.org/sfs35.html - while it still can be. (this is last year's event, btw) And while we're in an updating kind of mood, such was the response - from journalists, students, and sentient AI consciousnesses hiding in the telephone network - following our casual made-up reference to "community robotics monitoring group" KEVIN WARWICK WATCH [NTK 2000-01-28] that we've actually had to invent it. Get in touch if you'd like to help with NTK's continuous assessment of just how close we are to Kevin's nightmare future coming true (like that nuclear "doomsday clock" in the Watchmen comics), or if you've got any good "ones to watch" suggestions (Dr Mark "internet addiction" Griffiths? Jon Katz? Edge Magazine?). Plus, if you try typing in other likely domains, you may find the secret "mirror" site, complete with embedded MIDI of the Terminator theme! http://www.kevinwarwick.org.uk/ - dah-dah-dah DAH DAH DAH! dah-dah-dah DAH DAH-DAH DAH! http://www.theregister.co.uk/000215-000012.html - and you thought the *lecturers* were bad! >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious ex-Borg "spokesman" Patrick Stewart launches Win2K... CAMILLA "flattened by tornadoes" claims Yahoo "RoyalWatch": http://www.ntk.net/2000/02/18/dohyahoo.jpg ... less "unique" than they planned: http://www.ntk.net/2000/02/18/dohsmile.gif ... maybe that name="generator" content="An unholy combination of BeyondPress, BBEdit, and QuicKeys" has something to do with http://www.independent.co.uk/news/Digital/Update/2000-02/bug140200.shtml crashing Netscape 4.7... *someone* update the wankometer: http://www.bootstrap.org/vision_mission.htm ... BBC gives everyone a pay rise: http://www.ntk.net/2000/02/18/dohbbc.gif ... TMS INTERACTIVE? Falco! ... ALIVE AND KICKING - in toxic agony: http://www.bbc.co.uk/kicking/magazine.shtml ... "Being Britain's leading technology magazine, T3 was on the ball from the off" claims current T3 MAGAZINE re MP3 - clearly unable to afford enough RAM to remember June 1998 when they dismissed the whole idea of MP3 walkmans as "prohibitively expensive" http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=archive98/now0626.txt&line=122#l ... AMAZON still touting that famed "10-year lead" in e-commerce: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000030013/ ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Well, you've missed "Whatever Happened to HAL?" (hint: he dies, though he's brought back to life in 2010: Odyssey 2, but then he dies again!), but the goddamn ICA keep wheeling out the old cyber chestnuts with tomorrow's DEMOCRACY.COM: NEW TECHNOLOGIES & THE CITIZEN, featuring the usual chumps you've never heard of and their unfeasibly long book titles, plus Techgnosis author and Wired writer Erik "The Viking" Davis and EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow (Grateful Dead lyricist? What, he did the words to a couple of their songs once?). If coolness exclusion prevents you from going within 100 metres of the Mall, there's always Hugo Sommer's LSE COMPUTER SECURITY COLLOQUIA, which continue at 5pm, Tue 2000-02-22 with good old Alistair Kelman discussing "Shadow Watching" which is something to do with personal data-mining, not Babylon 5. http://www.ica.org.uk/talk/98779/ - Will I dream? http://csrc.lse.ac.uk/Events/Colloquia.htm - Of course, *all* intelligent creatures dream... >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering The three phases of geek lust are thus: first, when you have to hand-hack everything yourself, and the world thinks your an obsessive goon (pre-1.0 Linux, in-car MP3 homebrews, the Apple I). Second, a decade later, when one of your fellow goons brings out a neater version, and the auslanders begin to concede your point (KDE, WinAmp, trainers). Third, about two months later, when the mundanes excitedly inform you of the "brand new thing" you would definitely like, if only you could spare an hour listening to them explain it badly (theories of "Grey" alien invasion, 3D avatar chatrooms). The X10 home automation craze has defiantly entered stage two with MISTERHOME, an integrated management system for Linux and those light-switches-with-a-serial-port that Steve Ciarcia went mad trying to popularise. Nothing that you haven't already imagined in your wet Asimov fantasies (semi-automated TV listing/ VCR programming, GPS tracking of your stolen car, Web-based administration and burglary invitations), but it's nice to see it all in one place. That place being your flat. http://misterhouse.net/ - don't mention to Philip Kerr. Or Kevin W. http://www.circuitcellar.com/ - Steve hasn't been able to escape "the cellar" for some years now >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista misunderstanding that "to clock chips, keep 'em cold" rule: http://www.nudeoc.cwc.net/ ... BARCODE BATTLER for the Net generation: http://www.retokyo.com/fiber/37/ ... TIM BL going understandably insane: http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI ... nice idea: can you spot the problem, BIND fans? http://www.i-DNS.net/download/db.cache ... WIRED imitates Onion http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,34387,00.html ... http://www.uq.net.au/~zzjbrain/SpecOS.html - could be the next HARRIXOS!... http://paradigmviolators.com + NICK ROSEN = http://us.imdb.com/Title?0098354 ... no help if you ask for a date: http://www.one2one.co.uk/one2one_january.asp?init=ask ELASTICA covering "Da Da Da"... not that they're *rockin'* bitter: http://www.buddyhead.com/other/hessian/love/page/ ... mp3.magazine.co.uk ... also applies to weekly newsletters: http://www.gamerspress.com/editorials/gamereviewer.htm ... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> some BBC scheduler clearly likes the idea of penis transplants, with the second showing of Hywel "Shelley" Bennett's PERCY (12.25am, Fri, BBC1) in just 15 months... ITV hits back with acclaimed sci-fi containment drama LIFEPOD (12midnight-ish, Sat, most ITV regions)... and presumably any future series of THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN (10pm, Fri, BBC2; repeated 9.30pm on Sun with "making of" docu) will abandon jokes altogether to concentrate on suburban gothic horror - but there's always the "revised repeats" of FOCUS NORTH (12.35am, Thu, C4)... no Buffy repeat but "It's Scary Out There" compensates with John Carpenter Cthulhu clunker IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (10.50pm, Sat, BBC2) and George Romero's shopping mall consumer satire DAWN OF THE DEAD (12.20am, Sat, BBC2)... new kids show HYPERLINKS (9.20am, Sun, BBC2) is bugger all to do with the net; another series of shouty runaround SUB ZERO (11am, Sun, BBC2) is bugger all to do with video games and/or an entertaining viewing experience... while Jude Law/ Sadie Frost ramraiding romp SHOPPING (10pm, Mon, C4) resembles a low-rent Michael Bay directing an episode of "The Bill" - but in a good way!... the docu-soap barrel bottom scrapes along with THE SECRET WORLD OF YEAR 3 (9.50pm, Tue, BBC2) featuring the everyday lives of a class of 7 year- olds... Sherilyn "Twin Peaks" Fenn pops out of the "Where are they now?" file for trashy MIB chiller THE SHADOW MEN (9pm, Wed, C5)... and C4 combines two ratings-winning formats - cock-up compilations and WW2 documentaries - into the undeniably appealing GREAT MILITARY BLUNDERS (8pm, Thu, C4)... FILM>> stand by for Moloko's remixes of "The Mikado" shooting into the top ten on the back of the hit soundtrack to Mike Leigh's touchingly overlong Gilbert O'Sullivan tribute TOPSY TURVY (MPAA: rated R for a scene of risque nudity), though, disappointingly for fans of Leigh's previous work, he hasn't set the story on a mock-working-class housing estate... Chris "Who?" O'Donnell has 24 hours to marry Renee "Jerry Maguire" Zellweger to inherit $10m in exactly-as-you'd-expect romantic fluff THE BACHELOR (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ : several references to male and female anatomy with clear intent; dialogue and imagery to further the general decay of inhibition and standards of acceptance; a lot of excessive breast and upper leg exposure that is not commonplace in the "real world" except in entertainment; though, oddly, no objection to the whole concept of marrying for cash)... and with the same Scottish girl in it and everything (no, not the one from Space Precinct) chirpy cancer last-wish frolic ONE MORE KISS (http://www.bbfc.co.uk : Passed '12' for one use of strong language) is basically "The Crow Road - The Movie" - and that's not meant as a recommendation... TOP BONER BONANZA - A COMPILATION OF (LARGELY) GENITALIA- RELATED RECENT ERRORS THAT EVEN PAUL BLEZ DIDN'T SPOT>> eagle- eyed LUCIE MELAHN was the *only* reader (not NTK's only female reader, we're sure) to query NTK 2000-02-04's description of Hepburn as "XY-rockers", adding "of course, you're aware that girl bands really have XX chromosomes". Er yeah, unless we were trying to imply that they're secretly men (we weren't)... "What on earth are those parentheses supposed to achieve?", inquired JOHN HARTNUP of NTK 2000-01-28's "(.*)sex(.*)" regexp, "The only purpose I could imagine would be if you wanted to extract what came before and after the sex (wine and a cigarette?)" "Actually I just stuck them in so because .*sex.* looked wrong," responds NTK's irredeemably laddish Essex correspondent, "and I got to do a breasts joke"... and don't write in that saying breasts aren't funny (nor, technically, genitals - we'll come to that), as proved by MARTIN BACON's correction of NTK 2000-01-28's Celebrity Nudity Database quote, "a huge aureole that seems to cover a third of her ample bosoms". "Aureoles," says Martin, "usually surround heads, at least in illuminated manuscripts and stained glass windows. Perhaps the author meant areola, the skin around the nipple. Or perhaps the film industry has different views on where holiness resides nowadays"... in less sexually-related corrigenda, Bob Crispen proposed "Let me be the 10,000th caller (and probably the first from Alabama) to point out that it's 'cui bono' not 'qui bono': 'to whom the good', not 'who is good'" [NTK 2000-02-11]... "AFAIK the Hebrew system *adds* the letters in a name to get a numeric value, so if w = 6, then www = 6 + 6 + 6 = 18... and anyone living at that time could work out it was Nero," confided IAN DOUGLAS [NTK 2000- 01-28], probably just to late to halt that "www = Satan" meme (eg see this week's Telegraph Connected)... and, sticking with archaic communications systems, "Little Computer People was also available for the ZX Spectrum, albeit '128K Only'," revealed ROD BEGBIE [NTK 2000-02-11], hoping for "a suitably disparaging remark about how trainspottery I am for pointing this out". Not here Rod, you must have us mistaken for a top PlayStation magazine!... ADRIAN MOULDER accused our last "dead tree" round-up [NTK 2000-01-28] of omitting "the new Esquire ads on the London Underground", where the word "not" in the slogan "THE MEN'S MAGAZINE YOU'RE NOT EMBARRASSED TO READ ON THE TUBE" is both in a different colour and "conveniently positioned for being obliterated by a swift magic marker or piece of gaffa tape", producing the catchier (and still more honest) "THE MEN'S MAGAZINE YOU'RE EMBARRASSED TO READ ON THE TUBE"... but, back with genitals: DYLAN TOMLINSON felt oddly compelled to send us http://www.ntk.net/2000/02/18/dohbike.gif for our "collection"... and finally, "Why do people think vaginal fisting is funny?" asked, er, ANON, in response to the swiftly-deleted Amazon bestseller craze [NTK 2000-02-11], "[the book] is terrific, if a touch introductory." (Send us *your* reviews for next week's hard lit round-up!) "Please use just my first name, not my company," added a followup mail five minutes later, "Anonymously is even better"... >> 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 "how can we fail, when we have the international banking conspiracy behind us?" http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000112801049925&pg=/et/00/2/17/ecrimo17.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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