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           "Like many things in life, you can do exactly what
           you were going to do in the first place and change
           the names."
                                                         - STEVE JOBS
    http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/top/docs/apple051600.htm
            ...or have them sacked and erased from the record, anyway


                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                               hitting the boos

         If you gaze for long into the abyss, right, then doesn't the
         abyss gaze also into you, yeah? So spake the critics of the
         ORBS spam database, who have often suggested that the ORBS's
         vigilante techniques for tracking down open mail relays (by
         scanning the smtp ports of remote machines, and putting them
         on a public blacklist - not only if they do relay, but also
         if they refuse to be scanned) is as bad an abuse of Net
         trust as the spammers themselves. That's certainly what the
         above.net sysadmins felt when they decided to block access
         to ORBS to and from their network following a rude probing.
         But now it looks like AboveNet have become more than a
         little thuggish themselves. In the last few weeks, above.net
         have been externally advertising their own unique route to
         the ORBS machines: a route that leads straight into a black
         hole. That means that not only can above.net customers not
         see the New Zealand site, but anyone who transits with
         above.net also loses access. Which, by a quirk of LINX's
         peering arrangements, includes all of JANET. No, JANET's not
         happy: and there's even been mutterings of a threatened suit
         against above.net for computer abuse. Maybe the first person
         to complain to would be Paul Vixie, Senior VP at AboveNet's
         parent company, Metromedia. He should be sympathetic: after
         all, in his copious spare time he runs the other spam
         blackholing service, RBL: maybe he should look into this
         abyss, too.
         http://www.deja.com/threadmsg_ct.xp?AN=623215811&fmt=text
         - more irony: the Vienna Internet Exchange (VIX) affected too
         http://www.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/CWFlash/000427D962
                                                   - "unique methods"
         
         Thanks to everyone who didn't e-mail us over the last year
         to falco BOO.COM. Everyone else: no shit, Sherlocks. And we
         know that we should be revelling in those rumours of
         corporate excess, the Flash-driven horrors spooned out of
         Organic's arse into gaping mouths of usability experts the
         globe over, the vision of Miss Boo being dragged in
         chains through the streets of London. But sod it, kids:
         there but for the grace of God go all of us in six months.  And
         maybe it's time you looked your boardroom pals that talk so
         confidently of their plans at your startup, and wonder
         whether they'd take as much care of you when the whole
         thing takes off like a concrete rowing-boat. As it will.  Oh
         yes. For the bell, it tolls for boo. I mean you.
         http://www.wehaveinformation.com/
                    - ahh. you weren't expecting that were you? ahhh.
         http://www.ntk.net/2000/05/19/caboom.gif
                                                         - others tho 
         http://www.waz.easynet.co.uk/boo/
                                                         - are not so 
         http://apache.mirror.boo.com/
                                                          - charitable

         Our exciting dollar dollar dollar loyalty scheme (which
         involved dumb introductory offers and simple odds at William
         Hill's site) seems to be paying off. Listen to these
         unsolicited testimonials: "Cheers! I'm 91UKP up" - James
         Answer (his satisfying real name); "Ker-ching! 22.50UKP
         better off! Nice one" - "supernoodle" (probably not his).
         Writes James Kew: "Similar but more generous offer at
         www.victorchandler.com: 25UKP of your own money, free 40UKP
         bet. Same tactics: 25UKP on the outsider, 40UKP on the
         favourite". And Tim Aidley does your work for you when he
         reports "William Hill has different cashback values for
         different currencies - some worth more than the 50UKP you
         get with sterling. With the help of Yahoo's currency
         convertot, I worked out that you get a maximum cashback with
         150 canadian dollars - about 67UKP. Increase your winnings
         by 34%". Nice!
         http://www.willhill.com/
                             - hurry, while meme is still propagating
         http://www.victorchandler.com/
                                              - no purchase necessary


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         all of www.nine.com's lives gone ... POSTSCRIPT suicide note
         posted to alt.gothic, comp.fonts ... "is it because I is
         black?" http://www.ntk.net/2000/05/19/dohrapist.jpg ... AV's
         ultra-thin raging.com "does not support text only browsers"
         ... GUARDIAN (2000-05-15, p5) recommends leaving a list of
         computer passwords on a Post-It for your temp ... BT not too
         happy about http://www.dna.uklinux.net/bti/letter/ ... *bad*
         website: http://www.ntk.net/2000/05/19/dohinetworld.jpg ...
         and when oh when will the public tire of - oh, go on then:
         http://www.nerdsrus.com/billboard/ ... Boss! It is working!:
         http://www.cisco.com/test/mike-april24.html ... more stoic
         professionalism at: http://www.pricejam.co.uk/java/java.html ...
         lame Brit comedy site http://www.smeg.co.uk/news5.htm imitates 
         ONION: http://www.theonion.com/onion3604/sucking_my_cock.html ...
         http://search.bbc.co.uk/search/search.shtml?DB=all&P=jill+dando
         looks a bit suspicious ... "Attractive IRC-using
         Quake-playing girl almost completely artificial":
         http://www.planetquake.com/frags/vore/Kcd1.gif
         vs http://www.playboy.com/digital/feature/steviecase/ ...


                               >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                         goto's considered non-harmful

         OK, so Oxford University won't let you hyperlink to DeCSS
         (full story at http://cryptome.org/ox-chill.htm ), but they're
         happy to welcome the (potential) harbinger of humanity's
         future extermination, KEVIN "THE CYBERNATOR" WARWICK, who 
         continues touring his "Will it be Super Intelligent Machines
         or Cyborgs?" show around potential hotbeds of mechanoid  
         uprising. "This time, OU AI society have been subverted,"
         writes OPERATIVE TOM (5.30pm, Mon 2000-05-22), "This may be my
         last transmission as an organic life-form."
         http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~aisoc/warwick.html   
         - yeah, KevinWarwickWatch needs updating, but whenever we try
                       and automate it, things go mysteriously wrong...
         http://www.undercurrents.org/piratetv.htm
                      - for those that survive: a resistance movement


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         They're going to get you eventually, UNIX boy. You keep
         teasing the NT weenies long enough about these ILOVEYOU
         viruses, and they're going to brew up some mother of a MUA
         buffer overflow, and then who you gonna blame? Certainly not
         ANONY MAIL, Bjarni R. Einarsson's script to filter out any
         dangerous looking HTML or MIME attachments received by your
         machine. Okay, so it's in Perl, making it unsuitable for
         heavy mail flow. But that does mean that you can stick in
         your own quick fixes for any novel weirdnesses, and tweak it
         to fit your own paranoia. And thanks to its own one-pass
         MIME parser, it's not too heavy on the cycles. Unlike
         STRIPMIME, which is a slow, resource heavy monster for
         people who want any attachments automatically stripped and
         saved before their email gets to the mailbox. Great for
         anyone wishing a slim text only mbox to archive, hates
         having their POP or IMAP session sabotaged by huge
         attachments, and likes code hacked up in a hurry last week
         by bored newsletter writers after a string of monster DOH
         images. Please improve on it, and send your sarky coding
         critiques to the usual address. And remember: always
         try beta mail tools out on somebody else's account first.
         http://mailtools.anomy.net/
                                  - probably best used in conjunction
         http://www.ntk.net/2000/05/19/stripmime.txt
                            - not that i've tested that (or anything)


                                >> MEMEPOOL << 
                              hasta la altavista

         strong contender for Worst Web Site of the Millennium award:
         http://www.bridges2000.com ... WINE v1.0? ... voice-
         activated STAR TREK Game: conSPIRacy.. to.. make..
         everyone.. talk.. like.. Kirk ... if ILOVEYOU's spyder had
         not hate go school: http://lcamtuf.na.export.pl/worm.txt ...
         saveiridium.com needs website, 10 million dollars ... so
         it's a pun- shoot us: http://us.imdb.com/Business?0131658
         meanwhile, back in the Gernsback continuum:
         http://pluto.njcc.com/~paulsam/moonship/Welcome.html ...
         usual suspects rise to the MP3 Rebellion:
         http://www.theonion.com/onion3618/kid_rock_starves.html vs
         http://www.brunching.com/features/feature-metallicaletter.html
         ... launching our new unsubscription drive:
         http://www.freakfarm.com/retardedadvice.htm ...  "It looks
         like you're trying to 0wn this box. Would you like help?" -
         http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2570727,00.html ... 
         http://www.conservativecafe.com/ vs http://lordco.virtualave.net/


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                     the less rude http://www.tvgohome.com/

         TV>> Steven "Cop Show" Bochco's franchise runs out of towns in 
         the debut double-bill of a more lighthearted version of NYPD 
         Blue, BROOKLYN SOUTH (12.05am, Fri, BBC2) - though wait till 
         you see Tom "Homicide: Life On The Street" Fontana's new "The 
         Beat"... in accordance with prophecy, series 1 of BLAKE'S 
         SEVEN (12.20pm, Sat, BBC1) trails off with the retrieval of 
         camp perspex supercomputer Orac... plus a chance to catch Wes 
         "Rushmore" Anderson's typically quirky first feature BOTTLE 
         ROCKET (2.35am, Sat, C4)... some sort of weird mid-range 
         Jackie Chan season skips from pseudo-Indiana Jones OPERATION 
         CONDOR: THE ARMOUR OF GOD II (1am, Sat, BBC2) to RUMBLE IN THE 
         BRONX (9.55pm, Sun, BBC2)... that "dislike of the unfamiliar" 
         riff is taken perhaps too far in two profiles of autistic kids 
         on consecutive days - TITO'S STORY (10.20pm, Sun, BBC1) plus 
         TRUE STORIES: RAISING ALEXANDER (9pm, Mon, C4)... and, in the 
         two years since it was last shown, we've devised the following 
         "just for fun" audio contest to accompany old-fashioned Emilio 
         Estevez/ Rene Russo/ Anthony Hopkins/ Mick Jagger sci-fi 
         FREEJACK (11.35pm, Mon, BBC1) - sample all the lines about 
         evil arch-villain "McCandless", then mix them in with the 
         loops from http://www.wakeywakey.com/wakey/loops.htm (c'mon 
         Pemberton, it could be just the thing to bring you guys back 
         together)... slightly edgy stalker-comedy ADDICTED TO LOVE 
         (9pm, Mon, C5) is, indeed, loosely based around the Robert 
         Palmer song of the same name (though not, disappointingly, the 
         video)... reader Nick Drage leapt to the defence of Michael 
         Moore's THE AWFUL TRUTH (11.35pm, Tue, C4), proclaiming it 
         "more acidic" and "100% stand up free"... MISSILEERS (9.30pm, 
         Thu, BBC2) looks at the real-life ICBM silo crews like at the 
         start of WarGames... and hopefully opening the floodgates for 
         a host of new shows like "Academic Conferences Uncovered" and 
         "World's Most Rigorous Theoreticians" comes promisingly titled 
         DIY castaway lash-up ROUGH SCIENCE (7.30pm, Fri, BBC2)... 
         
         FILM>> members of the "Dawson's Creek" cast come up against 
         their most terrifying adversary yet - Death itself (and in the 
         form of minor household accidents!), in ex-X-Files staffers' 
         engagingly daft teen checklist-killer FINAL DESTINATION 
         (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ : unnecessary roughness 
         by a lawman; reckless driving and endangerment, including as 
         justification for nihilistic beliefs; loss of wholesome 
         submission of youth to fair and to righteous authority; there 
         sure seems to be a lot of teenagers dying in movies nowadays) 
         - though, by the end, you (and the film-makers) risk major 
         twist-fatigue... basically the same plot, but aimed at the 
         arthouse end of the market, graces Kirsten Dunst's Air-scored 
         dark comedy THE VIRGIN SUICIDES (http://www.bbfc.co.uk : 
         passed '15' for suicide theme and some moments of horror)... 
         though neither as suicide-inducing as death-free teen romance 
         DOWN TO YOU (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ : piercing of 
         male nipples; self touching while dancing; a wreck after drunk 
         driving was funny; an obviously nude late teen boy-girl pair 
         snuggling in bed together are engaged in an activity not 
         appropriate outside a real monogamous heterosexual marriage) - 
         with marketing largely targetted at fans of Freddie Prinze 
         Jr's previous "She's All That", ignoring his excellent work in 
         the straight-to-video movie version of "Wing Commander"... 
         otherwise it's Matthew "Friends" Perry and Bruce "Vest" Willis 
         - together at last! - in execrable assassination comedy THE 
         WHOLE NINE YARDS (imdb: canada / nude-with-a-gun / nudity / 
         mafia / montreal / niagra-falls / police / suburbia / adultery 
         / vomit / dentist / hitman / funny-accent)... or Brit-made 
         suburban dope-com SAVING GRACE (http://www.bbfc.co.uk : passed 
         '15' for drug use and strong language) which, despite an 
         interesting cast - Ken Campbell, Bill Bailey, Tcheky "Wing 
         Commander" Karyo - looks a little bit "Lottery-funded", if you 
         know what we mean... 


                               >> 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 
              "Valkommen till Umea naturvetar- och teknologkar!"
                            http://www.ntk.umu.se/


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