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         "What Microsoft has done is as close to my mission statement
         as anything I've seen. They're making it as easy to buy
         music as it is to steal it."
                    http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-4684177.html
                                         - JAY SAMIT, VP at EMI Group
                         ...and as a record exec, of course I do both


                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                                   got you

         Despite support by such legal heavyweights as CAROL
         VORDERMAN and ZDNET NEWS, an amendment to permit entrapment
         of suspected online chat crims didn't pass muster in the
         Lords this Wednesday - possibly because it'd have breached
         Article 6 of that pesky EuroConventionoHumanoRightso. But
         who needs laws when the febrile Interweb permits all? To a
         paranoid eye, everything online was a trap this week. Take
         the boast by 192.com that they'd bought half of THE BIG
         BREACH's first printing, and were set on distributing it to
         their 650,000 users. Very laudable: except wasn't it 192.com
         who were this year's runner-up in the Big Brother Awards for
         "Most Invasive Company"? This honour was bestowed thanks to
         their habit of storing data on almost everyone in the
         country, and a curious phrase in their privacy policy that
         states "While i-CD Publishing is committed to your privacy,
         we cannot guarantee that your private communications and
         other personally identifiable information will never be
         disclosed in ways not described by this policy". And you
         know, we can't help feeling that composing a database of
         10,000 known "subversives" wouldn't be worth something to
         *someone* around here...
         http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/2001/4/ns-20571.html
              - Richard Whiteley, Gyles Brandreth have yet to comment
         http://www.192.com/beta/products.cfm?icdaction=details&item_id=19
                                 - they can't silence us all, can th-
         http://www.thebigbreach.com/
     - Mr Bond, I believe you have already met our little "guestbook"

         And even if MI6 aren't entrapping, those unsurprisingly
         competitive mites in the cut-throat world of comping (with
         which we are currently obsessed) are getting damn close with
         it. Hark to DOTCOMPER.CO.UK's bitchy attack this week on
         COMPINGQUEEN - both hawking commercial competition
         newsletters - in the uk.rec.competitions newsgroups. Dot
         accused Queen of stealing comps, and to prove it, secreted
         false "ringer" compos within their newsletter. Queen,
         naturally, went on to post the fake competitions as teasers
         for her 40UKP a year newsletter.Only slightly more
         puzzling than why such seasoned quiz buffs had spotted the
         fake ones ("Fair Play Cruises: First letters of answers
         spell JUDAS"), was why either company thought the
         uk.rec.competitions regulars would give a blank - given that
         so many comps were nicked from the froups. A few even
         referred to "the darker side of comping". Leaving both
         companies struggling to complete this common phrase or
         saying: Information seeks to be _____?
         http://www.deja.com/threadmsg_ct.xp?AN=721688271
                                          - last of the summer whines

         But there's one place we can start tackling all this
         criminality - with those pesky kids! Based on the
         rigorous screening process that is the National Cycling
         Proficiency Exam, left- leaning thinktank THE INSTITUTE FOR
         PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH have proposed a "surfing proficiency
         test", where kids would airily prove that they know how to
         avoid porn before being allowed to browse by themselves - a
         scheme currently backed by Internet Magazine and old-school
         Pipex dude Bill Thompson (perhaps under the impression that
         it will include a written exam on Apache configs and obscure
         RFCs). On behalf of smartarse-kids-who-know-more-than-their
         -teachers everywhere, NTK wholeheartedly supports this
         alternative-to-censorship initiative, and has several
         suggestions for the test already: Did you "look both ways"
         to make sure no adults were around before searching for "XXX
         passwords"? Or, more pertinently, do you know not to use the
         search term "amateur" (as in "dramatics" or "astronomy") on
         altavista.co.uk, as this automatically starts feeding you
         banner ads for sex sites?
         http://www.internet-magazine.com/news/view.asp?id=840
         - remember: if it asks "Are you over 18?", you just say "No"
         http://www.allatsea.demon.co.uk/cycling/
          - intensive 6-week course on carrying luggage, slowing down


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         "If I had a pound for everyone who vists this site - wait a
         minute, I do!" http://www.ntk.net/2001/02/02/handdoh.gif ...
         REDHAT getting hang of Apache: http://updates.redhat.com/ ...
         sure, the Beasties' SABOTAGE is exciting - but Hitchcockian?
         http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004CPN5/ ... rate
         our STATS: http://www.dooyoo.de/dooyoo.ukstat/Dec_2000.HTML
         ... when oh when will the public tire of INAPPROPRIATE BANNER
         ADS: http://www.ntk.net/2001/02/02/frankendoh.jpg ... feeding
         him KALAKUKKO? http://jobsearch.monster.co.uk/jobs/9412162.asp
         ... "love the GIANT PUBIC LICE, Peter - where'd you get them?"
     http://www.dome2000.co.uk/assetsale/zones.html ... news in PIKACHU:
     http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1145000/1145813.stm
         ... ENGLAND "too small for Salon to hold a meeting there",
         brags http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,41406-2,00.html
         - forgetting http://www.ntk.net/?back=archive99/now0108.txt ...
         radical new journalism forum http://www.spiked-online.com/
         "should work with Internet Explorer versions 5.0 and upwards"...


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

         FIRST TUESDAY LONDON, evidently still going strong, mailed its
         UK subscribers this week with an invitation to the "The Future
         of TV", followed by 60 lines of uuencoded text - their "most
         cryptic announcement to date", quipped one NTK reader. Those
         who did eventually decipher the message learned that the
         future of TV seems to be boring old broadband convergence
         (again), extensively discussed by the gang at a secret central
         London location on Tue 2001-02-06 (UKP10, you probably need to
         be "invited" or something, but somehow we doubt they'll be
         turning people away). Of course, that just happens to be the
         same night as the London leg of the ITC's 2001 FARADAY
         LECTURE, rumoured by boy-inventor (and Britain's best Yahoo
         Serious impersonator) Matt "Blackbelt" Jones to feature "Dr
         Johnny and his holographic TV" (6pm, Tue 2001-02-06, Wed 2001-
         02-07, Sadlers Wells, London). Not one to be left out, PROF
         KEVIN WARWICK continues his tireless efforts to warn of the
         imminent meccano apocalypse by asking "What is Intelligence?"
         at the Old Town Hall, Reading (Tue 2001-02-06, UKP5) - a
         series launched last week by PROFESSOR SUSAN GREENFIELD, who's
         made a bit of a habit out of encouraging people to listen to
         the master of cyborgs recently, almost as if some neurological
         implant was controlling... well, we've said enough.
         http://www.firsttuesday.com/EventDetail.asp?id=374
             - "David Docherty? I thought we'd booked David _Duchovny_!"
         http://www.faraday.org.uk/faraday/default.htm
     - Cardiff, Glasgow, Bristol, Jersey: everyone's talking about 3DTV
         http://www.rdg.ac.uk/ContEd/thl.htm
                   - see also Feb 20th's "The Future In Science Fiction"
         http://www.c-realevents.demon.co.uk/
             - pedal-powered convention for the hardcore steampunk fans


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         Continuing our theme of stuff-I-bet-you'll-say-you-could
         do-with-a-Perl-two-liner-but-must-continue-to-amaze-Windows
         -users is the unnecessarily good EGENIE, a dialog box that
         pipes messages through to Genie's free Web->SMS gateway,
         without that finickety Web bit. Credit to Richard Lawrence for
         actually writing the thing, with the sort of attention to
         detail that means that, yes, you can use your Outlook
         Contacts with it, and yes, you can multiple-mail and break
         up messages automatically. Extra points for Richard's
         combative approach mailing list accusations that this is
         "ideal for spamming SMS" by elegant defences that begin
         "Actually, I am that 'smartarse'".
         http://egenie.wibble.org.uk
                                                - smartarses, we like

         And just in time for LinuxWorld: Veghead's fine, fine, fine
         kernel-embedded middle-management emulator for Linux 2.4.
         11KB of totally unnecessary, dangerously insecure and poorly
         justified code which simply demands to be run in
         kernelspace. Comments to /dev/bollocks at:
         http://www.squirrel.co.uk/veghead/software/bollocks/
                                     - transform impactful bandwidth!


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                                 haross lycos

         whois aoltimewarneryahoo.com ... FRESHMEAT in a Nutshell:
         http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/01/31/2352210&cid=39
         ... http://www.consultants-conference.de/media/kpmgsong.mp3 vs
         http://www.phrenetic.org/mp3/kpmg_jungle.mp3 ... life imitates
         HAIKU ERROR meme: http://zpin.com/viao.jpg ... put the bat DOWN:
       http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1104979102
         ... apparently, they can get you for "impersonating a police
         officer": http://www.ukcop.net/ ... the "c" stands for
         "COFFEE", of course: http://c-cup.com/linux/ ... I feel so
         DIRTY: http://www.planet.com/dirtweb/search/dirtsrc3.html ...
         solution to global warming riots is better AIR CONDITIONING:
         http://news.excite.com/news/r/010129/17/health-warming ... ICQ
         51083014 ... NOKIA racing... evangelists imitate SIMPSONS:
         http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2001/002/1.28.html ...
         "hang on - these files are encrypted, it could take a few
         minutes": http://www.barrykirkey.com/i.audio.htm ...
         license to be cypherpunk http://www.cypherspace.org/CPL/...


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                 get out less

         TV>> humourless diarist Adrian Mole goes through his second
         regeneration in THE CAPPUCCINO YEARS (9.30pm, Fri, BBC1) -
         hopefully C4 will compete with a follow-up series, set 18
         years later, of "Teenage Health Freak"... Tom Cruise and the
         Blade Runner unicorn frolic through Ridley Scott's extended
         Timotei ad LEGEND (7.40pm, Sat, BBC1)... and it appears to be
         "Sex Week" on Channel4 - for a change - kicking off with SEX:
         THE ANNABEL CHONG STORY (11.10pm, Sat, C4) - as we pointed out
         in NTK 2000-04-21, 251 guys no longer constitute "The World's
         Biggest Gang Bang" - then continuing with KAMA SUTRA: A TALE
         OF LOVE (10pm, Sun, C4), WHEN HARRY MET SALLY (10pm, Mon, C4),
         BETTER SEX (10pm, Tue, C4), PRIVATE PARTS: THE CLITORIS
         UNCOVERED (11.05pm, Tue, C4), gender-reassignment gameshow BOY
         MEETS GIRL (9pm, Tue, C4), cross-dressing French film MA VIE
         EN ROSE (12.05am, Tue, C4), POSITION IMPOSSIBLE (9pm, Wed, C4)
         and a double SEX IN THE CITY (10pm, Wed, C4) - all rounded off
         with the powerfully erotic, probing, questing presence of THE
         MARK THOMAS PRODUCT (11.20pm, Wed, C4)... the best C5 can come
         up with is "Murder Week", featuring Renee Zellweger polygraph
         psycho-thriller LIAR (9pm, Sun, C5) - written and directed by
         the "Good Vs Evil" Pate Brothers, mafia yawn GOODFELLAS (10pm,
         Mon, C5), plus Rutger Hauer regular THE HITCHER (9pm, Thu,
         C5)... after extensively indulging the "Lost Civilisations"
         theorising of Graham Hancock, C4 seem to be being a bit more
         skeptical about the "Was God An Astronaut?" claims of THE REAL
         ERICH VON DANIKEN (9pm, Mon, C4)... a creeping bioengineered
         menace threatens to wipe out all life on earth, but that's
         enough about the "Killer Algae" HORIZON (9pm, Thu, BBC2), BBC1
         are also showing the glacially dull STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT
         (8.05pm, Thu)... and, for all the other column inches it's
         generated, no-one has yet commented on the game-theoretic
         implications of "your partner has to watch the video if you
         do" in the hypnotically compelling TEMPTATION ISLAND (10pm,
         Thu; 10.30pm, Sun, Sky1)...

         FILM>> WHAT WOMEN WANT is, presumably, to see Helen Hunt
         struggling with an recalcitrant partner - Tom Hanks, Kevin
         Spacey or, this week, Mel Gibson - in a new movie every week
         (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/whatwomenwant.htm : many
         instances of child arrogance and hatefulness; suicide talk;
         man wearing towel only; portrayal of sexual sanity, but only
         after sexual irresponsibility; full male nudity - with no
         genitals) - though we still prefer Teletext's more literal
         interpretation: http://www.ntk.net/doh/990827mars.gif ... John
         Malkovich casts a real vampire as "Nosferatu" in Scream-vs-Ed
         Wood magic-of-moviemaking goatee-stroker SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE
        (http://www.screenit.com/movies/2000/shadow_of_the_vampire.html :
         We see [Catherine "Braveheart" McCormack]'s bare breasts as
         she rolls around on a bed with her robe open, apparently high
         from something she's taken) - though surely most movie cameras
         contain mirrors, and vampires "cast no shadow" anyway?... the
         aptly-named Michael Winterbottom answers the largely unasked
         question "What would 'Vertical Limit' be like if it was remade
         as a period drama and written by Thomas Hardy?" in THE CLAIM
         (imdb: Sarah "Go" Polley, Wes "American Beauty" Bentley, Milla
         "The Fifth Element" Jovovich - together at last!)... still,
         there's always advance previews of retro-rocker ALMOST FAMOUS
         (http://www.theonion.com/onion3703/celebrity_couples.html :
         "Actress Kate Hawn is now married to a long-haired rock
         musician from The Black Crows. I guess she wasn't really
         acting when she portrayed a slavering groupie to a rock band
         of questionable talent")...

         FEEBDACK>> it took just one week for reader DAVE DEANS to
         wilfully misunderstood our appeal for new PCs for Schnews: "If
         you say Schnews are out of action for a short while..." - then
         he handily recommends http://uk.indymedia.org instead... an
         (ex?)employee of H2G2 described the Industry Standard's upbeat
     http://europe.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,14111,00.html
         as "the kind of stuff we were peddling 3 months ago". Hang on:
     http://europe.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,12651,00.html
         - it's also the stuff _they_ were peddling 3 months ago... and
         ADRIAN MOULDER accused us of giving an atypically "easy ride"
         to rubberburner-alike http://www.stimulus.com/members/msl/ ,
         largely by neglecting to highlight his "oral sex poetry",
         enjoyable by clicking on "Like A Rose" and "Greatest Meal" at
         http://www.stimulus.com/members/msl/poems/angel/ssub/ ...
         continuing the vaguely genital-related theme, the proprietor
         of a well-known industry quotes site followed up NTK 2001-01-
         19's "Linuxcare will go down for stock" gag by observing
         "Perhaps you (and the original author ) weren't aware of this
         tidbit? http://www.upside.com/Chris_Nolan/39ee17e60.html "...
         ANGUS KENNEDY, clearly with plenty of time on his hands after
         the apparent demise of "his" MEN'S QUEST magazine [NTK 2000-
         05-12], has continued to amuse himself with the Kabalarian
         name analyser - http://www.kabalarians.com/male/penis.htm -
         from NTK 2000-08-18... and finally, KATY LINFIELD wrote in a
         few weeks ago to inquire: "Why do you always degrade your
         TV/movie reviews with puerile references to whatever glimpses
         of female nudity may be seen?", citing "We see [Tea Leoni's]
         mostly obscured body through the smoked shower glass door"
         from NTK 2000-12-22, among other examples. Our rapid response
         team attempted to rectify this imbalance by packing subsequent
         issues with references to male nudity - "a few times [Tom
         Hanks'] buttock was exposed" [2001-01-12], "Geoffrey Rush
         shows us his butt for an extended amount of time" [2001-01-19]
         - only to be then accused, by ROS TAYLOR, of having become a
         "[more] homoerotic slashdot" (if such a thing is possible).
         Both were reassured by our excuse that the quotes are aimed to
         contrast the oddly similar reviewing styles of "Concerned
         Parents" websites, like http://www.screenit.com and
         http://www.capalert.com , with the rather more secularly
         motivated Celebrity Nudity Database http://www.cndb.com - and
         to highlight the potential for possible abuse: nudity-hungry
         teens surfing the (often more comprehensive) god-sites for
         "recommendations", or more liberal parents judging suitability
         from listings in the CNDB - who, for instance, did attempt to
         contextualise Requiem For A Dream's sighting of "Jennifer
         Connelly's bush" [NTK 2001-01-19]... nonetheless, the debate
         remains open, so do let us know if you want to see more of
         "Tom Hanks' buttock" and its ilk. Please note that this does
         not mean we want you to send us your own nudity-sightings,
         especially the guy who mailed in a detailed account of the
         "several full frontals", "fine young jutting breasts", and
         "long hair falling across groin" he'd managed to freeze-frame
         on his DVD of Disney's "The Little Mermaid"...


                               >> 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
                            "hey, we have go.gif!"
                  http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=717084967

                                 NEED TO KNOW
            THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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