Need To Know 2001-10-26

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"A new kind of tennis has been served online. Called Photoshop tennis the players are graphic designers, the balls are images, and the racquets are stored in your computer..." http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1613000/1613145.stm ...and your BBC sports-tech correspondent remains: ALAN PARTRIDGE. Ah-haaaa! >> HARD NEWS << forgotten untruths There we were, thinking we'd *really* scared Demetron, makers of the Sunday Times' WORDMAKER kid-surveillance program. Last week's damning criticisms of their product, as you'll recall, were: it broke child market research guidelines; violated what creditcard/password security your home PC ever had by storing plaintext versions of everything you type *including its own master password*; and it offered the less salubrious Times reader the chance for even creepier activities than silently monitoring their kids. Like monitoring other people (or we can rabble-rouse too: other people's *kids*) at cybercafes. But then we spotted Demetron's mass spamming of members of rec.arts.competitions back in June. Damn. Looks like they just don't care about marketing guidelines (where'd they get this mailing list from again?), security (the spam purports to be a "accidental" leak of their new product, with password), or having WordWatcher retooled for other uses. Or is it just us who thinks that last sentence, "You-know-who was on the net till 2:00 this morning, wonder what he'll say when he finds out I know his every move?!?" surely ought to set a few data-protection alarm bells ringing? http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3b2623e8.850174%40news.freeserve.co.uk - "exclusive deal with the Mirror" http://www.wordwatcher.com/internetcafesmain.htm - they know about cybercafes too. And they want your *product keys*? "3 of them use illegal software. 1 of them is a hacker. 1 of them spends 2 hours a day playing online games," says the new poster ad on the London Underground for NetIntelligence from IOMART. And what's more: "2 of them download and distribute 'Dubious Material'" - while, in a cubicle just across the way, "1 of them is sending confidential info to a competitor". Now, assuming there's no duplication here (our money would be on that guy who's "a hacker"), that comes to a grand total of 8 - and there's only 10 people in the picture. No wonder it takes so long to get any work done round here. Iomart of course hit the headlines a couple of weeks ago with their unsubstantiated claims of "Arabic text and dates" steganographically concealed in image files [NTK 2001-10-12] - intelligence partially obtained by employing former hackers to download "dubious material". Perhaps their time might have been better spent securing the http://webmail.thinkmail.com/ interface to the email address "sales@iomart.com" - which, for at least the last two weeks, has had a slightly too literal interpretation of the phrase "Enter 'password'". http://www.ntk.net/2001/10/26/iomart.jpg - "I took them away from all that. And now, they work for me." http://www.iomart.com/ - "Secure Internet. Secure Email. Secure Desktop." http://www.ntk.net/2001/10/26/dohio.gif - probably not their official contact address. But still... For those who asked if we will still criticise THE REGISTER now they're reselling our T-shirts: please, you misremember. NTK is not at war with The Register. NTK has never been at war with The Register. The Register is a fine, notoriously reliable periodical. We'd *never* consider running a mocking piece on, say, Kieran McCarthy, who this week spent 380 words out of a 660 word Register story recounting in detail the plot of Snow White. Instead we have always been at war with Mike Magee's THE INQUIRER - a website that's exactly like The Register, except with more CPU articles, and an almost unique tendency to feel we're insufficiently biased against The Register. Not that that this war is easy. Take when someone mails to say check out tech journalist Andrew Thomas on Mastermind soon, answering questions on the History of Computing; given how much he hates Unix, they ask, how is he going to deal with anything before 1975? Claim Bill Gates invented it just after he came up with the time machine? Now, do we ditch a piece like that because Thomas used to hate Unix at The Register, or run it in all caps because he now works at The Inquirer? Or do we try to care just a *little* bit less? http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/22472.html - the kind of context you just don't get from silicon.com http://www.delphi.com/theinquirer/messages?msg=796.1 - Clive Anderson hosting new series on Discovery Channel http://www.theinquirer.net/21100103.htm - funnily enough, Magee's still a major Register shareholder, and no-one accuses *him* of favouritism >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious future sounds of London - review of next Monday's ELBOW gig: http://www.dotmusic.com/live/Review/October2001/live22535.asp ... XP lets you "delete data from [your] hard drive", reveals: http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech/10/25/xp.london.launch/ ... refreshing MS honesty: http://www.ntk.net/2001/10/26/dohxp.gif ... BBC Literal Illustrations Dept really getting stuck in: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1619000/1619802.stm ... 30% - approx 2/7 - of cars stolen on Fri and Sat, say FBI: http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/1022NEWS-CRIME-FBI-DC.html ... "knowledge of Linus" required - in the Biblical sense?: http://www.it.jobserve.com/jobserve/JobDetail.asp?jobid=15015595 ... Interactive BAFTAs go to "Walking With Beasts" TV show (not shown yet), Black And White, Max Payne, Gran Turismo 3 and, for the fourth year running, BBC News Online... maximum Widdecombe! http://www.headbalancer.com/?gallery=1&galleryID=main ... liked "America: A Tribute to Heroes"? Then you may also enjoy "Taken for a Ride (1996)" and "Intimate Portrait: Margot Kidder (1999)": http://us.imdb.com/Recommendations?0296503 ... "Vote for the fat bloke" mail urges gullible to "sabotage" ITV POP IDOL show - by ringing their premium rate phone line... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful "And the moon shall turn the colour of blood" would surely be a more exciting byline for that Missouri-based writer's now widely-discredited plans to get everyone to "paint the moon" with hand-held laser pointers at various times this weekend (from 8pm local UK time, Sat 2001-10-27). Objections include the divergence of the beams, diffraction caused by the Earth's atmosphere, and the fact that the moon isn't a shiny flat mirror hanging there in space but an imperfectly reflecting sphere which is incredibly bright already due to ambient sunlight. Nonetheless, the guy behind the idea is unrepentant, maintaining that "we need to have dreams that are bigger than ourselves" - and maybe he has a point. In these troubled times, perhaps we all need reminding that when we all work together and really put our minds to something, we still can't achieve the impossible. http://www.paintthemoon.org/wont.html - ye cannae change the laws of physics http://www.nanowrimo.com/ - speaking of impossible dreams: Nov is National Novel Writing Month >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering Italian hacktivist jaromil, worshipful creator of hasciicam, has sidled into the higher-res vidcap universe with FREEJ, a newish GPL'd video effects utility that lets you layer endless video filters over your footage of Genoa police atrocities. You'll need the SDL library, video4linux (with a suitable video source), and - hooray! - the nasm 80x86 assembler to get it working. While already a charming mix of live video capture and oldsk00l demoscene FX, the program's currently a bit short on FX plugins. It does feature a great implementation of the "spinning grid of multiple screens" rotoscope effect (as seen on '80s Top of The Pops and '90s Amigas), though, and some de rigeur colourcycling. You should be able to port the excellent EffectTV collection (hint hint). Or just use it to ponce around in front of a videowall in your giant ant costume, you arty fop. http://lab.dyne.org/ - hello PAL! http://effectv.sourceforge.net/ - hello NTSC-JP! http://linart.net/info/guide/ - death to manifestos! viva HOW-TOs! >> MEMEPOOL << that warm bit under the http://www.gagpipe.com/ Windows XP crasher in 5 lines of C++: can *you* do better? http://tane.cream.org/files/crashxp.cpp ... what Finnish bears do in woods: http://members.surfeu.fi/kklaine/primebear.html ... anthrax threats in the post? hey, things could be worse: http://www.record-eagle.com/2001/oct/19postal.htm ... or one of those times when life imitates this week's Nathan Barley: http://www.boston.com/news/daily/23/102301_tennis.htm ... at last, a (Flash) flight-sim that doesn't need a 300-page manual: http://www2.tell-tale.co.uk/telltale/flightsim.htm ... "Edelweiss, Edelweiss - my mind is going. I can feel it": http://www.computing.dundee.ac.uk/staff/irmurray/dectalkf.asp ... TVGH back just in time: http://www.wimn.net/sg/my.shtml ... and still topping patriotic pull-down menus everywhere: http://www.flagline.com/countries.html ... smaller audience than *Newton* users? http://download.planetnewton.com/downindex.asp ... new thrill! it's "Separated at Birth", online. This week: Paul Lassiter, the unloved stumbling buffoon from "Spin City": http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/3783/images/paul1-2.jpg vs Gordon Brown, unloved stumbling buffoon from Spin Parliament: http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1570000/images/_1573323_pointing300.jpg >> GEEK MEDIA << the mildly punctual http://www.tvgohome.com/ TV>> as happened a few weeks ago with "The Usual Suspects", I LOVE 1998 (9pm, Sat, BBC2) provides a free trailer for C4's showing of shamless Brit gangster nonsense LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS (10pm, Sun, C4)... the obligatory Parker Posey pops up in semi-competent domestic-dispute indie comedy THE DAYTRIPPERS (10pm, Sat, BBC2)... yet film of the week - if not the last decade - remains self-referential Schwarzenegger shoot-em-up THE LAST ACTION HERO (10.05pm, Sat, ITV)... Suzy "The Usual Suspects" Amis reappears in "gratutiously sexual" lame RoboCop rip-off DEAD BY MIDNIGHT (10.55pm, Sun, BBC1)... otherwise every night is Anthrax night with a BIOTERROR Equinox special (8pm, Sun, C4)... PANORAMA examining "Bin Laden's Biological Threat" (10.15pm, Sun, BBC1)... the preposterous idea that the military-industrial-entertainment complex might "create" wars to further their own ends, in Bond bullshit TOMORROW NEVER DIES (8.30pm, Mon, ITV1)... and, on a lighter note, scientists attempting "to locate Creation within the human genome" in URBAN GOTHIC (11pm, Mon, C5)... speaking of which, someone at the Radio Times still thinks that the Thylacine (or "Tasmanian tiger"), featured in EXTINCT (10pm, Tue, C4), had "the head of a wolf and a rear end similar to a kangaroo" [NTK 1998-03-13]... Frank Black jams with "Kiss" in the Halloween comedy special of MILLENNIUM (9pm, Tue, Sci- Fi)... C5's commitment to ground-breaking independent world cinema continues with LETHAL WEAPON 4 (9pm, Tue, C5)... Wayne "Newman" Knight's signature scene in BASIC INSTINCT (10.15pm, Wed, C5)... and UNIVERSAL SOLIDER 2: BROTHERS IN ARMS (9.20pm, Thu, C5) - not, it appears, based on the Dire Straits song of the same name... disappointingly, cutting ATTACHMENTS (10pm, Thu, BBC2) down to 30 minute episodes has only made them duller: http://www.everyonehatesattachments.com/ ... and we never really "got" THE SOPRANOS (10.35pm, Thu, C4), though this season 3 opener does feature an amusing medley between "Every Breath You Take" by The Police, and "Peter Gunn (Theme from Spy Hunter)"... FILM>> sorry - words can't express our outrage over last week's covered-up low-key release for Tom Green's rawly personal transgressive masterpiece FREDDY GOT FINGERED (http://www.screenit.com/movies/2001/freddy_got_fingered.html : we see a bloody wound with part of the bone sticking out and then see Gord [Green] licking that wound and bone with his tongue; Gord tells his mother that if he were her, he'd go out and have sex with strange men, basketball players etc; Gord suddenly grabs a huge sausage and holds it to his crotch like a large, erect penis, and then goes down the assembly line where he works in that pose, saying that he's a "sexy boy")... Reese "Election" Witherspoon, Selma "Cruel Intentions" Blair, Ali "Varsity Blues" Larter and a near-unrecognisable cameo from Linda "Freaks and Geeks" Cardellini transplant "Clueless" into reverse-nerd-makeover courtroom "comedy" LEGALLY BLONDE (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/legallyblonde.htm : much talk of sexual body fluids; suggestive eye movements; girls in skimpy underwear; calling The Cosmopolitan magazine "Your Bible")... or, for all you arthouse fans, the Coen brothers are back with another interminable period pastiche THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE (imdb: neo-noir)... oddly, there's only 3 songs in subtitled Bollywood epic ASOKA (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : rated 12 for "some moderate violence and horror")... and, rounding off this week's trio of directors who'll never be picked to helm a Bond film, Jan Svankmajer brings a tree stump to life in part-animated Czech-version-of-"AI" LITTLE OTIK (imdb: black-comedy / surreal)... RED BOOK AUDIO: SONGS ON TV ADS THAT SOUND LIKE POP SONGS THAT SOUND LIKE RETRO VIDEOGAMES - AND THE VIEWERS THAT LOVE THEM>> after last month's allegations that Vodafone hadn't realised the DANDY WARHOLS' "Bohemian Like You" is supposed to be sarcastic, TIM BANNISTER similarly highlighted "Smile" by THE SUPERNATURALS, as showcased in the TV campaign for smile.co.uk - with lyrics like "Your life's a mess, you've been cut adrift", "Smile, cause that's all you've got left", and "I feel like a Dalek inside" among the more "irony-tinged": http://www.thesupernaturalsofficialwebsite.com/music.htm ... ADRIAN FURBY named Vodafone as "repeat offenders" in the field, citing an Australian ad which features "bright young things standing in front of a white tarpaulin" and "a soundtrack that sounds suspiciously like the Stereo MC's 'Connected', but isn't"... while "You are Burger King", began GRAEME VIRTUE - rhetorically, as it turned out. "You are trying to punt your limp-looking, three-patty triple melt on the telly," he continues. "What music do you put put through the sonic copyright-blender?" BLUR's "talkie-talk knees-up classic 'Parklife'", apparently - "except it's a harrowing, chromatic version that sounds like it's being played underwater. Say what you like about McDonald's, at least they cough up for the original songs"... ADRIAN MOULDER argued that "the music from the ad for Heat Magazine, with women running round a maze, is presumably supposed to be 'Sabotage' by the Beastie Boys", and then ranted, at some length, about the claim that "the higher the IQ, the greater the need for gossip" reproduced therein, without substantiation, as scientific fact. "Can I complain about it to the ASA?", he reasonably inquired, noting also Morgan Stanley Dean Witter's "93% of communication is non- verbal" slogan for credit cards - a factoid which is, ironically, "impossible to express without using words"... Usenet consensus is that the girl in the Gap ad with the electric guitar is playing "Back In Black" by AC/DC, though one dissenter argues "I wish the riffs were in synch with what her hands are doing"... and, finally, ALEX TEA strongly objected to last week's frame-by-frame analysis of the new AOL ad, asking "Who in their right mind would want to see Connie's breasts?". More to the point: "Anyway, what about the new naturist Freeserve advert?" he muses. "Can any of your Tivo- owning friends test that out too?"... >> 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 "now available in Avant-Go" http://nobodynet.ddts.net/palmntk.htm NEED TO KNOW THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK. 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