Need To Know 2001-12-07

archive

"At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top - I'm afraid that's not quite right but fortunately there are plenty that are coming..." ...FROM OUTSIDE MICROSOFT - BILL GATES, "thinking outside the X-Box" http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/club/your_reports/newsid_1697000/1697132.stm >> HARD NEWS << warrants for you Cast your minds back to February: the Wonderland case is in all the papers; Carol Vordeman and ZDNet are campaigning to get ISPs to control their filthy ways. Under pressure, DEMON breaks its own anti-censorship tradition, and announces that newsgroups will be removed from the newsfeed "to protect the vulnerable and to increase our vigilance". Weeeell, it turns out that some people were being vigilant already. With their stream of evidence abruptly cut off, police investigators monitoring the newsgroups are not best pleased. They turn up at Demon HQ intending to seize the ISP's entire newsserver network. After some gentle panicking compromise is reached: Demon sets up a PC next door to news.news.demon.net, reinstates the newsgroups, and peers the spool across. (Which, you know, the cops could probably have obtained with a phone call: but that's by the by.) Cut to last week's weirdo press release [NTK 2001-11-30]. Suddenly it all becomes clear: the NCS, eager to clear things up, puts out the conciliatory message that Demon have been very helpful with enquiries. A bit too helpful, unfortunately: misunderstanding the politics, NCS happily tells everyone that Demon handed over their entire server, logs and all. Now, Demon can't exactly tell the full story - and reassure the world that no private information was released - without showing up both the police for acting impetuously, and themselves for putting an investigation at risk. And neither group can publically admit to the one truth in this mess: that those namby-pamby anti-censorship arguments that Cliff Stanford, old time staff, and Demon's own users gave turned out to be perfectly true. It *is* better to have it out in the open, where the police can track it. And you can't cure everything with one poorly-considered Vordeman-pandering press release. Or two. http://www.ntk.net/2001/11/30/#HARD_NEWS - original story http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2084582,00.html - Demon eliminates child porn by ignoring it http://www.nationalcrimesquad.police.uk/Hot_off_the_press/2001/November/122.html - Spindler manages to rail against newsgroups, despite depending on them Last week two Japanese students were arrested for sharing copyrighted files via WinMX. Japanese law, rather uniquely, states that if you merely "place a copyrighted work in such a state as it can be transmitted without authorisation", you can be prosecuted for infringing copyright. The two students, from the cities of Tokyo and Saitama, shared around 2400 files, and got nabbed because of the warez nature of their goods: Adobe Photoshop, Visual C++, the rather nice Ichitaro wordprocessor. Given the precedent for prosecuting software pirates the world over (one of the largest warez bbs cases is just finishing up in the US right now), it's a lot easier to go after those sharing apps than music. But it won't be long before the net widens: indeed, ZDNet Japan reports that one of the students raised suspicion because of the large numbers of MP3s he was sharing. Ah, Japan: "the global imagination's default setting for the future", as Mr Gibson has it. Let's hope there's still time to mess with the Control Panel before it installs here. http://www.accsjp.or.jp/news/011128e.html - they said "penal" http://boingboing.net/2001_11_01_archive.html#7539331 - tip of the beanie to the old skool boingboing posse Another year, another dumb attempt to create a totally new namespace instead of trying to make more intelligent use of the existing one. At least two NTK readers expressed scepticism this week over JINI SEARCH, the revolutionary IE plugin where you "just type the brand, company or product name directly into the address line of your Internet Explorer browser and go straight to the specific page" - replicating almost exactly what IE usually tries to do anyway. The impossible-to-find-anything site provides further reassurance: "Approximately a 30 second download !!!! PLEASE READ TERMS AND CONDITIONS!!!!" - conditions which naturally include: "5.1.4 by registering or using the Keyword (in what ever manner) you will not knowingly infringe the intellectual property rights of a third party". Typing, say, "BBC" into a Jini-ed copy of IE takes you straight to http://www.possessiondirect.co.uk/ , who, handily enough, just happen to be "specialists in assisting landlords regain possession from unwanted tenants [...] at a truly exceptional price". http://www.jsearch.co.uk/html2/jinikeywords.htm - no relation to Sun's "where is it now?" Java network tech http://www.jinionline.co.uk/templates/template%202/ - "fuiegwiufgihe gwfuigeiwufiuehwifu uhgewifhuiew woihfow" http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc.com/images/ - adding Boston Business Computing's distinctiveness to our own... >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious ALEC GUINNESS' CBE links to "tyrannical regime" of THE EMPIRE: http://www.starwars.com/bio/siralecguinness.html - is the Queen Mother "more machine now, than man"?... LOVE - in an elevator: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/011205/80/ckin0.html ... surreal GRAUNIAD "reality check" features "Detectives from the sheriff's hat": http://www.ntk.net/2001/12/07/dohgraun.gif ... FT moves into world of nightmarishly disturbing illustrations: http://specials.ft.com/creativebusiness/FT3XAQN4RUC.html ... BBC more influenced by cinematic allusions to "Pulp Fiction": http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1690000/1690033.stm ... FAB, Lewis: http://www.ntk.net/2001/12/07/dohmorse.gif ... "We has not had English pages, already": http://www.akira.jp/ vs "To be elegant queen!! You have five different colors of frends": http://samsungelectronics.com/mobile_phone/index.asp ..."We could do it in -": http://www.google.com/search?q=dobly ..."non-critical safety functions" are a different matter: http://www.ntk.net/2001/12/07/dohfail.gif ... clue's in the image name: http://www.adobe.co.uk/special/illustratorcomp/ ... source of http://www.infosec.co.uk/page.cfm has more than 50 "web bugs" at the end - annoying if your secure browsing includes individually accepting each cookie... great for bedtime stories: http://www.ntk.net/2001/12/07/dohbed.gif ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Of course, our usual disclaimers apply to anything which involves identifying yourself both as a terrorist and, potentially more embarrassingly, as an "electrohippy". Nonetheless, if you want to make a token protest against the "war on terrorism (and/or those pesky civil liberties which make today's intricately interlinked industrial societies so irritatingly vulnerable to sabotage)", the ANTI-TWAT CAMPAIGN are continuing to hold would-be denial-of-service "sit-ins" at the Home Office website next Mon and Tue 2001-12-10 & 11 - plus a special action when the current Anti-Terrorism, Security and Crime Bill becomes law. Basically it's the same Javascript repeated-reload "attack" used by the pro-Zapatista Electronic Disturbance Theater back in 1998, though this time you're encouraged to register with the Home Office as a potential terrorist cybercriminal beforehand - like you're not on their "known subversives" database already. http://www.fraw.org.uk/ehippies/action/twat_brief.html - vs http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/23255.html http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?back=1998/now0123.txt&line=161#l - no good will ever come from Javascript http://www.ri.ac.uk/Christmas/details2001.html - this year at the Royal Institution: What Am I? Where's Kevin? >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering Ade Ward's FINDER MAIL takes the very sensible attitude that your Mac OS 9 machine has already got enough freaking interface, ta thank you. Instead of confusing matters with yet another email client, it grabs your mail from a POP server, converts it into separate plain text files, and dumps them all into a selectable directory. After that, your mail reading is done with the Finder. The more one thinks about this, the more sense it makes. Worries about losing mail are now a fractional subset of worries about trashing the whole hard drive. Double-clicking on the files kicks up a mini-editor which lets you reply and send. Copying and sorting files is just drag and click territory. You want mail folders? Well, what's wrong with *real* folders? Search? See Sherlock. Filters? At last, a use for Applescript! MIME attachments? Who cares? As our correspondent says, it's mh for Mac. http://www.signwave.co.uk/products/FinderMail/ - just saying that makes us feel empty http://area51.upsu.plym.ac.uk/~adrian/gallery-of-a-crap-computer/ - not a man who lets Finder get off easily >> MEMEPOOL << the warm bit behind the http://www.gagpipe.com/ TVGoHome at the Movies: http://www.finemanfilms.com/cgi-bin/moviedb.cgi ... supernatural computing: http://www.phobe.com/yeti/ , http://users.bestweb.net/~bennetc/holistic ... Jesus Christ: http://www.answersingenesis.org/AfterEden/AE_Pages/ae6-4-2001.asp ... this week's Shockwave game - a Class One laser product: http://www.input-entertainment.de/laser/laser.html ... it's the mythical "good" flash intro: http://www.fakepilot.com/ ... new thrill! CHRIS MORRIS at large - in "Trench Coat Mafia": http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial4/littleton/4.htm ... at the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1694000/1694035.stm ... brandy only consumed by Hungarian Vlach Gypsies "first thing in the morning, in the middle of the night at a funeral and by women prior to a rubbish-scavenging trip", drunkenly reveals: http://www.sirc.org/publik/ptpchap6.html ... new LIGHTHOUSE FAMILY song is "theme from Film 2001"... who is the SHORTEST LINK #2: http://shorterlink.com/ vs http://qwer.org/ ... Segway "not what people want", says SINCLAIR, who should know: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991636 ... PJ Harvey beats Madonna in poll - picture editor unmoved: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/011203/80/ck83e.html ... NTL and Freeserve now blocking broadband access to AUDIOGALAXY... you see, http://theinternet.com really *does* run on APACHE... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> THE PRIVATE LIFE OF A MASTERPIECE (7.25pm, Sat, BBC2) looks at Edvard Munch's "The Scream", with contributions from postmodern horror movie fans and, hopefully, Rolf Harris... Bruce Willis rivals Val "The Saint" Kilmer's repertoire of comedy accent/wig combinations in hilariously poor remote- controlled machine gun remake THE JACKAL (9.30pm, Sat, BBC1) ... the "I Love" series grinds to a halt with I LOVE TOP OF THE POPS (9.25pm, Sat, BBC2), to return next year with "I Love The Wry Observations Of Stuart Maconie"... and C4 presents a "point-counterpoint" examination of firearms in society with LETHAL WEAPONS: INSIDE BRITAIN'S GUN CULTURE (8.05pm, Sat, C4) followed later that evening by John Woo's ultraviolent shoot- em-up HARD-BOILED (1.05am, Sat, C4)... autistic abattoir designer Temple Grandin is profiled in a FIRST PERSON (7.30pm, Sun, C4) directed by Errol "Fast, Cheap And Out Of Control" Morris... WITNESS (9pm, Sun, C4) apparently fails to question the "electronic voice" phenomenon of people hearing "ghosts" in recorded static... and Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jennifer Love Hewitt remain inexplicably clothed throughout most of archetypal neo-slasher I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (10pm, Sun, C4)... post-apocalyptic Don Johnson punfest A BOY AND HIS DOG is shunted off to the prestigious 2.05am, Mon, C4 slot, leaving primetime to the dubious delights of BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA (10pm, Mon, C4), dire Leslie Nielsen/ Mel Brooks spoof DRACULA: DEAD AND LOVING IT (10pm, Tue, C4), plus Jean-Claude Van Damme as a counterfeit fashion designer - believe it! - in KNOCK OFF (9pm, Mon, C5)... Louis Theroux doesn't even have to pretend he's out of his depth when serious sexual allegations arise in WHEN LOUIS MET THE HAMILTONS (9pm, Tue, BBC2)... NTK's Dave Green maintains he was "really very drunk" while opposing net censorship on this week's TABOO (9.50pm, Wed, BBC2)... and C4's popular "When Gravity Attacks" strand explains HOW THE TWIN TOWERS COLLAPSED (9pm, Thu, C4), hopefully addressing the issue of why no-one seemed to have even the faintest suspicion that they might fall over... FILM>> the dumping of local product in the wake of "Harry Potter" continues, with Samuel L Jackson and the cast of "The Full Monty" - together at last! - in a look at the lighter side of designer drug deaths in Brit gangster beat-em-up THE 51ST STATE (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : rated "18" for very strong language, drugs references and violence) - and not, it appears, based on the chorus of the song "Heartland" by The The... sadly, Tom Green doesn't even cameo in Drew Barrymore's "Teen Mother And A Baby" feelgooder RIDING IN CARS WITH BOYS (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ridingincarswithboys.htm : flatulence; wild necking; sex poem; young girls pretending to participate in love-making with open mouth kissing; 6 uses of God's name in vain without the four letter expletive; teen sex in a car - genitals unseen)... also for the ladies, perhaps not as much swearing - or authentic Glaswegian accents - as you'd expect from Helena "Planet Of The Apes" Bonham Carter and Gina "Brass Eye" McKee in female buddy-movie WOMEN TALKING DIRTY (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : rated "15" for strong language and sex references)... and a slightly puzzling use of "The Movie" in the title of the animated A CHRISTMAS CAROL: THE MOVIE (imdb: based-on-novel/ ghost/ redemption/ victorian-era/ compassion), given that there's already been at least 10 film versions of the book, not including such classics as "The Muppet Christmas Carol" (1992), "The Jetsons Christmas Carol" (1985), or Bill Murray's "Scrooged" (1988)... DRESS DOWN FRIDAY>> Attention all Europeans! Christmas is officially uncancelled, because the black ADMINSPOTTING shirts are back - albeit in a new version with the "Choose no life. Choose to sysadmin" spiel on the front instead. Plus we've imported a limited number of DEMOTIVATORS CALENDARS 2002 from http://www.despair.com/ to drag down morale in your office throughout the next 12 months - order by next Wednesday (or the week after in the UK) via http://www.ntkmart.com/ to ensure probable pre-Christmas delivery... new designs continue to oscillate between the more straightforward parodies - eg, reader JONG's implementation of the old "AT/DT" idea we were kicking around: http://www.geekstyle.co.uk/images/atdt.jpg , and BEN CURTHOYS' http://www.geekstyle.co.uk/images/bar.jpg - right the way through to rather more personal demon-wrestling, as we suspect is the case with the contribution of DAVID HUNT, a self-confessed "computer games programmer" who "hates HaCkErZ": http://www.geekstyle.co.uk/images/hackerz.jpg , and indeed LOFTY's http://www.geekstyle.co.uk/images/lofty.txt ... of course, even if your graphic design skills aren't up to these rigorous standards, you can always send us a text slogan instead, as demonstrated this month by CAMILO MESIAS ("Error 404: /shirt/tie Not Found"), several anonymous contributors ("Will Lie For Sex", "Intercal programmers do it the hard way" and "HP calculator programmers in reverse Polish notation it do"), and DUNCAN MARTIN who, in tribute to those "who find NTK operates at the edge of their understanding", proposed our email logo with the shampoo-ad-style warning: "Here comes the ASCII art: concentrate"... as ever, if we use one of your designs, you (or a charity of your choice) will get a royalty for each one we sell, which has this year raised UKP168 for SIGHTSAVERS INTERNATIONAL http://www.sandywhite.fsnet.co.uk/ , UKP336 for the only mildly sinister-sounding ALLIANCE FOR CHILDHOOD http://www.allianceforchildhood.net/ (nominated by Jonathan "Adminspotting" Chin), and a startling UKP920 (+VAT) for THE REDUNDANT TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVE http://www.lowtech.org (nominated by Modesty "Elite" B Catt), which they intend to spend on a "European Union audit" which they previously had "no idea" how they were going to pay for. Keep, as they say, them coming, and - whether you designed a shirt, bought one, or just kept sending us increasingly obscure and/or obscene programming slogans - God bless you, every one... >> 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 "yo Chuck, you think we're gonna sell out?" "I say if we do, then we get the hell out" http://www.msn.co.uk/exredir.asp?STARTID=bjd_hm&URL=http://www.ntk.net 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.geekstyle.co.uk/ (K) 2001 Special Projects. Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/ Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com All communication is for publication, unless you beg. Press releases from naive PR people to pr@spesh.com Remember: Your work email may be monitored if sending sensitive material. Sending >500KB attachments is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.