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         "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.
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