Need To Know 2002-02-22

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"This is really a noble pursuit. We shouldn't be ashamed of asking our customers to help us fund the brilliant stuff we do for them..." - STEVE BOWBRICK of Another.com, whose "noble" calling enables punters to pay UKP15 to have an email address ending in @sexteacher.co.uk, @sexychristmas.co.uk, @shaggin-wagon.com, @shagmebaby.co.uk, @sheepshagger.co.uk, and many, many more... http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,653291,00.html >> HARD NEWS << unlicensed venues No lunch, but plenty of Guinness: the perfect recipe for Bram Cohen's CODECON 2002 at the DNA Lounge last weekend. Jamie Zawinski was the host, paid it seems in constant robust on-stage Mozilla-dissings. But jwz chose to hold court only in the shadowy infra-conference taking place on IRC between 802.11b-wielding audience members. Onstage activity was left to a) handsome shoe-gazing hackers describing potentially copyright-infringing ecosystems written while on the dole, b) older attorneys grimfacedly pleading with them to never openly mention any illicit activities, and c) grinning ancient heroes irresponsibly gloating over past criminal capers. In the first camp, Dan "effugas" Kaminsky's "batshit things I've done with ssh to beat NAT" talk and Jonathan Moore's self-organising, self-routing, self-aware port of military-industrial Wifi tech MobileMesh scored the highest cred points. In the second category, Fred von Lohrmann's repeated attempts to prevent Peer To Peer To Prison scenarios - including an overly cheery suggestion to have your back-of-an-envelope network diagrams edited by legal counsel - were soberly heeded. (He made some very good points on avoiding live updates and freeloader-punishing, too: lest the court make you update a network-killer, or force you to punish *all* your users equally). Finally, in the unrepentant good old boys' camp: one day you'll be as old as Phil Zimmermann, who finally announced that he *did* upload the PGP source to a world-readable location, or Eric Hughes, who revealed it was he who posted the proprietary RC4 encryption sourcecode to sci.crypt. But until you can count the years and do the Statute of Limitations calculation: keep schtum, and keep coding. http://wiki.haven.sh/index.php/WikiWikiWan - mobilemesh in the real world http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02001-04-06#TRACKING - in accordance with hopeful prophecy http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3555ls%24fsv%40news.xs4all.nl - cypherpunks post code http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2002/02.html#21-feb-2002 - make every day asshole season! Codecon's legal panel was a bit riling for the dirty foreigners in the audience. The DMCA might be bad, they reassured the audience, but some other countries' laws were plain awful. "I heard the UK's law is very bad", said one panelist, the unspoken "IANAL" hanging over his words. Well - as one of the sources who publicised Britain's old-style DMCA law - it's *bad*, as they say, but it's not *criminal*. While the US feds can come and practically arrest you for telling a friend how to change the region code on your DVD player, a company still has to file a civil suit here in the UK. Of course, such namby-pambiness won't last for long. Article 8(3) of the EUCD (to be part of British law by the end of this year) will ensure that ISPs share liability for allegedly copyright-infringing material. So even if your ISP knows it's dumb to block Napster, or that your satire site is free speech, they won't be able to risk getting done over by the intellectual property barons. Who needs the police when the Internet is "self-policing"? Also, it's goodbye to "fair use": while the EUCD says that countries can include exemptions for current practice, rumour has it that the UK won't bother with uncrippled media for the disabled, archive preservation or personal backups. The EUCD is bad in theory, and could be much worse in implementation. Drag yourself to Cambridge tomorrow to discuss how to fix it. http://uk.eurorights.org/miniconf/ - like Codecon, but in a Colony http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02001-10-05&l=15#l - remind us not to be so light on American jurisprudence again http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/whatyoushouldknow.html - also, the Hague Convention means *everyone* gets the globally worst laws They say we're stuck in the past. But we like it there - it's where the truth is. Or so it seems when one skims the past as precisely fossilised by Alexa's Wayback Machine, and compare it to the daily re-inventions of the live Web. Compare and contrast, for instance, the current bio page of of "Secretary of the US Army" Thomas E. White, stored at http://www.army.mil/leaders/Secarmy/bio.htm , with the slightly more Enron-oriented edition preserved forever at http://web.archive.org/*/http://www.army.mil/leaders/Secarmy/bio.htm Or with all those rumours about what really happened at Ars Digita, why not read what Philip Greenspun had to say before: http://web.archive.org/*/http://philip.greenspun.com/arsdigita/litigation-story (see June 03, 2001) - and after the lawyers got to him: http://philip.greenspun.com/arsdigita/litigation-story . Or perhaps you just want to reassure yourself that you didn't hallucinate that BBC URL you briefly spotted? For which, see http://makeashorterlink.com/?V2B61327 . Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/webservices/2002/01/18/brewster.html - Brewster Kahle knows! >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious US media still baffled by notion of all-Scottish GB team: http://www.ntk.net/2002/02/22/dohuk.png ... must have mislaid ENCARTA: http://www.ntk.net/2002/02/22/dohjob.png ... arsonist didn't like Nirvana's music, "held grunge against tourists": http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/story.jsp?story=134554 ... MS avoid acronym for "Critical Update Notification Tool": http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;Q224420 ... BILLIE lookalike promoting debt relief for young brides of unemployed DJs?: http://www.ntk.net/2002/02/22/dohdebt.png ... http://www.freedom.co.uk/ "no longer open to the public" ... "Dull, uninspiring desktop?" MBUK knows just how you feel: http://www.mbuk.co.uk/wallpaper_page.asp ... webdesigners of the week: http://www.kittmaster.com/webdesign.htm versus http://website.lineone.net/~initiative.cafe/ (creator of http://website.lineone.net/~initiative.cafe/scrnw.html ?)... backing the theory that anthrax attacks were "an inside job": http://www.ntk.net/2002/02/22/dohwhite.png ... oh, buy one anyway: http://consumerwholesale.zoovy.com/product/2 ... that old DIY spirit: http://www.blackanddecker.co.uk/scripts/ ... http://www-cgsc.army.mil/milrev/English/DecFeb99/bowdish.htm (final para) warns of "the specter of Orson Welles' 'big brother'"... LESLIE BUNDER slams Ali G's cheap attempts "to get attention", in cheap attention-seeking PR stunt of his own: http://www.jewish.co.uk/editorial14.php3 ... "What's mean the Click-Thrus?", ponders http://www.valuesponsor.com/faq.html ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Squaxx dek Thargo posse in the house! Yes, The Galaxy's Greatest Comic will be spinning the zarjaz and ghafflebette sounds at 2000AD's 25th ANNIVERSARY PARTY (from 7pm, Thu, 2002-02-28, the Ministry of Sound, London SE1), along with live band Pitchshifter, writer and artist signings, X-Boxes and manga videos. Apparently some of the proceeds go to Amnesty International somehow, marking something of a change of heart for one-man "judge, jury and executioner" uberfascist Judge Dredd. http://www.2000adonline.com - UKP15 (Earth Money), and speaking of gun-toting radicals... http://www.ukuug.org/events/ESR_20020227.shtml - ...Eric S Raymond speaks at London City Uni on Wed 27 http://www.silicon-beach.com/events.html - annoying clash with "Silicon Business" forum in Brighton And concluding this special Cambridge-themed month of events, PROFESSOR JOHN CONWAY, game theorist and inventor of "Life", will be spontaneously regenerating in the appropriately shaped surroundings of this year's DARWIN COLLEGE LECTURES (from 5.30pm, Fri 2002-03-01, Lady Mitchell Hall, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge, free). Special request: if he's taking questions, could someone ask him if, as legend has it, he specifically devised "Mornington Crescent" as an example of an activity which defies traditional game theoretic analysis, and whether he thinks this accounts for its popularity on Radio 4's panel quiz "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue"? http://www.dar.cam.ac.uk/lectures/2002/JohnConway.html - Huey "The Power Of Love" Lewis sadly not available http://hensel.lifepatterns.net/ - no, not the MB board game: "Lawyer's salary please!" >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering SPAMASSASSIN sits between you and your inbox, picking over your mail and weighting it against over two hundred spam indicators, like multiple exclamation marks, the phrase "Trace anyone by social security number", and "This is not spam". Mails that trip one too many sensors get tagged with an indicator in the subject line and a detailed justification for their punishment in the body. They can be automatically bounced back to source, sent off to /dev/null or reported to the authorities. If Spamassasin's barrel of ingenious regexp tests wasn't enough, the author, official NTK hero Justin Mason, has assimilated wider checks (Vipul's razor, various blackhole databases) into the program, and uses a genetic algorithm to regularly re-weigh the settings - leading to a really very impressive hit rate. Out of around 130 messages (or 677KB) of spam a day, v1.0 spamassassin let through only a handful of bad boys, and imprisoned less than one legitimate mail a day. And Version 2.0's new auto-whitelist means that now even your most spam-akin friends need only stop SHOUTING!!! for one posting to be permanently allowed past. There's a standalone assassin daemon for ISPs, and a great deal of contributed activity with the prog. In the long run, we guess it may just make the spammers smarter, but, hell, we'd be happy with even that small evolutionary step. If you haven't got it, take a look. And if you have - how did we score? http://spamassassin.taint.org/ - of course this will only breed super-smart resistant spammers http://spamassassin.taint.org/tests.html - and we're always suspect because of our LINE OF YELLING >> MEMEPOOL << ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/ gotta recognise 'em all!: http://totl.net/VirusScanner/ ... a joke, surely?: http://www.itcontractorsreunited.com vs fucked employees reunited: http://www.globaldoublecrossing.com/ ... bloody thumbnails: http://www.georgewgirls.com/ ... answering the age-old question: who was Playmate Of The Month when you were born?: http://lglandon.free.fr/pmpb/ ... paging Dr FREUD: http://www.mcphee.com/bigindex/current/10884.html ... comedy mods: http://www.afrotechmods.com/stupid/memory/memory.htm ... still stained with the bitter tears of betrayed IBM idealism: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1068077127 ... A cup of coffee? (because it's a good source of Brownian motion?): http://uk.news.yahoo.com/020221/12/csplt.html ... http://www.theonion.com/onion3806/infograph_3806.html imitates http://www.satirewire.com/charts/chat.shtml ... "very special [cover] version" places threatening-sounding GOD on the scene: http://www.09112001.com/images/memorials/silentnight.htm ... ENDEMOL making reality quiz show for C5, plan to call it "Need To Know"... an enclave of bgcolor="#00FFFF" in a sea of black and white: http://vwww.abo.fi/users/rpalmber/enclaves.htm ... c'mon, somebody cough up that $8M for http://www.anywhere.com/ so they can afford to move out of "5 Cottons Gardens": http://whois.geektools.com/cgi-bin/proxy.cgi?query=anywhere.com ... enough about me - "What colour are your eyes?", enquires http://www.vsj.co.uk/subscriptions/ , flirtatiously... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> it's all war, all the time, with GLADIATORS OF WORLD WAR II: RAF FIGHTER COMMAND (8pm, Fri, C5) snapping at the heels of Nazi celebrity recollection I MET ADOLF EICHMANN (9pm, Fri, BBC2), the largely self-explanatory KAMIKAZE IN COLOUR (8pm, Sun, C5), plus PANORAMA's (10.15pm, Sun, BBC1) topical look at the Paras' peacekeeping role in Afghanistan, following their expert handling of unarmed civilians in Northern Ireland... low-budget horror goes head-to-head in a double bill of Abel "Driller Killer" Ferrara's THE FUNERAL (11.35pm, Fri, BBC2) and THE ADDICTION (1.10am, Fri, BBC2) up against John Carpenter compilation BODY BAGS (1.25am, Fri, C4)... though neither quite as upsetting as the self-injuring antics of MTV import JACKASS (11.25pm, Fri, C4)... Brittany Murphy briefly interrupts Mark Dacascos' incessant kickboxing in superhuman road romp DRIVE (9pm, Sun, C5)... BBC starts stranding THE SIMPSONS at 6pm every weekday in order to help build up a fanbase for when they defect to C4 in 2004... choose Bill Murray heist caper QUICK CHANGE (9pm, Mon, C5) over Welsh "Trainspotting" knockoff TWIN TOWN (10pm, Mon, C4), though it's a tough call against Johnny "On-Digital monkey" Vegas on ROOM 101 (10pm, Mon, BBC2)... and Powerbook-compatible aliens miss that vital CERT advisory on INDEPENDENCE DAY (9pm, Tue, C5): http://www.storsand.net/humour/cert/ca199613.html ... following the cult bootleg-scene success of "John's Not Mad" http://www.cartelcommunique.co.uk/johnsnotmad.htm , further source material is provided in Tourette's syndrome follow-up docu THE BOY CAN'T HELP IT (9pm, Wed, BBC1) - a profanity- packed "spoiler" for the start of the new series of ER (9pm, Wed, C4)... and the ratings-grabbing continues on Thu, with HORIZON (9pm, Thu, BBC2) illustrating the nature-vs-nurture debate with bungled-circumcision "The Boy Who Was Turned Into A Girl"... as TROUBLE AT THE TOP (9.50pm, Thu, BBC2) follows its penetrating analysis of what went wrong with Bucks Fizz by applying ISO 9000 standards to BBC soap flop "Eldorado"... FILM>> the beauty of Russell Crowe's mathematics is somewhat overshadowed by that of Jennifer Connelly's hair in staggered- release part-spy-movie, part-cinematic-exploration-of-the signal-detection-theory-model-of-schizophrenia, A BEAUTIFUL MIND ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/beautifulmind.htm : delusional frenzy; rage against God; woman placing man's hand on her chest; a man and woman in bed - clothed. Maybe the man and woman in bed together were married in the movie but the actor and actress were not) - loosely based on the paper "Signal Detection Indices In Schizophrenia On A Visual, Auditory, And Bimodal Continuous Performance Test" (L Mussgay & R Hertwig, Schizophrenia Research 3, 1990)... Michael Douglas and Famke Janssen struggle to extract a 6-digit number - just 1,000,000 combinations! - from bonkers Brittany "Drive" Murphy in surveillance psycho-thriller DON'T SAY A WORD ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2001/don't_say_a_word.html: [Murphy] runs her hand up inside her shirt, fondling her own breast; we briefly see [Murphy's] panties)... while Cate Blanchett plays an undercover Zeta Reticulan in boring "Saving Private Ryan"-style romance CHARLOTTE GRAY (imdb: based-on- novel; french-resistance; wwii; first-aid-nursing-yeomanry; special-operations-executive; spy)... RED BOOK AUDIO>> just a brief selection of random pop soundalikes this month, with PAUL TAYLOR leading the pack for not only identifying that the chorus of A1's "Caught In The Middle" is "a blatant rip-off" of Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn", but that you can replicate it yourself by feeding "Torn" through the "Female-To-Male" EAX effect on Creative Labs soundcards. Regarding Samantha Mumba's "Baby Been Thinking Bout You Lately", and The Stone Roses' "Made Of Stone" ("When the streets are cold and lonely/ And the cars they burn below me") - "It's the same song innit!", argued ANONYMOUS TIPSTER, though RONAN WAIDE ventured into yet more obscure territory by alleging that Stillwater's "Fever Dog" (from the soundtrack to "Almost Famous") "carries the same drumbeat" as U2's "Bullet The Blue Sky" while "the guitar is only lacking the steel slide bits at the end of each power chord"... "Perhaps Jesus Jones are supporting me at SXSW?" piped up TOBY SLATER, referring to an earlier version of the festival line-up http://www.sxsw.com/music/0festival/bands/ linked to from NTK 2002-02-08. "Or maybe I'm supporting them?", Toby continues, "Maybe we can get The Soup Dragons and Candy Flip along as well". Or maybe it might help explain the preponderance of American brands in your jaunty would-be anticapitalist anthem, "Consumption", Toby: http://www.tobyslater.com/consumption/ - no wonder you "keep on buying so much [you] don't need" if you're buying it from Pacific Bell, whose core business is providing local telecommuncations services for the West Coast of the USA... and finally, following NTK 2002-02-08's Buffy- inspired suggestion that the stammering Pop Idol guy should "just sing everything he says", ALAN CONNOR sympathetically weighed in with a list of cover versions he could do - Paul Hardcastle's "19", for instance - if he wanted to pursue a separate career as "MC Stammer", with further possibilities at: http://www.mankato.msus.edu/dept/comdis/kuster/media/songs.html . But it was left to LLOYD WOOD to sneer Simon Cowell-style at the whole idea, pointing out that "stammering results from paying too much attention to what you say [...] whereas singing is overlearned, rehearsed, speech". Lloyd claims he's "pretty sure New Scientist covered this recently" - presumably as part of their "The Science Of Pop Idol" pullout special?... >> 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 "basic text" http://pythoncard.sourceforge.net/samples2.html 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) 2002 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.