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        "More than 95% of the people that are in the United States at
         any given time are in the computers of companies that mail
         junk mail and you can look for patterns there..."
      http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1912000/1912895.stm
           - former President BILL CLINTON spams for freedom, imitates
                    http://www.nationallampoon.com/news/4_11_2002c.asp
         Dear TERRORIST SLEEPER AGENT,
           You may already have won a super DETENTION WITHOUT TRIAL...


                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                               pitying the foo's

         BT's announcement that they'd be rolling out 400 802.11b
         access points within 12 months seems pretty darn ambitious -
         especially when you take into account that it's currently
         illegal for them to do so. Although everyone seems agreed
         that the Radiotelecommunications Agency is going to dump the
         current restrictions on business use of 2.4Ghz (which, by
         way of its strange wording, was also messing up
         unbusinesslike community initiatives like Consume.net), it's
         still not gone yet. The RA's report on the topic comes out
         on 2002-04-24, after which there'll be 28 days of public
         consultation. A consultation mainly, we imagine, composed of
         squawking 3G licensees bitching about how WiFi upstarts are
         getting their money for nothing and spectrum for free. After
         that, 802.11 will be open for free nets and telcos. Odd
         isn't it, that BT are so keen on WiFi now they've dumped 3G
         onto their spin-off MMO2? Anyway, talking of consultation
         (and bitching), there's also been some idle talk that
         parties interested in WiFi should join the government's
         Broadband Shareholder Group, where they can rub shoulders
         with BT, the Heeby-Jeeby 3Gs, good old Erol Ziya of the
         Campaign for Unmetered Telecomms, and speak the ad-hoc
         wireless gospel unto them all. Mail us if you're interested.
         No weirdoes beyond the usual parameters.
         http://www.radio.gov.uk/topics/pmc/consult/publictele/public.htm
- we have to route around microwave ovens, we have to share these ESSIDs
         http://www.e-envoy.gov.uk/ecommerce/broadband/compgrp.htm
                                         - now doesn't this sound fun?

         Sensitive souls already troubled by recent events in the
         Mundane World should draw no conspiratorial conclusions from
         the fact that that Palestine's top level domain .PS expired
         on 2002-03-22. As the ever-watchful Sean Donelan notes in
         his mail to NANOG, the sell-by date *shouldn't* affect
         anything - although given NetSol's recent attempts to bill
         ARIN for the in-addr.arpa domain [NTK 2002-03-15], we're
         not so confident. For those of you who fancy a bit of
         whois-omancy, however: Israel's .IL "domain" expires on
         2087-10-24, thereby dating the arrival of the Messiah
         uncommonly accurately. .DE evaporates on 2088-11-05,
         allowing them a decent 98 year Reich. Don't get cocky
         though: .UK sinks below the waves first on 2087-07-24. As
         ever, you shouldn't put too much store by NetSol's accuracy
         - as Sean points out, someone there set the .SU domain to
         expire on 2092-09-19. A very optimistic prediction for the
         Soviet Union's lifespan, we'd say.
         http://www.netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois?!PS240-DOM&id=0
             - all their sites down anyway, perhaps because they're...
         http://www.netsol.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois?!IL-DOM&id=0
                                             - all routed through here

         So, falco then, ZENTERTAINMENT, the twice-or-thrice weekly 
         email entertainment newsletter which we stole the format of 
         NTK from and which went on indefinite hiatus this week after 
         nearly 7 years of continuous publishing. Editor Sean Jordan 
         cites a number of reasons for the break - he's got a job in a 
         fancy French restaurant, he wants to spend more time with "the 
         good people and good things that surround [him]" - but there's 
         also a hint that his pioneering optional subscription scheme 
         (asking the 160,000 recipients to pay 50c per month - if they 
         felt it was worth it) didn't really take off, with reportedly 
         only 5% of the readership chipping in. All of which supports 
         our stand that, despite some readers' reassuringly misplaced 
         enthusiasm, we'd never try moving NTK to a subscriptions-only 
         model - if only because, if you paid for NTK, you might start 
         reasonably inquiring why half the issues never arrive until 
         after you've already left work. 
         http://www.zentertainment.com/
                          - bonkers website still going strong, though
         http://www.ntk.net/2002/04/12/zensub.txt
           - still, 5% of 160,000 is 8,000 subscribers, at 50c each...
 

                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         illustration depicts Marc Almond, presumably not Will Young: 
         http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/story/sm_559478.html ... 
         <TITLE> tag describes royal tributes as "Game of the Month":
www.ntlworld.com/data-feeds/editorial/microsites/queen_mother/reviews.html
         initial letters of weather outlook spell "Die Old Witch": 
         http://www.ntk.net/2002/04/12/dohdie.gif ... "Download the 
         latest Flash 4.0 plugin" advises "real time" new media agency 
         http://www.ehsrealtime.com/ , goes on to enthuse about 
         Tamagochis: http://www.ehsrealtime.com/mn_home_noflash.html 
         ... "it's a girl's game", background .jpgs gruffly imply: 
        http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/clubs/badminto/tipssingles.html 
         ... snappy comeback to that "wehavethewayout.com" fiasco: 
         http://www.ntk.net/2002/04/12/dohsun.gif ... "Many of [my 
         publications] revile something about me", reveals spellcheck 
         fan: http://kevin.atkinson.dhs.org/ ... supporting the theory 
         that every rude word is also the name of an American town: 
         http://www.gotocity.com/local/2/us/MI/a/49831/ ... TA teamup 
         with goatse.cx implied by http://www.getfitta.co.uk/ , where: 
     http://www.laxguiden.com/cgi-bin/navigate/go.cgi?page=ordlista_sv_eng#g
         - "get" is Swedish for goat, and "fitta" is - something else: 
         http://www.notam02.no/~hcholm/altlang/ht/Swedish.html#f ... 
         and concluding this week's inadvertent double-entendre triple-
         bill: http://www.dice.com/DandL/i/infobahn.018.html ... 


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

         As you've no doubt gathered from our minimal coverage of it so 
         far, the USA's proposed CBDTPA (formerly known as the Security 
         Systems Standards and Certification Act) is extraordinarily 
         bad news if you happen to enjoy swapping warez and MP3s - or 
         even if you don't. Basically it requires all "digital media" 
         players, including PCs, to incorporate mandatory copy-
         protection technology - which, under 1998's Digital Millennium 
         Copyright Act, it's an offence to circumvent. And there's no 
         reason for Europeans to feel smug and complacent, as our very 
         own poorly-localised version of the DMCA, the European Union 
         Copyright Directive, is due to be implemented by EU member 
         states later this year. The first thing you can do about it is 
         to get along to the next CAMPAIGN FOR DIGITAL RIGHTS public 
         meeting on the subject, featuring guest vocals from kernel 
         hacker Alan Cox and scheduled for Monday 2002-04-29 at City 
         University in North London (free but you must pre-register for 
         numbers). And we'll probably be returning to the subject at 
         some point during the NTK 5TH BIRTHDAY CONFERENCE AND DIY 
         TECHNOLOGY TRADE FAIR, which now seems almost certain to take 
         place at a central London venue on Sunday 2002-06-09, for the 
         benefit of all those lucky people who like to plan what they're
         doing more than 24 hours in advance.
         http://www.lonix.org.uk/tnet-cgi/Lonix?CODE=userMeetings
                           - vs http://www.digitalconsumer.org/cbdtpa/
         http://www.yurisnight.net/parties/index.php
                          - Yuri's night tonight (Gagarin, not Geller)
         http://www.onlinecontentuk.org/Apr02event.html
           - NB: for content practitioners (and their students) *only*


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         There's immature tech - and then there's P2P, which is
         currently a pile of oily prototypes up on blocks in the
         driveways of leather-clad enthusiasts. But if you're sick of
         riding around the garden on the GNUTELLA lawnmower, and want
         to get dirty with some intriguingly coded, easy-to-get-into,
         works-on-my-platform, and - most importantly -
         nearly-almost-working prototypes, whose front yard should
         you loiter around? Best bets at the moment seem to be: for
         anonymity and crypto fun, INVISIBLE IRC. This anonymising
         IRC client works, good god, actually works, on Windows, OS X
         and the Freenixes. There's some work to be done in auditing
         the code for possible attacks, but hey - it's the written in
         C instant-feedback Freenet you can understand. For crunchy
         cutting-edge distributed resource sharing without all that
         confusing anonymity, THE CIRCLE is a neat Python 2.1 app
         that melds a neat GUI with some well-explained
         slicing-and-dicing-edge theoretics. Windows and Linuxen are
         both supported, and you can even run it from behind yonder
         firewall if you have a ssh shell account somewhere else. As
         with all of these baby P2Ps, it's a bit crummy for sharing
         MP3s, but is dripping with "non-infringing uses" - including
         trust metrics, distributed chat, neat visual public-key
         signatures, and, yay, gossip distribution. Perfect for a
         Sunday afternoon's hacking.
         http://www.invisiblenet.net/iip/
           - 1.2 out in a fortnight; and a system-wide upgrade beckons
        http://invisibleip.sourceforge.net/iip/research/httpoveriip.gif
                                                          - inevitably
        http://yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au/~pfh/circle/
- arbitrarily trust some random peers to get some traffic. We're 'simplicity'


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/

         because everyone thought the original pics were a caption 
         contest: http://www.sortakinda.com/look/withyoualways.shtml 
         ... how he did the "Fell in Love With a Girl" video (among 
         others): http://www.res.com/feature-michelgondry.jsp ... fame-
         hungry BLOGGERS make it into local paper, still aren't happy: 
         http://www.infinitemonkeys.co.uk/gasgiant/000023.html - maybe 
         they're all bots?: http://greengabbro.net/haveblogs.shtml ... 
         http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2001-07-30 vs 
         http://buffy.slayers.co.uk/ ... which ostensibly humorous 
         external validation of your so-called "personality" are you?: 
    http://www.carlsoncarlson.com/dane/stories/2002/01/13/whichAreYou.html
         ... lazy fan sites: http://johnhannah.freeservers.com/ ... 
         lazy spoof sites: http://www.poprevolution.co.uk/gurgle/ ... 
         instant forgiveness for listening to "Geeks In Space": 
         http://thepope.org/index.pl?node=Create+Indulgence - or 
         watching: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/nasatv/ ... 
         there's no OS symbol for a solid-state phased-array radar?: 
www.multimap.com/map/photo.cgi?x=486500&y=497000&scale=25000&rt=overlay.htm
         vs http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/f/fylingdales/ ... 
         even worse, they conceal their sinister machinations behind 
         an annoying Flash interface: http://www.theyrule.net/ ... 


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> THE BOOK GROUP (9.30pm, Fri, C4) is Yet Another Brit 
         Sitcom Featuring That Bloke From The Chewing Gum Ads - 
         arguably a funnier name for it... the Pet Shop Boys do an 
         acoustic set on the new LATER WITH JOOLS HOLLAND (11.35pm, 
         Fri, BBC2)... and the interesting career choices continue when 
         Louise Brealy http://www.filmfour.com/cannes2001/txt_louB.htm 
         becomes the latest CASUALTY (8.10pm, Sat, BBC1), following 
         recent cameos from the stars of ATTACHMENTS (10pm, Wed, 
         BBC2)... Ali G on PARKINSON (10.20pm, Sat, BBC1) goes up 
         against TOP TEN CAMP ICONS (10pm, Sat, C4), patchy antiwar 
         satire CATCH-22 (11.35pm, Sat, BBC2) and the original Dudley 
         Moore/ Peter Cook Faustian pact BEDAZZLED (11.35pm, Sat, 
         C4)... low-rent X-Files knockoff DARK SKIES (1.55am, Sat, C4) 
         reveals the real truth behind Peter Cushing and Bernard 
         Cribbins' resistance to the DALEKS: INVASION EARTH 2150AD 
         (3.25pm, Sun, C4)... while Dr Who just happens to be among the 
         concepts consigned by former BBC boss Michael Grade - both 
         literally and metaphorically - to ROOM 101 (10pm, Mon, BBC2) 
         ... maybe Hasselhoff was too busy doing "Reservoir Dogs" cover 
         versions to appear in KNIGHT RIDER 2010 (5.20pm, Sun, C5): 
      http://www.hellonetwork.com/demo/toysclub/video.asp?speed=hook300
         ... Jackie Chan directs himself in WHO AM I? (9pm, Sun, C5)... 
         Melanie Griffiths takes on nightmare tenant Michael Keaton in 
         pro-landlord horror PACIFIC HEIGHTS (10pm, Sun, C4)... and THE 
         SLOT (7.55pm, Mon-Thu, C4) profiles 4 digital artists whose 
         work "explores the concept of personal identity", which 
         doesn't exactly narrow it down: http://www.identinet.net/ ... 
         C4 flaunts its commitment to investigative factual programming 
         with THE TRUTH ABOUT LESBIAN SEX (10.35pm, Mon, C4), hotly 
         pursued by nude photography docu NAKED STATES (11.40pm, Mon, 
         C4)... but C5 stays in the game with "Naturists Uncovered" in 
         STARK NAKED (8.30pm, Thu, C5), Dolph Lundgren action idiocy 
         BLACKJACK (9pm, Mon, C5) and Matthew Modine made-for-TV 
         nootropic weepie FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON (3.45pm, Tue, C5): 
         http://www.xocolatl.com/kathy/ALGERNON.html ... FOOD JUNKIES 
         (9pm, Wed, BBC2) counts the sugar content of "95% fat free" 
         products... while the LIFE DOCTOR (8pm, Thu, C5) addresses the 
         increasingly common problem of a tribute singer who feels that 
         his "Robbie Williams" side is starting to "take over"... 
         
         FILM>> it's not as similar to Greg Egan's "Infinite Assassin" 
         story as SFX Magazine makes out, but Jet Li does appear to be 
         playing a character called "uLaw" (compression?) in parallel-
         universe wirework actioner THE ONE (imdb: James "director of 
         Final Destination" Wong, Glen "writer of Space: Above And 
         Beyond" Morgan, and Carla "Mike's girlfriend in Spin City" 
         Gugino - together at last!)... Jeff "Tron" Bridges sees the 
         other side of that "Starman" situation when Kevin Spacey plays 
         a mental patient who thinks he's an alien who thinks he's a 
         mental patient, or something, in actionless actor-fest K-PAX 
         ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/k-pax.htm : irreverent 
         discussion of Jesus; brief nudity of [Mary McCormack] in bed 
         with a man; several presentations of thematic elements such as 
         "All beings have the capacity to heal themselves"; I will in 
         this case consider the use of mind control through hypnosis to 
         be an unholy act and liken it to witchcraft and sorcery)... 
         while from the makers of the raunchy Gwyneth Paltrow "Great 
         Expectations" comes acclaimed arthouse Mexican teen sex comedy 
         Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN ( http://www.cndb.com/ : we get to see [Gael 
         Garcia Bernal's] great ass; [Maribel Verdu] looks 10 times 
         cuter with a hat on; so much sex and nudity I'm sure I'm 
         leaving something out)... "East Is East" meets "Gregory's 
         Girl" in Keira "Queen Amidala imposter" Knightley feminist 
         footy comedy BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ :
         contains moderate language and sexual references)... and 
         Aaliyah is - briefly - resurrected from straight-to-video 
         oblivion in yet another bloody Anne Rice adaptation, QUEEN OF 
         THE DAMNED ( http://www.cndb.com/ : [Aaliyah] spends most of 
         her scenes in a bronze chest plate; an extreme close-up of 
         [Marguerite "Mighty Ducks" Moreau's] nice rack; a shot late in 
         the film potentially shows [Stuart "Shooting Fish" Townsend's] 
         pubic hair)... 
         
         CONFECTIONERY THEORY>> Easter has been and gone but top marks 
         to MCDONALDS for successfully deseasonalising their CREME EGG 
         MCFLURRY (99p), remarkable in the field of brand extensions 
         for actually tasting like the thing it's supposed to be based 
         on - unlike MARS' frankly bizarre MILKY WAY CHOC ICE and the 
         MALTESERS ICE CREAM STICK. BIRDS EYE WALLS have attempted to 
         address the McFlurry threat with their disappointing WHIPSTER 
         tubs (with fake mini Smarties on top), but continue innovating 
         elsewhere with an automated dispenser for what looks like 
         chocolate flavour CORNETTO SOFT ice-cream, and Slush-Puppy-in-
         a-pouch SOLERO SMOOVER (UKP1). But KIT KAT CHUNKY ICE CREAM 
         has now been officially axed, confirming doubts about biscuit-
         based choc-ice bars... elsewhere, there's been unremitting 
         criticism of TERRY'S CHOCOLATE ORANGE EGG & SPOON (UKP1.99) - 
         "the most sickly thing I have ever eaten" (SIMON WHITAKER), 
         "suspiciously not available individually. This is because they 
         are disgusting" (CHARLOTTE LATIMER); FLYIN' CUSTARD FLAVOUR 
         FRIJJ - "somehow they've got it wrong" (PAUL GILLIBRAND); and 
         FOX'S COOKIE POPPETS - "like slightly stale digestive 
         biscuits" (BHIKKU). Speaking of which, we love the "Frosted 
         Multi-Grain Cereal Loops" but not the "Mini-Chocolatey 
         Biscuits" in KELLOGG'S BART SIMPSON'S NO PROBLEMOS (UKP1.79), 
         and ditto the "NEW for Adults" MILKYBAR MUNCHIES ("White 
         chocolates with a CRUNCHY biscuit centre"), while WRIGLEY'S X-
         CITE "Mint Crunch Pearls" (60p for box of 40) appear to be a 
         more expensive way of buying WRIGELY'S EXTRAS, and aren't even 
         the right size to fit in a standard calibre air gun. That 
         said, you seemed to like the new DIME NUGGETS (49p/bag) and 
         NESTLES LITTLE ROLOS, despite - or perhaps because of - the 
         highest per capita "missing toffee" rate of any recent product 
         (CHARLOTTE LATIMER again)... over in savouries, the Walkers/ 
         Golden Wonder war rages on with WALKERS' SENSATIONS (40p) 
         tackling Kettle Chips by spraying ordinary crisps with fancy 
         flavours like "Four Cheese and Red Onion", "Oven Roasted 
         Chicken and Thyme", "Sea Salt and Cracked Black Pepper", and 
         "Thai Sweet Chilli" and putting them in a foil bag, but GOLDEN 
         WONDER's upmarket response DUETS (UKP1.49) are basically Wheat 
         Crunchies with a creamy dip almost indistinguishable from 
         tartar sauce. And finally, new stuff to look out for includes: 
         the MARS SNICKERS FLAPJACK (65p), NESTLE SMARTIES CANS (75p), 
         the UK launch of DIET COKE LEMON (due in June), CHICAGO TOWN 
         SCRAMBLES - microwaveable breakfast pizzas topped with egg, 
         cheese and a choice of bacon or sausage - and the equally 
         microwaveable ALDO'S PIZZA BAR, notable mainly for their 
         mildly unsettling "Cook - Crack - Stack - Snack" promotional 
         campaign: http://www.pizza-bar.co.uk/ingredients.htm ... 


                               >> 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
                           "Successful businessman?"
                http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_564608.html

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