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        "I know people fear the opt-out link, but I want to reassure 
         you and your readers that clicking on this link is 1. safe, 
         and 2. the only sure way to remove your address from receiving 
         future spam arrest promotions..."
        - SpamArrest antispam service shows grasp of local vernacular
                              http://www.politechbot.com/p-04457.html
                  ...FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, STOP ME BEFORE I SPAM AGAIN!


                                >> HARD NEWS <<
                                apologetic mews

         Something's stinking in UK online marketing: and yes, it's an 
         even worse stench than usual. Remember the RSPCA, who somewhat
         tactlessly levelled FaxYourMP with cut-and-paste messages a
         few weeks ago? It turns out there's another reason why that
         load hit the site hard. As spotted by an NTK subscriber, one
         of the RSPCA's mass mailouts got sent further than they'd
         intended. Texans got pleas to save their local kittens from
         Guy Fawkes' night; bemused Virginians wondered why they
         should send outraged faxes to their local MP. These
         unprompted mails were obfuscated, using all the spamhaus'
         tricks: domains registered in Guatemala; SMTP relayed
         through boxen in Argentina, shadow companies based in
         Florida. Dirty, underhand, spamilicious mail - the kind that
         you'd expect from pornhounds and Nigerian 419ers. But
         apprently to advertise a legitamate British ad campaign.
http://google.com/groups?selm=E18qwAx-000460-00%40scarlet.dcs.hull.ac.uk
http://google.com/groups?selm=e82cnbN4JbXuhfWjXTWcjA%40giganews.com
http://google.com/groups?selm=20030309004212.GA25533%40cadeau.d-and-d.com

         The RSPCA denies all knowledge about this camouflaged spam.
         As with any large organisation, they'd subcontracted out
         publicity to a professional marketing outfit called PHDiq.
         PHDiq - one of the top new media marketers in the UK - say
         there's been some big mistake, and the mailout they
         organised was inadvertently extended without their knowledge
         - but with, it seems, fake headers, bum unsubscribe messages, 
         and various anti-filter forgery.

         Does this happen often? Searching for one of the domains in
         the RSPCA spam, maxroi.us, on six weeks of saved spam (all
         20,000 messages), we found one other piece. Sent to an
         address that we've never signed up for any list, this mail
         had all the hallmarks of a fly-by-night spammer too, right
         down to the junk ASCII at the bottom to foil simple hash
         functions. It was an advertisement for British Telecom. 
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/03/14/btspam.txt
                                                  - BT spam, defanged
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/03/14/btspam.html 
        - original spam, complete with webbug connections to spamhaus

         This week, the Advertising Standards Authority announced new
         rules for SMS and email marketing, requiring members to
         obtain explicit consent before sending mail. We'd like to
         test the mettle of that rule, and also dig up any more big
         corps that - knowingly or not - are sending borderline
         illegal spam to strangers. Scan your own spam prisons for
         the domains in the above mails, and let us know what you
         see. Because if big British corporations are using the
         lowest spamhausen for giggles, perhaps it's time they got a
         bit more publicity than they bargained for.
         http://www.quicktopic.com/19/H/V5cPAqX7zhf
                                            - post what you find here
         http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q182218B3
                                                  - ASA press release
         http://www.cap.org.uk/codes/Bcasp_11.pdf
                                         - section 43.4c has the dirt
         http://www.asa.org.uk/newcomplainbnm/
                        - new complaint form - automated scripts ahoy


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         A "perfect partner" for taking on the Meccano Separatist Nation: 
         http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1566868351/ ... she
         looks more than "worried": www.ntk.net/2003/03/14/dohmoore.gif ...
         good question: http://science.howstuffworks.com/question308.htm
         ... BLOCKBUSTER aims for that lucrative ORIC market sector:
         http://www.blockbuster.co.uk/search/options.asp?format=g (see
         under "Platform" - artefact of syndicating data from spong.com)
         ... though real money is in Roman tourists: www.proofreading.co.uk/
         ... BLOGGIES http://www.fairvue.com/?feature=awards2003 give "best
         tagline" award to "cool, like the other side of the pillow" - which 
         was old when Prince used it in 1997... terror under construction:
         http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/terrorism ... subliminal advice for
         text browser users: http://www.ntk.net/2003/03/14/dohlynx.png
         ... how could the MAILWASHER program turn against its own CREATORS?
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/03/14/dohwasher.png ... your token PUERILE
         GOOGLISMS: http://google.com/search?q=%22two+bottom+mouse%22 - see
         also "beast implants", "martial counselling"... 


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         Spamassassin has been too good for just a bit too long.
         When it says your friends' mail is spam, you start doubting
         your friends. And once you've installed it, it works so well
         that nobody (apart from those unstable Debian freaks) ever
         gets around to upgrading it. Well, SPAMASSASSIN 2.50 is as
         good an excuse as any to kick up your version number. This
         release famously includes tasteful Bayesian hand-waving.
         That means that with minimal training, SA will learn to
         differentiate your remaining friends' misspelt HTML mails
         from your average spammers' messages on "animal secx" (or
         vice versa). The assassin has dumped the distracting "****
         ARGH!!!! SPAM ******" subject line and bodytext munging in
         exchange for discrete X-Flags and multi-part messages. And
         they've got a pile of new rules - including special tweaks
         for spam in Polish, which you have to appreciate. It still
         takes up a fair bit of CPU time, meaning that the spammers
         will be contributing just a little more to global warming
         than before - but hey, if that speeds their long-delayed
         burning in hell, then it really is *all* good news.
         http://spamassassin.org/
                                    - can you spot this week's theme?
         http://www.gryzor.com/tools/#spamstats
                        - you've junked the mail, now crunch the data


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

         ENCODING ALTRUISM: THE ART AND SCIENCE OF INTERSTELLAR MESSAGE 
         COMPOSITION (from Sunday 2003-03-23, Paris, invitation only), 
         sees a killer combination of "scientists, artists, and 
         scholars from the humanities" trying to encode a "Universal 
         peace and hello" that we could send to extra-terrestrials but 
         which won't make them want to despatch the warrior-drones as 
         soon as they receive it. Guess that rules out a hilarious all-
         caps Nigerian 419 spoof then: "DEAR SIR/MADAM, I FIND MYSELF 
         IN POSSESSION OF 6 BILLION SENTIENT BEINGS PLUS 1 (SLIGHTLY 
         SOILED) ECOSPHERE". Otherwise there's always the "hot weekend" 
         of the UK's (slightly more down to earth) LOVEBYTES FESTIVAL 
         (from 5pm Thu 2003-03-20, various prices and venues around 
         Sheffield), which features the now-traditional usual suspects 
         such as One Dot Zero, Warp Records Films, Aardman Animation 
         and Tom "Nullpointer" Betts. Obviously there's no way of 
         knowing what an alien civilisation would make of this line-up, 
         but it certainly scares the hell out of us.
         http://publish.seti.org/art_science/2003/
               - contact up to 40 million civilisations all on one CD
         http://www.lovebytes.org.uk/
               - oh and a Linux audio workshop over at Redundant Tech
         http://circlelineparty.org.uk/
         - and tonight: putting the "pub" back into "public transport"


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

         now that's what we call a clumsily-modified topical Javascript: 
         http://www.martian.fm/dump/weapons_dump.htm ... even funnier 
         than those line-by-line nitpicking disagreements on Usenet: 
         www.ukcdr.org/satire/lexmark/ ... big points! big prizes!: 
         http://www.cockeyed.com/pranks/safeway/ultimate_shopper.html 
         ... inevitably: http://www.kluc.com/audio/constipated.mp3 ... 
news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/03/americas_us_war_views/html/3.stm
         - LIFE vs ONION: http://www.theonion.com/onion3734/wdyt_3734.html 
         ... FREEDOM CAR: http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenfuel/ + 
         FREEDOM FRIES: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/2848979.stm = plenty 
         of Biodiesel: http://www.dawn.com/2002/10/22/int17.htm (and 
         anyway, aren't they just implying that "French" is actually a 
         synonym for "Freedom"?)... pron lookalikes of the tech journos: 
         http://blogs.salon.com/0001437/2003/02/28.html#a550 ("Seymour 
         Butts") vs http://www.benhammersley.com/cv/ ... and if that 
         GUARDIAN CRICKET thing isn't a deliberate attempt to viral the
         page http://makeashorterlink.com/?A28112EC3 - then maybe they 
         should seriously think about it?... 


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> in deference to the multifaceted televisual car-crash 
         that is COMIC RELIEF (from 7pm, Fri, BBC1), C4 ditches its 
         usual Friday night comedy in favour of a mawkish 2-hour appeal 
         on behalf of EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (8pm, Fri, C4)... DESIGNING 
         THE DECADES (8pm, Sat, BBC2) takes a look at the wacky styling 
         of the 1960s, but don't carry on using out-of-date technology 
         for ever, warns SPACE SHUTTLE: THE HUMAN TIME BOMB (8pm, Sat, 
         C4)... and it's Sharon Stone, Chloe Sevigny and Michelle 
         "Dawson's Creek" Williams in HBO's lesbian retro triptych IF 
         THESE WALLS COULD TALK 2 (12.10am, Sat, BBC2)... reality TV 
         meets science in populist hypothesis-testing DIET TRIALS (6pm, 
         Sun; 7pm Mon-Fri, BBC1), TWINS: THE IDENTITY TEST (9pm, Wed, 
         BBC1) and, er, THE NATION'S FAVOURITE FOOD (8pm, Thu, BBC2)... 
         C5 celebrates Japanese cultural differences with showings of 
         both RISING SUN (9pm, Sun, C5) and BLACK RAIN (9pm, Wed, C5) 
         ... and conoisseurs of subs and/or nuclear weapons are equally 
         well catered for by the likes of ISRAEL'S SECRET WEAPON 
         (7.15pm, Sun, BBC2), ULTIMATE SUBMARINES (8pm, Sun, C5), and 
         U-234: HITLER'S LAST SUBMARINE (8pm, Mon, C4) - though perhaps 
         "U-235" might have been a better name for it, eh, isotope 
         fans?... there are new series of sub-"Egg Race" homemade robot 
         nonsense TECHNO GAMES (6.45pm, Mon-Fri, BBC2), terrible fake 
         CCTV comedy show DOUBLETAKE (9.30pm, Mon, BBC2) and bioweapon-
         response drill ER (9pm, Wed, C4)... maybe the French will 
         retaliate by replacing the word "American" in films like 
         AMERICAN PSYCHO (9pm, Wed, BBC3) with - off the top of our 
         heads - "Arrogance" or something?... the neurological basis of 
         religion is revealed in HORIZON: GOD ON THE BRAIN (9pm, Thu, 
         BBC2)... and the makers of the "Alex [Garland] And I" spoof 
         try to get their hands on some of that $27m reward in their 
         satirical docu-comedy OSAMA AND US (11.10pm, Thu, C4)... 
         
         FILM>> Christian Bale, Emily Watson and - topically enough - 
         Saddam Hussein (as himself) are among the "[Common] Sense 
         Offenders" in preposterously implausible martial arts "The 
         Matrix" wannabe meets "Fahrenheit 451" knockoff EQUILIBIRUM 
         ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/equilibrium.htm : strong 
         theme of persecution of the Christian faith; dozens of 
         killings/murders at the hands of the "police"; it seems by the 
         logic of this movie that one has to read a book or look at a 
         painting to become a free-thinker or become open minded)... 
         Tom Green, Jason "Chasing Amy" Lee and Megan "Will And Grace" 
         Mullally don't quite reach the sophistication of some of their 
         previous work in goofy grossout caper comedy STEALING HARVARD 
         ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/stealingharvard.htm : 
         bikini carwash; transvestism forced at gunpoint, repeatedly; 
         oral sexual stimulation by dog, repeatedly)... Ice Cube finds 
         himself on a similarly urgent last minute dash for money in 
         African-American community hairdressing feelgooder BARBERSHOP 
         ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/barbershop.htm : man 
         grabbing a woman's behind so his fingers curled into her lower 
         glutei fissure; sex counseling; insult to Jesus)... and 
         another theme of "Stealing Harvard" - crying during sex - is 
         revisited when Kevin Spacey, for once, plays an unjustly 
         accused murderer in death penalty drama THE LIFE OF DAVID GALE 
       ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2003/the_life_of_david_gale.html :
         we then see the side of [former "Lara Croft" Rhona Mitra's] 
         bare butt as she tells [Kevin Spacey] to rip her thong panties 
         off her - he does)... 
         
         AVAILABLE IN A WIDE RANGE OF BLACK>> the ever-controversial 
         PayPal are now taking Switch and Solo payments if you click 
         the "Outside the U.S.?" option from http://www.ntkmart.com/ , 
         though our only new t-shirts at the moment are a version of 
         the topical "uck Wa" design without the poem on the back, and 
         an intriguing in-house experiment featuring a wireframe skull 
         and crossbones plus the all-purpose conversational gambit "got 
         waReZ?". Regarding reader designs, we're still torn over how 
         to make BRUCE's http://www.geekstyle.co.uk/images/brain.gif 
         look more like an authentic anti-drugs ad (get in touch and 
         win $$$ if your design skills are up to it), and tempted by 
         WILL GRAINGER's http://www.geekstyle.co.uk/images/trust.gif 
         (some say that ASCII art never went out of style), and STEFAN 
         MARIANSKI's unofficial sequel to Lloyd Wood's "++ungood;", the 
         HTML close tag http://www.geekstyle.co.uk/images/uncool.gif - 
         handily signifying just how "uncool" you're prepared to be. In 
         text-only terms, MIKE REED proposed the pithy "E&OE", going on 
         to explain that it stands for "Errors and Omissions Excepted" 
         - in other words, "if something's not right, you're not to 
         blame" - while DR JOHN A KING is tickled by an idea along the 
         lines of "#find arse/ error: arse not found/ #where elbow/ 
         Error: no such file/ #diff arse elbow/ ans = 0" but, at the 
         moment, "can't quite make it funny in any one shell". NTKMart 
         - just because the code is syntactically correct doesn't make 
         the jokes any easier to explain... of course, this year's real 
         action has been in the neverending contest to "Buy One, 
         Subvert The Mass Media, Get One Free", with impressive product 
         placement in outlets as varied as a story on BBC London News 
         about how YOZ GRAHAME did all his socialising online; a full-
         blown fashion spread in the current issue of PC EXTREME (one 
         of the few national computing titles to feature a PayPal tip 
         jar/buy-the-writers-a-beer-fund); plus reader LOZ lurking in 
         the audience for a recent edition of BBC's "Question Time" - 
         full evidence at http://www.geekstyle.co.uk/images/ . Sadly, 
         you don't win a free shirt just for spotting one in the media, 
         to the likely disappointment of FRED EASEY, one of several 
         readers to note that Marie Claire's famed reputation for hard-
         hitting investigative journalism had failed to prepare them 
         for the sight of NTK's own Danny O'Brien wearing an "Elite" 
         shirt in last month's issue of the popular women's magazine... 
         

                               >> 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
                     "still keeping an eye on Dave Winer"
                     http://www.msnbc.com/news/878445.asp        

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