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        "Burrell has also dismissed claims that Diana was pregnant 
         when she died or that she had taken cocaine. 'Her body was an 
         absolute temple, she would not put anything into her
         body that was foreign' he said..."
                     - http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030522/140/e0lsb.html
           ...so that covers the "pregnancy" rumours - what about the 
                                                     "taking cocaine"?


                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                                an Elven ruse

         Best new coinage comes from the dependably pipe-smoking
         analysts of ukcrypto, who this week have been discussing
         what they call the "little elves" problem. This is a
         surveillance issue, noted by John Grisham, that no matter
         how much data you collect on the people, eventually you need
         a load of "little elves in booths" to plough through it all.
         Currently negotiating with ISPs about how government elves
         will get hold of the magic pixie traffic data dust is BOB
         LACK, the Home Office's consultant on the Data Retention
         Consultation paper (responses due by June 3rd, please show
         working). He's certainly had some experience with the tiny
         creatures of imagination. As PRIVACY INTERNATIONAL
         summarised this week, his campaign to get magic pixie facial
         recognition into the Newham CCTV network has, at current
         media estimates, led to... well, probably no arrests at
         all. Or at least, none that they're reporting.
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2003-May/025858.html
                                               - "cabbages and kings"
http://www.privacyinternational.org/countries/uk/surveillance/lack-faq.html
                                                        - Lack attack

         Still, technology marches on. If you ask us, the real future
         is in *massively parallel peer-to-peer* elves. Take FLEET
         ONLINE. This Dutch business-oriented service was introduced
         a month ago to the UK. It's a pay-as-you-go site that lets
         companies instantly locate their employees' mobile phones,
         to a granularity of the nearest cell (ie 50m in urban
         areas). Positioning costs 25p a shot. Here's the real
         gimmick, though: you can sign up yourself, and then add any
         mobile phone you'd like to be geolocated. Oh sure, your
         victim will get an initial "Do you want to be tracked?"
         opt-in message, and then another in two weeks. But think of
         all the phones you can get physical access to long enough to
         say yes to that original text. Friends! Spouses! Potential
         stalking fodder! And what you could do in two weeks.
         Supposing you're a burgling elf: you could nick that phone,
         sign it up, give it back, find out where they live via the
         geolocator. And then *find out when they're out*! It's a
         RISKS Digest all of its own!
         http://www.fleetonline.net/
              - that'll give the geourl people something to play with

         We don't normally get involved in local politics, but were 
         nonetheless intrigued to see factions associated with computer 
         security club LONDON 2600 so strenuously protesting the 
         capital's 2012 Olympics bid. And sure, they make some 
         interesting points about the lack of public consultation, the 
         potential disruption to everyday life, and the fact that, 
         let's face it, all sport is rubbish. However, there's another 
         objection, closer to the heart of any metropolitan haxx0r, 
         which they've inexplicably failed to mention so far: that the 
         planned location of the Olympic stadium - around the disused 
         Hackney Wick dog track - is currently one of the UK's finest 
         Mad-Max-style "bartertown" weekly marketplaces for (among more 
         traditional fare) pirate DVDs, distressed PC hardware and 
         Eastern European pr0n.
     http://www.mayor-of-london.co.uk/cgi-bin/no-london-olympics-2012.pl
         - not too keen on that *disastrous* Congestion Charge either
         http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=537272&y=184904
                                     - every Sunday morning, from 6am


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         "Mobile number portability could be available in Ireland from 
         mid 20002:" http://www.onbusiness.ie/2001/0515/odtr.html - 
         can't be too soon for always-ahead-of-his-time Michael Nyman: 
       http://www.bfi.org.uk/videocat/index.php/page/item_view/code/317
         ... end-of-the-first-century Roman forums very like those of 
         today: http://www.roman-empire.net/wwwboard/wwwboard5.html ... 
         for all those classical scholars who sent us www.lipsum.com/ : 
       http://www.post-gazette.com/images2/20030513schooldistrictsmap.gif
         ... odd BBC stats: http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/23/dohtext.gif - 
         maybe they should stick with vague comparisons to "the speed 
         of e-mail": http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/23/dohbowl.gif ... 
         http://www.mfigroup.co.uk/ "place great importance on the need 
         to communicate effectivley"... David Icke, fnords and careless 
         search-and-replace - together at last! (search for "yellow"):
     http://www.davidicke.net/symbolism/secretsocieties/july2002/symbols.html
         ... CMS made *too* fricking easy: http://www.phpgs.com/news.php
         ... another "security through 'please go away' messages" page: 
         http://www.amberleymarine.co.uk/graphics.htm ... 


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

         Next Fri (2003-05-30) is the closing date for the NETMEDIA 
         EUROPEAN ONLINE JOURNALISM AWARDS (this year relocated to 
         Barcelona) and THE NEW STATESMAN NEW MEDIA AWARDS 2003 (still 
         sponsored by ID card advocates SchlumbergerSema). But if 
         you're looking for strange bedfellows (in every sense of the 
         phrase), you need go no further than next weekend's DOWNLOAD 
         FESTIVAL (Sat & Sun, 2003-05-30/06-01, Donington Park, from 
         UKP39.50 per day). It's a rebel-rousing monsters-of-rock 
         spectacular headlined by IRON MAIDEN and brought to you by 
         CLEAR CHANNEL, a company familiar to dedicated media-watchers 
         for owning an alarming number of US radio stations and also 
         sponsoring many of their pro-war rallies. On the plus side, 
         however, their commitment to free speech does include backing 
         this year's UK dates for inadvertent Bush-antagonists THE 
         DIXIE CHICKS, whom the Clear Channel Live site painstakingly 
         describes as "brash", "irreverent", and "among the foremost 
         and most provocative ambassadors country music has today". 
         http://www.downloadfestival.co.uk/
                               - vs http://www.clearchannelsucks.org/
         http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/2003/04/000645.html
       - vs http://www.cclive.co.uk/events/details.asp?wid=8&rid=2278
         http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/nma/nma2003home.htm
               - vs http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02003-02-07&l=19#l
         http://www.net-media.co.uk/awards/
         - no prize for "Best Google-powered Armchair Investigation"?

         THE FREENETWORKS CONFERENCE in Las Vegas on June 7th-8th
         plans to be a giant association point of the wifi clans,
         with Consume, BAWUG, NoCat, Seattle Wireless and others
         comparing notes, etherpegging one another screenshots of one
         another etherpegging one another, microwaving each others'
         hardware and trying not to *all* wear their "Criminal
         Anarchist Parasite" T-shirts at the same time. $250 gets you
         entry if you can afford to wing it to Vegas. Mail us at
         vegasbabyvegas@spesh.com if you are planning to do so, and
         we'll see if we can't whistle up an NTK BOF For Poor Lonely
         And Suddenly Fantastically Drunk Brits of some kind.
         http://con.freenetworks.org/
- Death to the telcos! But first, a bit more work on this PHP node map


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         Hard to believe that BITTORRENT, the share-as-you-go
         adhoc-kamai de jour is over a year old. In the months of
         semi-obscurity, its author Bram Cohen spent much of his time
         twiddling the algorithm to scale better, and stripping out
         much of the interface to make it easier to use. So,
         naturally, the third-party BT clients that have sprung up in
         his wake concern themselves with adding tons more interface,
         much of which is concerned with tweaking the algorithm to
         get worse performance. Still, an easier way of creating a
         .torrent file, or setting up a tracker, was probably needed.
         kRypt appears to have two of the bases covered: his
         MAKETORRENT program lets you craft a torrent file that
         points to all the most popular trackers, and BURST!, his new
         client, lets obsessive downloaders juggle endless stats and
         manage multiple torrent downloads. Both are very Windowsy,
         leaving others toying with the far more Unixy SNARK, which
         wraps up a torrent creator with a built-in tracker to give
         you one-line distribution. But only for those non-infringing
         files, kids!
         http://www.dessent.net/btfaq/
                                           - BitTorrent in a NutShell
         http://krypt.dyndns.org:81/torrent/
                                 - Burst! More experimental even than
         http://ei.kefro.st/projects/btclient/
                                            - the experimental client
         http://www.klomp.org/snark/
                  - the co-option of the co-evolution of co-operation


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

         concrete barrier should deter "the casual bomber", reassures 
         BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/2931044.stm ... experts divided: 
     http://links.daqron.com/atkinsgood vs http://links.daqron.com/atkinsbad 
         ... ultimate indignity - headless zombie rabbit gets parking 
         ticket only a day later: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3047267.stm ,
         http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/3051447.stm ... still think someone 
         should remake "The Fast And The Furious" for the overclocking 
         scene: http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/showthread.php?threadid=16216 
         ... the new Japlish: http://www.curtisfong.org/fobonics/ ... 
         maybe they ought to mention it's also "derogatory slang for 
         a black person"?: http://www.ultimatesambo.com/what.htm ... 
     http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,952541,00.html 
         vs http://www.google.com/search?q=%22tall+iraqi+citizens%22
         ... http://www.casdon.co.uk/product_pgs/prod_521.html vs 
  http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/exchange-glance/Y04Y4809448Y8910618/
         ... http://ratesandavailability.com/10229343.htm room features 
         "complimentary goldfish" - to appeal to lucrative visiting 
         Danish artist market: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3040891.stm ...


                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> the perils of a phone-free existence are exhaustively 
         highlighted in CAN YOU LIVE WITHOUT YOUR MOBILE? (8pm, Fri, 
         C4) - for a start, you wouldn't be able to help fund new 
         social surveillance experiments like yet another bloody series 
         of BIG BROTHER (8.30pm, Fri, C4)... remember to shout "Look, a 
         can of Guinness!" as they're examining the IRA camp satellite 
         photos in PATRIOT GAMES (9pm, Sat, C4)... C5 explores ways of 
         augmenting humanity in the original SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN 
         (2.45pm, Sun, C5) and the execrable BABY GENIUSES (6.15pm, 
         Sun, C5)... as C4 takes a more morbid approach with Achille 
         Lauro opera THE DEATH OF KLINGHOFFER (6.55pm, Sun, C4), the 
         special edition of U-boat epic DAS BOOT (1.45am, Sun, C4), 
         plus a new series of SIX FEET UNDER (10pm, Sun, C4)... modern 
         life in all its horrors is unflinchingly portrayed in career 
         makeover show APPLY IMMEDIATELY (9pm, Wed, BBC2), marriage 
         fly-on-the-wall MR AND MRS (9.50pm, Wed, BBC2), freakish 
         homegrown chat format THE MICHAEL ESSANY SHOW (11.45pm, Wed, 
         C4), and erratic but often hilariously uncomfortable "George 
         from Seinfeld" sitcom CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (12midnight, Tue-
         Thu, BBC2)... while "Despite Warnings, Stubborn Mayor *Once 
         Again* Refuses To Cancel Festivities" in Tom Sizemore monster 
         nonsense THE RELIC (10.35pm, Thu, BBC1)... 
         
         FILM>> of course, it's never going to have the impact of its 
         genre-shattering predecessor - this inevitable followup has 
         too many characters, improbable philosophical discussions, 
         over-trailed special f/x and fart gags, so we say wait for the 
         video release of Rob Schneider/ Anna Faris body-swap THE HOT 
         CHICK ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/hotchick-the.htm : 
         homosexually-charged comedy about forced personality exchange; 
         demonstration of urination; young boy pretending to be a girl; 
         goth/witch, repeatedly)... to be honest, we were never that 
         keen on the first "Matrix" movie, so it comes as a relief that 
         they've ditched that tiresome geek-messiah-makeover plot in 
         favour of something more like a big-budget episode of "Tron: 
         the TV series" for wirework-kung-fu yawn THE MATRIX RELOADED 
   ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Matrix+Reloaded+%282003%29%2C+The :
         at the end of the scene, as he lies naked with Trinity, Neo's 
         ass is seen)... or it's Julia Roberts, David "X Files" 
         Duchovny, David "Frasier" Hyde Pierce, and introducing David 
         "Fight Club" Fincher - as himself! - in Steven Soderbergh's 
         perhaps overly-experimental film-within-a-film FULL FRONTAL 
       ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Full+Frontal+%282002%29 :
         there may be something [of Duchovny's] to see here, but true 
         examination won't be possible until this one's on DVD)...

         THE "VICTORIAN AFFECTATION">> which means it's time for our 
         semi-annual round-up of what you, NTK's talented readers, have 
         been busy writing. Iain Aitch provides a comprehensive account 
         of "what he did in his holidays" - making crop circles, re-
         enacting WW2 etc - in extreme-daytripping odyssey A FETE WORSE 
         THAN DEATH (Headline, UKP 14.99, http://www.iainaitch.com/ ) 
        http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0755311906/needtoknow0e
         (like you're all going to dash out and buy the hardback) - not 
         quite as funny as Jon Ronson (what is?), but covering slightly 
         more entertaining material than Ronson tends to nowadays. For 
         instance: a dog show where the announcer refers to the pets' 
         owners as their "mummies"... there's (slightly) more bloodshed 
         in James "Dragonmeet" Wallis' harrowing (and apparently semi-
         autobiographical) Warhammer novelisation MARK OF DAMNATION 
        http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841542792/needtoknow0e
         (Games Workshop, UKP5.99) - with a nice line in anachronistic 
         humour amongst all the "By Sigmar!" exclamations... we haven't 
         got hold of Ben Hammersley's CONTENT SYNDICATION WITH RSS yet 
        http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596003838/needtoknow0e
         (O'Reilly, UKP20.95), following the sad news that they've 
         canned his followup BLOGGING HACKS http://www.bookofblog.com/ 
         - though we did enjoy the same publisher's new edition (but 
         not-for-neophytes) PHP POCKET REFERENCE (O'Reilly, UKP9.95), a 
         compact and comprehensive function lookup list should you, for 
         whatever reason, ever find yourself programming without access 
         to http://www.php.net/ ... in other dead tree news, EFF 
         activist, star of last year's "Extreme Computing" event, and 
         irrepressibly zeitgeisty "Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom" 
         author CORY DOCTOROW http://www.craphound.com/down/ will be 
         out and about in the *United* Kingdom in June, and potentially 
         interested in any "speaking engagements" you may have to offer 
         - mail us at NTK and we'll pass them on... and reader LLOYD 
         WOOD became "Tom Paulin" to our "Late Review", by identifying 
         William Gibson's PATTERN RECOGNITION (Penguin, UKP16.99) 
        http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670875597/needtoknow0e
         as "essentially the same damn book yet again; more Gibson 
         refined redux", though did subsequently muse whether "Star 
         Wars Kid" is the "garage Kubrick" the book describes. Lloyd 
         also proclaimed himself bemused by "all the fuss" over "the 
         production values and effort" that went into Stephen Wolfram's 
         A NEW KIND OF SCIENCE (Wolfram Media, $44.95), pointing out 
         that "the Argos catalogue is almost 1200 pages, in full 
         colour, FREE, and details stuff that actually EXISTS. Bet it 
         racked up more mouse miles in Photoshop too"...


                               >> 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
                             "last man standing?"
                   http://www.brunching.com/debriefing.html

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