Need To Know 2003-08-08

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"The earliest bloggers have been at it for two years now..." - net may have "silly season", muses BILL THOMPSON, self-referentially http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3134629.stm ...earliest where? The International Space Station? Iraq? >> HARD NEWS << excess BTUs All hail the great, the good and the clueless. Last months's report from the Broadband Stakeholder Group concluded that what was *really* impeding broadband wasn't BT's slackness at connecting up rural areas, but - get this! - a lack of micropayments and DRM. Evidence? Not just the testimony of the committee's "17 year-old ... mate Dan" who is depressed that he can't pay for "cool digital stuff", like "Dr.M's" "Where's da money?" track, we hope. Oddly, if you read past the report's bizarre introduction, all the right people and points are quoted (including Ross "DRM will blind our children" Anderson). It's merely the conclusions that are pasted in from another planet. Particularly the idea that the best place to try out DRM would be in the public sector. Oh yeah, wouldn't want that publicly-funded intellectual property falling into the wrong hands, would we? What's scarier is how seriously such sentiments are taken: witness the National Gallery being quizzed this week on exactly why their digitisation project isn't being DRMed up the whizzer. Hello? Unless we're still trying to incentivise Vincent van Gogh with royalty cheques, whose "digital rights" are we managing here? And in whose interest is it to keep these already publicly-owned works from being spread far and wide? http://www.broadbanduk.org/reports/DRM_report.pdf - read it and weep http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994030 - "If a file is hacked or a high-quality print scanned and copied, the gallery will be unable to prove the source." OH NO! A depressingly hefty mailbag for our request for sites that could do with a little guerilla webscaping "improvement". We sense great pain. We're determined to see the brighter side of all this, however: and CHRIS LONG sent the first glimmer of hope with his repurposing of Channel Four's cinema information site, which appears to put every fragment of data you need to know about a film - the cinema it's at, the time it's on, its name - on separate webpages. Of course, writing a scraper does put you somewhat at the mercy of the original site, and the (original) cinema finder does seem a little flakey at the moment. But at least Chris is trying to help. And there's worse - far worse - to come. Start your side-bets now on what the most (un)popular suggested sites have been - or mail us with any new Web horrors you've felt crawling over your face recently, and just how you'd like to see them "fixed". http://www.oview.co.uk/ - admittedly, you still have to click once http://www.channel4.co.uk/film/search/cinema/cinema_search.jsp - mr no results is showing everywhere Last fortnight's clarification of our Japlish slogan contest appears to have worked wonders, though we did receive a few more retranslations of our existing catchphrases - JONATHAN MATTHEWS' "With the fact that it is on the register in the point official duties thread together", BRUCE LOKEINSKY's "*The* weak resale caustic high-tack udpate, fool you! OK?". Lack of space unfortunately precludes a full explanation of SHEZ's intriguingly phonetic "Conpuu tama neon rubbery you shun", but many of the other runners-up were (relatively) more self-explanatory, ranging from PAUL HOFFMAN's "We like listing on Fridays!", GARETH ROBINSON's "No, lets come assist liquid, helper. What then?", and GRAHAM DUNN's "Pleasure to be deceived! For your enjoyable Newsletter life". CHARLIE ULLMAN touched on some of the poignancy we were hoping for with his "Technical Friday reading alone", JILL PHYTHIAN thought that "Seven day elegant and can dancing with winning news shirt of mens" summed up "everything she ever believed" about NTK, and LLOYD WOOD was inadvertently filed as a competition entry for pointing out the haiku-esque structure of an online chat with International Star Trek Guru quizmaster Terry Shuttleworth, in lines like "In general yes/ the universe is too big/ for use [sic] to be all alone". And taking the final runners-up no- prize was the similarly unwitting suggestion from ALEC MUFFET to check out the meta-tag-style spamdexing on ringtone sites nowadays, such as the breathily conspiratorial: "Do you find lots of lg cell phone and ericcson phone accessories on the television or free logos for nokia and nokia 3210 australia on cable TV, I know I do, all the time nokia cat". http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/chat/terry.html - actual winners announced in a week or two http://www.ringtones-4-all-phones.co.uk/vodafonede_r4989_409.htm - thought "melissa sagemiller" would set off all the filters again >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious Beckham identified as "Real Player", al-Qaeda dangerously keen on home taping: http://www.ntk.net/2003/08/08/dohbec.gif ... tempted to break "largest death toll from chemical weapons" at the same time?: http://www.ntk.net/2003/08/08/dohguin.gif ... and presumably that must be steam coming off their feet there: http://www.ntk.net/2003/08/08/doh98.gif ... double-URLtendres: http://simonkidgitsclub.com/ , http://hunkinsexperiments.com/ , http://www.professional-ho.co.nz/ ... "things that are new and quirky will be successful" - analyst's super-specific prediction: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3123993.stm ... inappropriate print ad: http://thegareth.net/home/photos/random/inappropriate_advert_of_the_week ... usually boots faster than this: http://www.mysymbian.com/ ... London Flash mob "staged": http://www.blackbeltjones.com/work/ >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful We can't remember if next Thursday's ARTISTS AGAINST SUCCESS RECORD LABEL PARTY (from 8pm, Thu 2003-08-14, The Windmill, Brixton, SW2, UKP3 may include "Goody Bag") is the show that MJ HIBBETT was supposed to be learning Eminem's "Stan" for, though no doubt the other performers - including the "Joy Division meets Mario Bros electro" of JOHNNY DOMINO - will graciously decline your shouted requests for "Hey Hey 16K", "Programming Is A Poetry For Our Time", or any of Hibbett's slightly less geeky tunes for that matter. In fact, why not make it a week of offbeat pop by catching the highlights of last month's "Placard London" headphone-only electronica weirdness at Wednesday's DORKBOT (7pm, Wed 2003-08-13, Limehouse Town Hall, London E14, free), or indeed the laid- back jazz and hip-hop of INNOCENT SMOOTHIES' FRUITSTOCK (12pm to 9pm, Sat & Sun 2003-08-09/10, Camden corner of Regents Park, London, free) - while of course queuing for the Pimms, Ben & Jerry's and Ty Nant spring water essential to recreating that grass-roots Woodstock atmosphere. http://www.windmillbrixton.co.uk/Months/2003August.html#Thursday - vs http://mjhibbett.tripod.com/sampler/programming.htm http://dorkbot.org/dorkbotlondon/ - "gabba techno, but played live with a home-made feel" http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/fruitstock/details.html - caution: self-consciously cute corporate site http://www.edinburghnews.com/capitalcity.cfm?id=842902003 - Gary Le Strange "best Fringe debut" since Steve Coogan >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering SLITHY is "a library for creating animated presentations using Python and OpenGL". Actually, it's a bit more than that: it's a framework for creating little bits of drawing and animation code objects that can dance along to a time-line on a canvas, and have enough introspection to be generally treated by code-generating proggies. In other words, to write a presentation, you hand write code for all your objects you need (or pull some out from the toolkit provided), and then stick them together in a simple Python script. Or - better - write that code that *generates* the code that runs your presentation. To put it another way, if the marketing types can waste hours building a Powerpoint presentation, you can certainly deserve to spend *months* creating the perfect meta-presentation. Code for everything is shockingly clean; the documentation is, literally, a philosophical thesis, and the guys at SIGGRAPH reportedly loved it. Freak out your CEO by trapping his entire business logic in a little bouncing 3D cube on slide 4 today. http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/dougz/slithy/ - ssss >> MEMEPOOL << contains a source of http://snackspot.org/ inevitably: http://www.fixyourmp.com/ ... "At MINAS TIRITH, turn LEFT toward MINAS MORGUL": http://www.ooblick.com/text/tomordor/ ... nice idea, good answer to "how are you going to make money": http://www.mailinator.com/mailinator/Faq.do ... after the glow of http://www.themarriage.co.uk/ comes http://www.thedivorce.co.uk/ ... something candled this way comes: wish Ray Bradbury happy birthday at https://planetary.org/bradbury/ ... www.respectcopyrights.org vs www.disrespectcopyrights.org ... top-ten net vulnerabilities - LIVE!: http://www.qualys.com/security/ ... investigators ask: could we have started killing off the Beatles any earlier? http://www.anycities.com/user/uberkinder/ ... before they rise to kill STEVE JOBS? http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,88439,00.html#2 ... ah, but who is *really* behind http://www.google-watch-watch.org/ ? >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> you wait all year for some terrestrial appearances from MTV uber-prankster Tom Green, and then two come along at once: hopefully a few Glenn Humplik-humiliating highlights in chat format THE BEST OF THE NEW TOM GREEN SHOW (11.45pm, Fri, C4); plus a cameo in MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE (6.45pm, Thu, BBC2)... SEX AND THE CITY (10pm, Fri, C4) briefly explores the erotic possibilities of the TiVo... and it's psychological horror almost every other evening, in the form of JACOB'S LADDER (11.50pm, Fri, BBC1), STIR OF ECHOES (10.15pm, Sun, BBC1) and INSTINCT (9pm, Wed, ITV) - aka "Gorillas In The Mist" meets "Silence Of The Lambs"... THE BEACH (9pm, Sat, BBC1) isn't so bad until it goes all "Apocalypse Now"... Michelle "Dawson's Creek" Williams ponders a different kind of adolescent trauma in HALLOWEEN H20 (10.55pm, Sat, BBC1)... and C4 gives up the weekend ratings battle with WITNESS: GOD BLESS IBIZA (8.15pm, Sat, C4) plus Dermot O'Leary taking a madcap look at papal infallibility in SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE CATHOLIC (7.30pm, Sun, C4)... "too much reality" TV is examined in both ED TV (9pm, Sat, C4) and THE TRUMAN SHOW (10.15pm, Wed, BBC3)... preceded by MAN TRAP - STRAW DOGS: THE FINAL CUT (11.20pm, Sat, C4), controversial 1970s mathematician's revenge STRAW DOGS (11.15pm, Sun, C4) is championed by - you've guessed it, Mark Kermode... BLACK HAWK DOWN: THE TRUE STORY (8pm, Tue, C5) appears to be the third History Channel reversioning of the source material for its two "Battle Stations" profiles of the Black Hawk helicopter shown on C4 in March and June of this year... while yet another role-reversal life-swap contrivance MASTERS AND SERVANTS (9pm, Thu, C4) will nonetheless hopefully feature the eponymous Depeche Mode track as its theme tune... FILM>> over-the-top performances from Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush almost salvage overlong Disney theme-park-ride adaptation THE PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL ( http://www.ahafilm.info/movies/moviereviews.phtml?fid=7519 : A fish biologist accompanied the crabs to the set. He released 6 Nigerian Moon Crabs on the sand and the fake skeleton and stood just off camera [...] They were retrieved when the scene was over and brought back home)... it's "Freddy Vs Jason" next week, Paul "Shopping" Anderson is making "Alien Vs Predator" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0370263/board/flat/2453059 , but it's the ultimate faceoff of Rugrats Vs The Wild Thornberrys providing this summer holiday's "mild peril" in RUGRATS GO WILD ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2003/rugrats_go_wild.html : We briefly see Charlotte (an adult) in her non-sexy, non- revealing underwear)... while "Somebody sensitive and tough/ Somebody there when the going gets rough/ [...] Somebody cool but real tender too/ Somebody, baby, just like [Colin Firth]" was Christina Aguilera's original definition of "You English are so uptight!" Anglo-American kids comedy WHAT A GIRL WANTS ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/whatagirlwants.htm : lashout at mother; punk dress, repeatedly; lack of chemistry and energy in the kissing scene. Thankfully)... PHEAR, BEER, AND OTHER PEOPLE'S ROOT PASSWORDS #2 with our "My second DEFCON" correspondent, "Crash Override", Las Vegas>> "popular adjunct to the BlackHat briefings" might not be quite such an accurate description any more, as BlackHat speakers were reportedly asked not to present at DefCon. Not that this seemed to affect the talks' popularity: fire marshals decided that each of the three presentation rooms could only hold as many attendees as there was available seating. With a con of roughly 4500, and seating in all three streams of talks for only about 1900, that's lot of disappointed haxx0rs. But the Defcon staff explained the situation patiently and repeatedly, "flushing" the crowd out of the room at the end of each talk so the maximum number of people could see something. The video feed to the bar gave up after a day or so, but all the talks were on "DefCon TV" throughout the hotel so you could catch most of what you wanted to... the talks I did see were well worth the queuing: CAT OKITA on peer-to-peer reputation software that might solve the authenticity problem on security mailing lists http://www.geekness.net/tools/aura/ ; DNSCon's own JONATHAN WIGNALL summarising the history and future of network worms and defences against them; and RYAN LACKEY overcoming myriad technical problems to present a post-mortem on HavenCo http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5059676.html - life imitates http://www.pirateutopia.org/macbeth/about.htm ? Still, missing a few talks was a bug and a feature - I met a lot more people and made a lot more friends than last year; not being one of the hordes huddled over a laptop also seemed to help... the HACKER JEOPARDY contest was even more chaotic than last year: on the Friday night "supporting babe" BEER BETTY was replaced by a selection of haxx0r girls - alleged "pornstars of the hacker scene" - who would strip and duct tape audience members when necessary. Things got better, or worse, on the Saturday, with the third qualifier and final taking a marathon four hours to complete. For the qualifier the OSI category caused uproar amongst the audience, "friend of NTK" DAN KAMINSKY arguing with compere WINN SCHWARTAU about quite where TCP sits on stage. The final ended, appropriately, in a complete farce, with the "Son of Portmath" question suffering a typo between SNMP and SMTP... there were plenty of other event highlights - the Scavenger Hunt team that scored points by bringing a cow's head to the organisers' table, the runaway LockPicking contest winner who'd only been practising for five months, playing "six degrees of David Litchfield" with the UK security enthusiasts, the orgy in the pool, the rare times KEVIN MITNICK wasn't being asked for an autograph, and PETE SHIPLEY briefly seen hanging around at the back of talks. Of course, with the contract with the Alexis Park Hotel expiring this year, DefCon 0B was, of course, the last one ever. Well organised, well attended, very friendly - I'm looking forward to next year's "last ever" DefCon already... >> 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 "we said snackspot.org *above* 'Sideburns' and 'The Cure'" http://www.snackspot.org/images/qmag.jpg 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.ntkmart.com/ (K) 2003 Special Projects. Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/ Full license at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0 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. 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