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        "Lewis said [VeriSign] needs to make money from new services 
         such as Site Finder, or it will not be able to protect the 
         Net's critical infrastructure. He cited a hacker's attack on 
         the domain name system last year, in which VeriSign servers 
         remained relatively unscathed - largely because of the 
         'substantial amount of capital we've had to invest,' he said."
                         http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5087139.html 
            ...Nice internet you've got here. Be a shame if something 
                                                  "happened" to it...


                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                             no cause to enthuse

         Well, we're into those last precious days of freedom before
         the EUCD gets implemented in the UK. The final
         implementation, signed off by Parliament last Friday (yes,
         we missed it too), now makes time-shifting TV shows only
         legal "for domestic use", bans practically anything else,
         and puts the DMCA-like clampers on breaking copyright
         protection. Except, that is, for "the purposes of research
         into cryptography" - which just goes to show that even the
         government is scared of Ross Anderson's wrath. Even then,
         you're doomed if you affect "prejudicially the rights of the
         copyright owner". Clearing out the cupboards, then, here's
         that code we mentioned last week that shows the weakness of
         Network Solution's whois captcha tech. And if they can't
         protect the public's domain database, can we really trust
         them with its misspellings?
         http://www.patent.gov.uk/copy/notices/2003/copy_direct3.htm
                                    - worse to tell you on this topic
         http://www.ntk.net/2003/10/10/whoisnt.tar.gz
                               - last hurrahs not indicative of guilt
         http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33322.html
         - it's the shift key! press the SHIFT K-          NO CARRIER

         Highlight of this week's LONDON LINUX EXPO (well, apart from 
         the guy who'd signed in as something like "IP enforcement 
         officer, SCO") - all the dedicated Linux evangelists who'd got 
         as far as persuading their mums to use Mozilla, only to find 
         them subsequently thrown out of respectable high-street store 
         sites like Marks and Spencer ("optimised for use with the most 
         popular browsers - IE5, Netscape 6.1, AOL browser version 5.0 
         and above"). Even less excusable - as it's directly funded by 
         your taxes - is this month's new contender for a Usability 
         Makeover: the Department for Work and Pensions JOBCENTRE PLUS, 
         whose Jobsearch feature is variously described by Yosser 
         Hughes-like NTK readers as "a horrible attempt to reinvent the 
         wheel" and "breaking Moz, Firebird, perhaps Opera too?". 
         Though unemployed layabout ASHLEY POMEROY spoiled it somewhat 
         by going on to point out that "The Welsh language version is 
         amusing because Welsh looks like Klingon, and the thought of 
         unemployed Klingons working behing the counter at Tesco makes 
         me smile, and I shall put this to the people in Tesco next 
         time I go there, yes I shall, I shall liken them to Klingons". 
    http://www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/cms.asp?Page=/Home/Customers/SearchforaJob
             - vs http://www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/cms.asp?Page=/Welsh
         http://www.marksandspencer.com/disallowed.html
                 - do the shops still not accept credit cards either?
         http://www.reverendrat.com/
            - apparently he does something similar "at all the shows"

         Though to be honest, our current favourite Webscraper has to be
         PUBLIC WHIP, which is what happens when you slam Hansard and
         MATLAB together very hard. Find out the latest votes, how your
         MP voted, their attendance record, watch for backbench
         rebellions, and then see them all crammed into little
         behavioural clusters via a compact java applet. Apart from the
         cheap thrill for us of recommending some obsessive-compulsive
         hack-the-democracy site that hasn't just been slapped up by our
         mates, it should also prove invaluable for those who don't want
         to see another EUCD sneak by without a whisper of complaint.
         Now all it needs is other people to scrape it for their own
         single-issue obsessed sites. Power to the meta-meta-people!
         http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/
                  - information wants to be plotted in colour doodads
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1427869,00.html
                     - if you tolerate this: your pizza could be next


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         (also a popular Google goof) "And about time too - she's 
         hideous!": http://www.ntk.net/2003/10/10/dohbeaut.gif vs 
         http://www.google.com/search?q=beatification+beautification 
         ... not the best week for Reebok to be running its WHODUNIT? 
         campaign: http://www.b3ta.com/board/2118710 ... not what footy 
         needs right now: http://www.ntk.net/2003/10/10/dohpubic.gif 
         ... more placeholder hilarity: http://www.proscript.co.uk/ ... 
         crack http://www.encrypta.com/company.htm 's secret message 
         (bottom of page)... help ROBIN COOK choose his favourite 
         integers: http://www.robincook.org.uk/cook/rc_pollstn.asp ... 
         2x missing millions: http://www.ntk.net/2003/10/10/doh15v1.gif 
         vs http://www.ntk.net/2003/10/10/doh15v2.gif ... excessive 
         emphasising (from "Important" on) implies it's all YOUR fault: 
         http://www.easyjet4insurance.com/brand/easyjet/products.htm 
         ... hit "Cancel" to teach child of their insignificance in 
         wider scheme of things: http://www.toweroflondontour.com/kids/ 
         ... http://forum.edge-online.com/ flaunts insider credentials 
         ... http://www.joinarnold.com/en/agenda/arnoldsviews.php#hh1 - 
         VY DIDDEN YOU LISTEN DER FIRST TIME?... 


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

         Now located - without a hint of irony - in one of the old SGI 
         buildings on Shoreline Blvd, the Mountain View Computer 
         History Museum hosts its sixth VINTAGE COMPUTER FESTIVAL AND 
         BOOK SALE this weekend (9.30am-6pm, Sat & Sun 2003-10-11 & 12, 
         corner of Highway 101 and Shoreline, California 94043, $5). 
         Highlights include "operating Xerox Altos and D* machines", a 
         "retro-code videogame programming challenge" (Atari 800, C64, 
         and Apple 2), plus "over 15" computer history lectures, though 
         the scariest thing we saw when we were there was the (non-
         functioning) Cray 2 cooled by fluorinert, a liquid also used 
         as an artificial substitute for human blood plasma. Somewhat 
         closer to home, NTK reader/ former PC games reviewer MIL 
         MILLINGTON will be launching his followup to "Things My 
         Girlfriend And I Have Argued About", neurological rom-com 
         novel A CERTAIN CHEMISTRY at his local Wolverhampton branch of 
         Waterstones (7pm, Mon 2003-10-10, 13-15 Victoria Street, 
         Wolverhampton, UKP3, "for Tickets, phone: 01902 427219") - a 
         gesture of defiance to all those modern multimedia artists who 
         just waltz into a month-long residency at the ICA without 
         working their way up through the Northern working men's 
         galleries and book readings like you had to in the old days. 
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/stores/static/-/waterstones/events/
             - introduced/ interrupted by NTK's very own "Dave Green"
         http://www.richardherring.com/gigs/
                      - Rich Herring also gets his book out, from Tue
         http://www.computerhistory.org/events/vcf6/
           - hey, http://www.vintage.org/2003/main/ seemed to be down
         http://www.fipr.org/sfs7.html
           - another Scrambling for Safety event in a couple of weeks


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         Although YAML's Perlish originators might choke on the idea,
         this standard looks to be the Python of markup. Designed to
         be human-readable and human-editable, it eschews all those
         pointy bracketed, no whitespace, entity-escaping of those
         weird SGML mongrels. Instead, it's all indents and
         linebreaks - perfect for configuration files and data-
         dumping. There are now YAML writers and parsers for Perl, 
         Python, Java, Ruby and C. And it's about as rebellious as 
         markups get.
         http://www.yaml.org/
                                       - YAML ain't a Markup Language
         http://whytheluckystiff.net/syck/
                                         - but syck is, in fact, syck


                                >> MEMEPOOL <<
                contains a source of http://snackspot.org/

         Speccy emulator - for ZX81: http://www.chuntey.com/SP81/ ... 
         thanks, that ought to do it: http://www.blaine-appeal.co.uk/ 
         ... Mmm, cookie - accepted!: http://www.jibble.org/cookies.php 
         - vs "I used the iterator once [...] and it [doesn't] seem to 
         work": http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?ExternalIterator ... time to 
         start the petition for "Star Wars kid" as the next "Dr Who": 
         http://www.livejournal.com/users/internetsdairy/24125.html ... 
         technicolor phrenology ... this week's Amazon insomnia-cure: 
         http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/9992154705/ ... 
         this week's WWW insomnia-cure: www.britishparking.co.uk/ ... 
         http://www.montalk.net/potter.html : "Harry Potter - An 
         Introduction Into 4th Density?" - apparently from the site 
         that brought you "TELETUBBIES: Nazi Hybrid Greys in Disguise": 
         http://www.angelfire.com/mt/montalk/teletubbies.html ... fresh 
         from Museum of Techno - surely can't be Paul Oakenfold, can 
         it?: http://www.ntk.net/2003/10/10/superstarsremix.mp3 (4 meg 
         MP3, long breakdown section believed to be space for Madonna's 
         "Vogue"-style rap: "Daley Thompson, and Geoff Capes/ Officials 
         with their measuring tapes")...
         

                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> worried that bad guys might start to recognise him from 
         off the telly, MACINTYRE UK UNDERCOVER (9pm, Fri, C5) sends 
         Donal's similar-looking brother into residential care homes - 
         not to be confused with would-be "Colditz" remake P.O.W. (9pm, 
         Fri, ITV)... GRUMPY OLD MEN (9.50pm, Fri, BBC2) appears to be 
         a celebrity talking heads version of "Room 101" featuring Bob 
         Geldof, John Peel, Will Self etc, who should ideally conclude 
         the show by following the example of the original fuel-tax 
         protestors in CONVOY (12.15am, Fri, BBC1)... as the "American" 
         sequence of films - "Psycho", "Beauty", "Pie", "Gigolo", 
         "Graffiti", "Werewolf In London" - takes an even more violent 
         turn in Ed Norton's AMERICAN HISTORY X (10.55pm, Sat, C4)... 
         FIGHTBOX (7.30pm, Mon-Fri, BBC3) is "the new Robot Wars", from 
         EC1-based web design house Bomb.co.uk... fans of adolescent 
         inanity are well-catered to by the likes of "too hot for 
         school's programmes" TEEN BIG BROTHER: THE EXPERIMENT (10pm, 
         Mon-Fri, C4), Adam Sandler golfing goof-off HAPPY GILMORE 
         (11.25pm, Mon, ITV), plus feature-length workplace health and 
         safety violation COYOTE UGLY (9pm, Wed, ITV)... while both 
         Marisa "Freddy Got Fingered" Coughlan memetic slasher GOSSIP 
         (11.10pm, Mon, C4) and Brittany Murphy virgin-murderer CHERRY 
         FALLS (11.15pm, Wed, BBC1) came out the very same week in the 
         UK: http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02000-08-25&l=198#l ... the 
         "Wife Swap" format goes intriguingly off the rails in WHEN 
         MICHAEL PORTILLO BECAME A SINGLE MUM (9pm, Wed, BBC2) - while 
         the single mum in question is off being MP for Kensington and 
         Chelsea?... the author of Quatermass is profiled in THE KNEALE 
         TAPES (9.30pm, Wed, BBC4), followed by psychometric sci-fi THE 
         STONE TAPE (10.10pm, Wed, BBC4)... though only Londoners get 
         to see RACE AROUND THE UNDERGOUND (7.30pm, Thu, ITV), an 
         attempt at the tube-traversing challenge documented, in vivid 
         detail, by that guy who does the unofficial Fox's biscuits fan 
         page: http://www.geofftech.co.uk/tubechallenge/ ... 
         
         FILM>> good enough for you to forgive both the smaller breasts 
         in "Knick Knack" http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/26116 *and* a 
         mildly annoying performance from Ellen DeGeneres, it's FINDING 
         NEMO ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/findingnemo.htm : 
         series of posterior references and jokes/comments by young 
         adolescents; adolescent defiance; suggestion of flatulence)... 
         otherwise a shamefully limited release for low-budget social-
         mobility-myth braces-and-glasses junior geek docu SPELLBOUND 
         ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : contains one use of mild language) 
         ... in contrast with relatively unreconstructed 1980s-style 
         necrotising fasciitis cheapo backwoods horror CABIN FEVER 
         ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Cabin+Fever+(2003) : 
         Cerina Vincent the always nude girl from Not Another Teen 
         Movie, does it again; after, she shaves her legs with 
         interesting results, then is literally torn apart by this 
         crazy German Shepherd mix)... 
                  

                               >> 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
             "Originated the idea for using figlet" - for anything!
                       http://www.b3ta.com/board/2072396

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