Need To Know 2003-11-28

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"Either the meteors encountered the Earth at random, in which case there's no point in worrying. Or they strike at specific intervals, meaning the next one isn't due for another 186 million years - so why worry!" www.tcpalm.com/tcp/the_news_editorials/article/0,1651,TCP_1033_2450153,00.html ...not quite the reassuring conclusion we were hoping for >> HARD NEWS << without any trews This week, it seems, was the week when "real" drive-by hacking over WiFi made it to the mainstream. First, that peculiar report about a Toronto suspect brought in for downloading child pornography while wardriving one-handed the wrong way down a one-way street without his trousers on. Then, *at last*, somebody caught in credit-card liberation via wireless packet-sniffing at a Michigan home improvement store. And, finally, a loosely corroborated (by us, anyway) report of a drive-by spamming in California's neighbourly Santa Cruz. The slashdot securanoiacs, of course, are taking such reports as a demand to shut down all open access points and burn down the homes of anyone sharing their "insecure" connections. Sure, it may inconvenience everyone else - but it's the only language spamming pedophile trouserless wardrivers understand. Maybe the Santa Cruz operation showed a better way: at the cafe where the WiFi spammer was spotted, a veritable hue and cry was started, and the miscreant was run out of town by fellow laptop-wielding cafe-goers, "delighted" to finally encounter a spammer face-to-baseball-bat. Different times, different forms of online security: wardriving your devilry may make you fractionally-harder to locate on the wider Net. But it makes you a damn sight easier to find by your local lynch mob. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/22/1936213 - the darker side of "Accordion City" http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/69/34144.html - on the other hand, maybe some networks should use a bit of security Other acts of cosmic justice and injustice: Debian gets its karmic come-uppance for that "apt-get install r00tkit" April Fool's joke, when a developer lost his password and the security update boxen (among others) is 0wned. The promethean Jamie Zawinski, still chained to his nightclub kiosks, has his AOL tormentors take another swipe at his liver. This time, they re-tool the "Netscape Navigator" trademark for a benighted desktop toolbar. Netscape 7.1 users, outraged, start a petition, confirming them as the OS/2 users of the new millennium. DRM's own Norse Loki-figure, Jon Johannssen, continues his trickery, this time writing an AAC cracker for iTunes users. Media reports, unused to the trickster god, confuse the funny title of his blog, "So sue me", as a lairy invitation to Steve Jobs. ID cards got a mention by the Queen, the only woman who won't have to carry one (unless she gets to use biometric stamps). Objectors might want to bring the proposal up in Tony Blair's new website, The Big Conversation. Big issues need a big conversation, he says. Judging from the site, it seems, they also need a huge bloody jpeg, as well as a rich array of database errors. http://www.livejournal.com/users/jwz/276786.html - AOL have a whole department devoted to tormenting JWZ these days www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2003-November/029981.html - ID cards versus Vernor Vinge http://www.bigconversation.org.uk/ - perhaps you'd like to bring up ID cards with them (again) http://www.puttyworld.com/thinputdeffi.html - fake your own biometrics, the fun way! >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious trying to convince Bush he's actually visiting "Nev-amble-da": http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/28/dohnev.gif ... world's poor fancy a "pasty": http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/28/dohpasty.gif ... Glen's "Rhinestone Cowboy" track more autobiographical than you thought: http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/28/dohglen.gif ... Version 5.1 able to "Rewrite almost all source code and fix bugs": http://www.tucows.com/preview/209285.html ... FALCO http://2lmc.org/spool/ ... Engrish for the "all too curious intruder": http://www.travallo.de/laender/iceland/myvatn.html ... Blunkett aiming "to be the King Herod of Labour Party", taking children into care as "last resort" (if killing them doesn't work?): http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/28/dohherod.gif ... bargain!: http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/28/dohpercent.gif ... 'cos so many of you found something (intentionally?) amusing in the headline: http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/28/dohjacko.gif ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful OK, so the US has Jason Kottke, Wil Wheaton and a load of lunatic libertarians you've never heard of - but who are the "A-list bloggers" of the UK? Tom Coates? That UKbloggers list? Andrew Ian Dodge? Hopefully some means of identifying said individuals will transpire at tomorrow's UK WEBLOGGER'S XMAS PARTY (evening of Sat 2003-11-29, "Downstairs at The Well", London EC1V, free from the looks of things) - where the topics of conversation, we are assured, will certainly not include "Who's won the Guardian Best British Blog Awards", but instead focus on far more important matters, such as the pitfalls of moving from Greymatter to MovableType, or the *zaniest* search engine referrals that everybody's getting nowadays. http://www.funjunkie.co.uk/ - category winner, "Most unwieldy permalink format 2002/2003" http://www.meish.org/archives/20031127_well.php - bit sensitive about that whole "media co-opting" thing http://www.buynothingday.co.uk/ - c'mon, surely buying (non-branded?) alcohol doesn't count http://www.lonix.org.uk/cgi-bin/Lonix?CODE=searchMeeting&CURRENT=YES - Lonix Christmas dinner on Thu in the West End http://www.proboscis.org.uk/urbantapestries/london_trial.html - book now for psychogeographic moblogging WiFi >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering Since his retirement to an underground volcano hideout in Switzerland, briliant ex-Autodesk founder JOHN WALKER is rarely seen. Sunlight reaches him only when he throws his enemies into the lava pits, and releases small but - in the words of his arch-enemy Rudy Rucker - gnarly advice and utilities. The pre-Atkins geek health regiment of choice, the "Hacker Diet" was one. The latest is JAVASCRYPT: a set of Javascript programs designed to do the fiddly work of a home-brewed crypto conversation on whatever machine you need it. Code book generation, AES encryption and (weird) textual steganography are all implemented in downloadable, browser-runnable applets. Being in Javascript, the code is slow, but source-viewable and locally run, which gets it double-points for the trad standards of trustworthiness. For those of you who believe in it, Javascrypt's non-standard formats also make it as securely obscure as you can get. Then again, do you really trust a man *known* to be an evil archcriminal mastermind? http://www.fourmilab.ch/javascrypt/ - ah, but that's just what he wants you to think http://www.4w8w.com/bookrucker4.html - the full story of his evil genius http://www.fourmilab.ch/javascrypt/example.html - and he has the cheek to use it as his book key! >> MEMEPOOL << contains a source of http://snackspot.org/ not so much use for that "Diplomatic Reception Room" nowadays: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/031125/480/wx1 ... at last - an automated-googlefight-mispellings-whack-bot: http://cgi.www.oview.co.uk/cgi-bin/www.oview.co.uk/bad_english.pl ... Amazon's "Perfect Partner" suggests - US version of very same book: http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/28/dohhornby.gif , yet acknowledges overclockers' struggle against "phonies" who just don't understand: http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/28/dohrye.gif ... one of these photo library search results is not (literally) like the others: http://www.ntk.net/2003/11/28/dohhorse.gif ... "Respect" for those smuggling you out of your UCI job after work: http://www.ucijobs.com/ ... obscenities asterisked out of http://www.fanta.dk/ captions include "shit", "fuck", "pepsi"... attention all Irish readers - hey, free Mars Delight!: http://panel.effem.com/surveys/en/mars_delight/ ... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> director/producer Jacques Peretti saves a bit more on the wages bill by filming himself having a "fictionalised conversation" with Vincent Gallo about "48 People (Who Should Be Dead In Hollywood)" in THE ART SHOW (7.30pm, Fri, C4)... still, might make a break from second half of the (CD:UK- inspired?) special hour-long ALL NEW TOP OF THE POPS (7pm, Fri, BBC1)... and WALNUT CREEK (11.30pm, Fri, C5) is an "erotic thriller" sadly not set at the popular distributor of freeware CD-ROMs... the launch sequence from "Thunderbirds" wasn't even shortlisted for C4's 100 GREATEST SEXY MOMENTS (9pm, Sat, C5)... Rachel Weisz helps wreck mildly intriguing Eastern front sniper shootout ENEMY AT THE GATES (10.30pm, Sat, BBC1)... but it's three films for the price of one in subtitled Mexican dog-fight spectacular AMORES PERROS (9pm, Sat, BBC4)... the movie schedules are largely dominated by enhanced superhumans in the form of SOLO (9pm, Sun, C5), UNIVERSAL SOLDIER 2 (9pm, Mon, C5), live action manga CRYING FREEMAN (10.05pm, Thu, C5), and timely critique of biometric identification protocols GATTACA (10.40pm, Mon, C4) ... though other highlights include wacky Clooney/ Coen brothers "comedy" O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (10pm, Sun, C4), the ever-excellent neo-noir THE LAST SEDUCTION (11.15pm, Mon, BBC1), and the terrestrial debut of wildly underrated Arnie/"Usual Suspects" crossover THE END OF DAYS (10.30pm, Tue, ITV1)... also off digital at last is mildly hit-and-miss "Fast Show" successor LITTLE BRITAIN (10pm, Mon, BBC2)... BBC1 profiles "Memento"- style anterograde amnesics in LIVING WITHOUT A MEMORY (9pm, Tue, BBC1) and Christian entertainers - including Pamela Anderson - in THE HAND OF GOD (10.35pm, Tue, BBC1)... as The Money Programme takes a swig of SUNNY DELIGHT - A JUICY TALE (7.30pm, Wed, BBC2)... and Alvin Hall mysteriously overlooks Larry Ellison for a Gates vs Jobs face-off in the final of THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL COMPUTER MOGUL (9.50pm, Thu, BBC2) - our tip: don't bet on the Mac guy... FILM>> apart from a couple of scenes that look like an "act like you're on drugs" drama student improv class, Darren "Requiem For A Dream" Aronofsky directing an episode of "Dick And Dom In Da Bungalow" - with Fearne Cotton as Brittany Murphy! - is the overall impression you're left with after attention-deficit-tastic meth-fuelled white-trash mayhem SPUN ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Spun+(2002) : Why do they edit [Chloe Hunter's] pubes in the R rated version, but not John [Leguizamo]'s when he is wearing only the sock?)... "Star Trek - but on a boat" is the general verdict on Russell Crowe's big-budget "Hornblower" remake MASTER AND COMMANDER ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/master-commander.htm : intense battle violence, frequent; surgical amputation of a child's right arm; peril at sea)... you assume you're watching one of those trendy ads for FilmFour or NatWest or something, then it turns out to be a trailer for gritty Oirish drama INTERMISSION ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : Contains very strong language and violence)... and rounding off this week's batch of somewhat limited releases is Neil LaBute's stagey-looking dodgy-American-accent play adaptation THE SHAPE OF THINGS ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2003/the_shape_of_things.html : [Rachel Weisz] gives "the finger" to the camera; [Rachel Weisz] wears a midriff-revealing top)... >> 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 "endorsed by the pope" http://wiredblogs.tripod.com/sterling/index.blog?entry_id=151454 NEED TO KNOW THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK. Archive - http://www.ntk.net/ Unsubscribe or subscribe at http://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. Remember: Your work email may be monitored if sending sensitive material. Sending >500KB attachments is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.