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        "As a first step, the BPI yesterday unveiled a campaign to 
         make people aware that file-sharing was illegal. A message 
         will automatically appear on the computer of anyone illegally 
         downloading music that will warn them that they are in breach 
         of copyright law and could face legal action..."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/26/ndown26.xml
             - further transgressions will activate the BPI's patented 
                           USB 2.0 wrist-slapping device (if installed)


                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                              boiled into glues
 
         Actual intelligence on the "artificial" intelligence shown by 
         the much-lauded NannieBot continued to leak out this week, 
         with a new chat transcript placing the bot in the unusual 
         position of trying to convince cynics that it's actually a 
         computer (via a handy "error:beginning core dump::modRecover" 
         "accidental" bug report and the semi-convincing can't-parse-
         that excuse "i know food, beer and music! not much else!"). A 
         lot of the criticism seems to hinge on the fact that the AI 
         can't be as intelligent as it appears, though no-one's proved 
         this isn't an artefact of (say) probabilistic Markov chaining 
         of typical chatroom replies. Our tip for the next person to 
         put it to the test: try asking it things it couldn't derive 
         from existing chat transcripts (What's the first letter of the 
         word "Cat"? What do you think will be in the news tomorrow?) 
         or, heck, even the "Please write me a sonnet on the subject of 
         the Forth Bridge" that Turing originally had in mind.
         http://www.waxy.org/archive/2004/03/23/nanniebo.shtml
         - (Comment) "A friend and I spent some time trying to come up 
             with a neural net chess-playing program... To make a long 
                                           story short, it didn't work"
   http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~gxk/courses/g5aiai/002history/turing_test.htm
             - vs http://www.alicebot.org/articles/wallace/turing.html

         Junk science, junk faxes, junk mail. Microsoft quaintly
         received news of Wednesday's EU497 million bill for Windows
         Media Player by fax (we imagine attempts to send it by
         Outlook mysteriously bounced). The company spent a few
         minutes with the currency calculator before chucking it in
         the "due to pay after five years of appeals" folder. Funnily
         enough, Gates spoke last month about trying to find a way of
         reducing the $52.8 billion dollars of cash that the company
         currently sits on. "There will come a point... where we
         probably will change the balance sheet of the company, and
         make it more pure", he said. A quote that works a lot better
         if you say it with a German accent.
         http://forbes.com/reuters/newswire/2004/02/26/rtr1277828.html
                   - or as General Jack D Ripper from "Dr Strangelove"

         Continuing in that accent, deceptively British spamgilantes
         SPAMHAUS finally crumbled to the "my solution to spam is
         unstoppable!" tendency by launching a bid for a .mail
         domain. The domain will be restricted to only the finest,
         most pure mail servers (please to fax $2000 bond to
         domainmaster@nic.mail). Global whitelists do appear to be
         the new black right now. Even the good old RBL reverse-DNS
         systems are being reversed for listing the IPs of known good
         guys - witness this week's launch of ISIPP's "Accreditation
         Database" of known opt-in-all-the-trimmings mass mailers.
         Only ten bucks: but is that what it's going to take to get
         past the filters these days?
         http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3325981
                                                        - (rhetorical)


                                >> ANTI-NEWS <<
                             berating the obvious

         high on own supply?: http://www.coffeeaddict.co.uk/search.php3 
         ...old thrill revisited - case of the missing superscript tag: 
         http://www.ntk.net/2004/03/26/dohpeta.gif ... Dublin model 
         village, that is: http://www.ntk.net/2004/03/26/dohmil.gif ... 
         holding terrifyingly obsessive conversations - with herself: 
         http://www.frogger.uklinux.net/_forums/?n=Ann%20Widdecombe ... 
         perceptively, how sports reporting sounds to the rest of us: 
         http://www.ntk.net/2004/03/26/dohlivi.gif ... Straw to avenge 
         Sauron's death: http://www.ntk.net/2004/03/26/dohsaur.gif ... 
         you wanna see a "Privacy Policy"? I got your "Privacy Policy" 
         right here: http://www.ntk.net/2004/03/26/dohtick.gif ... non-
         alarmist advice from MS's now defunct small business support: 
       http://www.google.com/search?q=%22once+a+hacker+has+locked+onto%22
       ... new OS strategy: http://www.ntk.net/2004/03/19/dohpowerpc.gif
... love that "retro" styling: http://www.ntk.net/2004/03/26/dohintelli.gif


                               >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                         GOTOs considered non-harmful

         You can save as much as 100 quid if you pre-register for THE 
         SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON APPLIANCE DESIGN before 
         April 1st (Tue-Thu 2004-05-11/13, HP Labs, Bristol) - it still 
         costs upwards of UKP199 (student rate) if you do so, though 
         that covers both a robot football tournament *and* Alan "Xerox 
         PARC" Kay. Plus, you could even save on accommodation: 
         ConConUK attendee Pete Ferne rashly promises that he's got 
         "plenty of floor space, settees and mattresses in a largeish 
         house in central Bristol" and - answering your very next 
         question - "wireless broadband access throughout", though an 
         undertaking to "sample the delights of Bristol" may constitute 
         your side of this Faustian deal. 
         http://wiki.oreillynet.com/etech/hosted.conf?MoreUkGatherings
        - seriously, isn't http://www.kidcarpet.co.uk from round there
         http://wtfcon.org/
        - considerably cheaper opinions on appliances etc this weekend


                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

         The biggest problems afflicting Social Networking websites
         are that a) they cause you to spray your personal
         information around like an overeager dog marking its
         territory, b) they're all centralised and therefore Tools Of
         The Man, and b) they are quite, quite useless. Maciej "Blog
         Census" Ceglowski and Joshua "von memepool und del.icio.us"
         Schachter have come up with a scheme that might fix all of
         that. LOAF is private. It's decentralised. It fights spam!
         LOAF revolves around a blob of data which you can pass
         around your friends. The blob can reveal (via the usual
         cryptomagical foo-fah) whether you know someone, but can't
         reveal the complete list of who you know. In other words,
         with Joshua's LOAF, you can ask "does Joshua know
         larry@wall.org?" and the blob has enough info to say yes. But
         as it's just a mess of hashes and bitmasks, you can't pull
         out everybody Joshua knows. Giving a friend your LOAF lets
         them find out whether a stranger knows you or not, letting
         them build their own goddamn social networks. Application?
         When you get an incoming email, quickly scan your friends'
         LOAFs to see if they've met the sender. If they have, up the
         score. If they haven't, treat with slight disdain. Blob
         reader, writer and anti-spam mail integration are all in
         Maciej's and Joshua's preliminary beta. At last, an excuse
         to open attachments again.
         http://loaf.cantbedone.org/
                                                 - Bloom Filter County


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

         missing only the former Viz catchphrase "I made my excuses and 
         left": http://cheerleader.yoz.com/archives/001867.html ... 
         important safety tip - keep the writers *away* from Photoshop: 
         http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/03/25/1079939761567.html 
         ... Birmingham - one of "the leading spoof departments in this 
         field": http://www.cryptozoology.bham.ac.uk/ ... life imitates 
         novelty RFCs: http://www.notes.co.il/benbasat/5240.asp - also, 
         surely Israel must have a few M1 battle tanks kicking around?: 
         http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1217.html ... scroll to end for #2 
         comment: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2616.html ... presumably 
         http://toothycat.net/wiki/wiki.pl?ChipAndPin is going to make 
         cloning cards harder, skimming PINs substantially easier?... 
         http://www.nomadrugs.com/ vs http://www.nomoredrugs.com/ ... 
         http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3524838.stm reveals MRSA inspiration 
         for http://www.telewest.co.uk / blueyonder logo... 
         

                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

         TV>> there's a chance to "compare and contrast" mob comedy 
         ANALYZE THIS (9pm, Fri, C5) with precursor NATIONAL LAMPOON'S 
         THE DON'S ANALYST (12.15am, Wed, BBC1)... Rich Herring says 
         he's "both appalled and delighted" to have whacked another 
         rower with an oar in THE OTHER BOAT RACE (6.05pm, Sat, BBC1) 
         http://www.richardherring.com/warmingup/warmingup.php?id=468 
         ... and a double bill of more comedians tackling unexpected 
         straight roles sees Mike Myers disco-era romp 54 (11.25pm, 
         Sat, BBC2) followed by Jim Carrey quirk-fest MAN ON THE MOON 
         (10.30pm, Sun, BBC2)... two different looks at the undead in 
         the not-as-bad-as-"Evolution" GHOSTBUSTERS II (5.35pm, Sat, 
         C4) - "Is the atomic weight of cobalt 58.9?" - and a DAWN OF 
         THE DEAD SPECIAL (11.40pm, Sat, C4) on the current remake of a 
         1970s film which, Aintitcool reveals, was "also about zombies" 
         http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=17222 - Sarah "Go" 
         Polley also pops up in wintry Western THE CLAIM (11.20pm, Tue, 
         BBC2)... and James Nesbitt plays a man plagued with guilt over 
         his niece's bad haircut in PASSER BY (9pm, Sun, BBC1)... ZERO 
         TO HERO (4.05pm, Sun, C4) will ideally take a "The Authority"-
         style look at the responsibilities of turning yourself into a 
         technologically advanced superhero... Jeri "Seven of Nine" 
         Ryan and Colleen "Vitamin C" Fitzpatrick are among the "three 
         wives" of DRACULA 2000 (11.10pm, Sun, BBC1)... Donal Macintyre 
         appears just one step away from reviving Arnie's "The Running 
         Man" in his BIG STING (8pm, Tue, C5) crim-catching gameshow... 
         and not many obvious April Fool's candidates on April 1st, 
         unless C4 are really pushing the boundaries with their HAPPY 
         BIRTHDAY THALIDOMIDE (9pm, Thu, C4)...
         
         FILM>> it's clearly had more money thrown at it than "28 Days 
         Later", but not much seems to have landed on the script of 
         unsophisticated A-Team B-movie remake gorefest DAWN OF THE 
         DEAD ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/dawnofthedead.htm : 
         gunfire gore, repeatedly, frequent with tops/backs of heads 
         blown off; "When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will 
         walk the Earth." Hell will never be too full; vulgar/offensive 
         [Richard Cheese] song in background; resurrection from death 
         due to bites throughout)... slightly less likely to feature a 
         trailer for "Shaun of The Dead" is Mel Gibson's brutal deus ex 
         machina nail-'em-up vanity project THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST 
( www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Passion+of+the+Christ+%282004%29%2C+The :
         Was it my imagination, or when the Roman soldier ripped JC's 
         cloak off, did we get a brief outline of his wee-wee?)... the 
         trailer implies that similar unrelenting punishment is handed 
         out to "The Rock" in Christoper Walken/ Stifler/ Arnie cameo 
         action nonsense THE WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE ( www.bbfc.co.uk/ :
         Abridged version of work previously known as THE RUNDOWN for 
         which cuts to scenes of violence were made in order to 
         accommodate requested 12A category)... while the Tusken 
         Raiders' further adventures on Tatooine are sadly not the 
         subject of holiday-home makeover movie UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN 
         ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/underthetuscansun.htm : 
         [Diane "Judge Dredd" Lane] in underwear making out in bed; 
         lesbian pair to be "parents"; as reportedly almost all gay/
         lesbian relationships go, this one fails)... 
                                                               

                               >> 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
                   "not as funny as Private Eye used to be"
                   http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience

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