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Tips, news & gossip to tips@spesh.com - with NTK in subject line, cheers.

         
         "Those who try to take the piracy off the high seas and onto 
          their PCs face a fate worse than walking the plank. For they 
          risk cursin' their businesses and being left up a creek 
          without a paddle. They be sinkin' too with no patches to shore 
          up systems, and could catch something far worse than scurvy..."
            - Microsoft press release marks the official "so over" point 
                                              of "Talk Like A Pirate Day"
                  http://www.neowin.net/comments.php?cid=281861&id=24260


                               >> HARD NEWS <<
                             with the new Shmoos

          The chilly Autumn hacker festival season continues in the
          bottom left bit of America - at TOORCON, the Thinking Man's
          Defcon, in San Diego. And what were they thinking? Sometimes
          it was a little hard to say, as with the speakers who
          mysteriously disappeared across the border in Tijuana the
          night before their talk. Or Wi-Fi hackers Brad Harris and
          "Deker" who, they claimed, were asked by the US government to
          suspend their talk on a packet-injection driver (is
          inserting pictures of tubgirl and goatse.cx into browser
          sessions terrorism these days?). What did make it over the
          border was good stuff - if, as ever, somewhat more
          theoretical than practical. DAN KAMINSKY did his
          P2P-over-DNS trick; CHRISTOPHER ABAD showed how to use gzip
          to fingerprint bash histories, and deduce who is typing what
          on your box. But it still looks like the SHMOO GROUP are
          the current leaders of the hack pack. With a backdrop of
          Mike Messick's Sniper Yagi wi-fi rifle, team member
          BEETLE packaged up a VBscript program that used any XP
          machine as a AP scanner, and then sent the results to a
          central location. His aim? Next time someone writes a worm,
          hoping that they use this as a payload, thus generating a
          global AP directory as a side-effect. War-lounging.
          http://www.shmoocon.org/sniperyagi/
                         - guaranteed to drive gun and RF experts insane
          http://the-mathclub.net/survey/4.html
                                          - fingerprinting .bash history
          http://forum.defcon.org/showthread.php?p=52891
                                                 - Windows Wi-Fi hacking


                               >> EVENT QUEUE <<
                         GOTOs considered non-harmful

          LARRY "dear, *dear* Larry" LESSIG launches the UK versions of 
          the famed Creative Commons licenses, and - who knows? - 
          perhaps even some sort of practical applications for them, at 
          University College London's Edward Lewis Theatre this coming 
          Monday lunchtime (12noon-2pm Mon 2004-10-04, Windeyer 
          Building, 46 Cleveland Street, London W1, entrance free, but 
          please RSVP in advance to I.Brown@cs.ucl.ac.uk with "Creative 
          Commons UK" as the subject line). We don't know how long the 
          Professor is in the country, but we kind of suspect he might 
          also enjoy getting his teeth into next weekend's FIPR 
          COPYRIGHT IN EUROPE WORKSHOP ("starts Sat lunchtime and 
          finishes Sun lunchtime", 2004-10-09/10, Computer Laboratory, 
          University of Cambridge, 15 JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3, 
          looks free but email them to check), where the Foundation for 
          Information Policy Research will be considering responses to 
          "the EU legal framework in the field of copyright and related 
          rights", possibly along the lines of why increased legal 
          protection of "intellectual property" might actually be bad, 
          not good, like some people seem to think. 
          http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/I.Brown/ccuk-flyer.pdf
           - aka http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=529241&y=181831
          http://www.fipr.org/events.html
                - yes, the one also known as "The William Gates Building"
          http://www.brum2600.net/brumcon4/
                         - didn't we warn you about BrumCon IV last time?
          http://www.ukuug.org/events/logging-2004/
          - NTK readers: ask for members' rate at UKUUG logging tutorial
          http://london.pm.org/lpw/cfp
             - three weeks to get proposals in for big London Perl thing
          http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/viewarticle.php?id=41
            - crazy London Symbian-centric phone-hacking, also on Monday
          

                                >> ANTI-MEMES <<
               there's smoke, flames, http://dohthehumanity.com/

          nothing sexier than Viewing eBay guy's other Dr Who items 
         http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2273864940
          "as modelled by his girlfriend"... Web User gets into abstract 
          illustrations: http://www.webuser.co.uk/news/58259.html (*and* 
          introduces jpeg artefacts into straightforward line art!)... 
          Monty Python turns out *even funnier* in original Klingon: 
          http://www.geocities.com/electricmonk.geo/brainspecialist.html 
          - vs http://www.wweek.com/story.php?story=5539 ... Google 
          goofs o' the month: http://www.google.com/search?q=powershit , 
          http://www.google.com/search?&q=%22it+relives+the+pain%22 , 
          http://www.google.com/search?q=%22text+ban+treaty%22 , plus 
          http://www.google.com/search?q=%22tasteful+inspection%22 (for 
          the more discerning firewall)... Cambridge offers online 
          database of (say) recent "Criminal Damage Over UKP20": 
          http://www.cambs.police.uk/camcom/localinfo/crimedetails.asp  
          - no real competition for http://www.arcataeye.com/police04/ 
          so far...
          

                                >> TRACKING <<
               sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering

          You know, we've had our doubts over the merits of listening to 
          standalone Commodore 64 game soundtracks devoid of their 
          original context - but here's a chance to hear them as the 
          Lord originally intended: burbling along in the background of 
          a no-nonsense four-on-the-floor old-school side-scrolling 
          shoot-'em-up. PLATYPUS isn't just a fantastic-looking R-Type-
          alike packed with hilarious Claymation graphics, but also 
          features retro anthems like Rob Hubbard's "Flash Gordon", plus 
          "Wizball 2000" and "Comic Bakery", both by Martin Galway. 
          There's a weird (presumably Windows-only) preview option on 
          the Miniclip site, along with the option to upgrade to the 
          full version for about US$15 (currently UKP8.30 on PayPal), 
          which unlocks 3 more levels *and* the toe-tapping tunes of Rob 
          Hubbard's "Sanxion Loading Theme" along with Jonathan Dunn's 
          "Ocean Loader 4". It's a shame there's not a bit more to the 
          full version (like a better ending), but when the graphics, 
          sound and gameplay are this good, you really don't mind going 
          back and just playing the whole thing through again.
          http://www.miniclip.com/platypus/platypus.htm
            - no indication of why it's called "Platypus", unfortunately
         

                                >> GEEK MEDIA <<
                                  get out less

          TV>> "But when his drinking and lusting and his hunger for 
          power became known to more and more people, the demands to do 
          something about this outrageous man became louder and louder", 
          reports TIMEWATCH - WHO KILLED RASPUTIN? (9pm, Fri, BBC2)... 
          half-way through the series, and we'd still be more likely to 
          make it through an episode of GREEN WING (9.30pm, Fri, C4) if 
          the soundtrack didn't feature that god-awful "Gritty Shaker" 
          knockoff every 20 seconds... and at least they've ditched the 
          cheesy "Maybe Baby"-style "And the book I was writing - turned 
          out to be this film!" angle for subtitled part-CGI "City Of 
          God" TV series spinoff CITY OF MEN (12.35am, Sat, BBC4)... 
          it's another clip show dressed up as a popularity poll in 
          BRITAIN'S FAVOURITE COMEDIAN (8pm, Sun, C5), with the losers 
          being "voluntarily" incarcerated in Camp Endemol for new 
          reality show KINGS OF COMEDY (10.30pm, next Fri, C4)... in 
          addition to showing the US originals of THE APPRENTICE (6pm, 
          Mon-Fri, BBC2), BBC2 are also making a UK version with the 
          role of Donald Trump played by Alan Sugar... and might 
          previous US experience of invading countries chock-full of 
          AK47s possibly hold any lessons for today?, muses VIETNAM'S 
          BLOODY SECRET (8pm, Tue, C5)... it's "business as usual" when 
          the Money Programme blows the whistle on British Aerospace's 
          Saudi defence contract slush fund in BRIBING FOR BRITAIN? 
          (9.50pm, Tue, BBC2), and John Pilger highlights the plight of 
          the Diego Garcia islanders evicted by the UK government to 
          facilitate construction of a US military base in STEALING A 
          NATION (11pm, Wed, ITV1)... but, on a lighter note, someone 
          must have reshuffled the old "ultra modern trend" plus 
          "supposedly unfashionable artform" flash-card deck to get 
          FLASHMOB - THE OPERA (7.30pm, Thu, BBC3)... 
          
          FILM>> like "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" - still 
          somewhat "without" a decent plot and script, but at least 
          there are proper actors in CGI retro-romp SKY CAPTAIN AND THE 
          WORLD OF TOMORROW ( http://imdb.com/title/tt0346156/trivia : 
          The film's "groundbreaking" new technology isn't new at all. 
          It is a unique combination of Adobe After Effects Plug-ins 
          applied to achieve the film's unique look. No new technology 
          was created to achieve the stylized look of the film)... then 
          next week, we can't envision too wide a multiplex release for 
          low-budget Bruce Campbell shlock-and-roll B-movie BUBBA HO-TEP 
          ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : Contains strong sex references and 
          language and moderate horror), at least compared to the 
          heavily FMV-sequence-influenced RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE 
        ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/residentevilapocalypse.htm :
          computer nudity; graphic individualized hand-to-hand combat 
          with grotesque unholy beings; telekinetic killing with bloody 
          gore)...          


                               >> 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
     "didn't get to a million articles by sticking just anything in there"
                   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_To_Know


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