Need To Know 2000-11-03

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"It's important for us to explain to our nation that life is important. It's not only life of babies, but it's life of children living in, you know, the dark dungeons of the Internet." - GEORGE W. BUSH, going for that elusive teen e-Morlock vote http://politics.slate.msn.com/Features/bushisms/bushisms.asp >> HARD NEWS << widely diffused So the healing power of *music* has at last mended the rift between NAPSTER and BERTELSMANN AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT - and, at the moment, is even enabling them to overlook their glaringly fundamental incompatibilities. The whole point of a peer-to- peer system is that anyone can swap any file with anyone else - if BMG are going to restrict it to certain approved promo tracks, or run compensatory payment tracking for every file on the system (which'd be fun for bands who are signed to different labels in different territories), they might as well do it with a few industrial strength ftp-sites. And if they don't, they continue to run the risk of copyright actions from, ooh - off the top of our heads, every other record company in the world. And even if the Nap magically chases the *bad* files out of its walled garden, won't the action move to more staid (and more heartily defended) "Napster for workgroups" projects like .NET and Groove? BMG don't seem to have the faintest inkling of how intimately P2P and piracy are interlinked - but, hey, they're a major label, and therefore their job is to waste huge amounts of money on what the kids seem to like. Also, it'll be far funnier to watch, if the Napster/ BMG deal turns out less like AOL buying Netscape, and more like the Sex Pistols signing to EMI. http://www.bertelsmann.com/press/press_item.cfm?id=2461 "Hey kids, swap legally approved tracks among yourselves! It'll be groovy!" Time to speak softly and carry a large cluestick. The British Patent Office is wetting its feet in the whole software patent controversy, and wants your poolside advice. Unlike some public consultations we could mention, this actually seems to be genuine, and well considered; the PO have a list of questions they'd like answered from live developers and entrepreneurs, they're happy to take answers after the closing date of 2000-12-12, and they've already got a very nice backgrounder on the current, rather sensible, UK software patent stance. They're even hosting an NNTP newsgroup for discussions. Why, it'd be positively impolite not to make your voice heard. http://www.patent.gov.uk/snews/notices/softcons.html - best suggestions win an exclusive, twenty-year monopoly http://www.freepatents.org/ - put this "End Software Patents" GIF on your... oh, hold on Just when we were re-considering our self-serving plans to reward bad Net writing in the press, VNU's MOLE wrote in to shop his colleagues with his own treasured quote list, including the excellent "Encryption is a computer technique that turns confidential documents into meaningless sentences" (anonymised BBC TV news reporter). This week's top entry in the make-it-up-as-you-go-along stakes has to be VICTORIA FLETCHER and KEN HYDER of the Daily Express, and their thoughtful piece "Hackers 'pass Microsoft code to Kremlin'". Executive summary: "Whoever stole the formula at the heart of the ubiquitous Windows program", the Express reports, "will be able to hack into any PC in the world". And watch out, because "The whole telephone network in St Petersburg was configured to ensure that the KGB had access to everything ... so they will have a copy of these source codes somewhere." Of course they will. Meanwhile, competition inspiration John Arlidge, THE OBSERVER's media correspondent, writes to one NTK subscriber to defend his description of the Interweb [see NTK 2000-10-13 for the complete story]. "There was, I'm afraid, confusion amongst editors", he writes. "Rest assured", he adds, "heads will roll." Perhaps the first brain to shove should be that of The Observer's own media diarist, who in August warned "uber-geek" Net experts were doomed as "other hacks cottoned on to the Internet". Now, who could that fast-learning hack have been, we wonder? http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/00/10/29/news/n0220.shtml - "experts are terrified" http://www.vnunet.com/News/61067 - also contains some major Sunday Times Y2K dumbness... http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4050983,00.html - just to fend off those "sell-out" flames >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious unrepentant MISS BOO swiftly slips back into coke-snorting, cross-dressing high-life: http://www.boo.com/diary3.asp , http://www.ntk.net/2000/11/03/dohboo.jpg ... after last week's launch party, http://www.q4music.com/ likely to appear at *some* point during Q4 2000... sex-myths disproved with statistical rigour: http://www.ntk.net/2000/11/03/dohthru.jpg ... "if this wasn't on UKNM, you'd assume it was a troll" #1: http://www.chinwag.com/uk-netmarketing/archive/archive-oct-2000/msg00763.shtml MARK WARD corrects "2600 MHz" to "2600 kHz" - still wrong: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_994000/994700.stm your LICENSE FEES at work #2: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/pda/ (and indeed hp_includes/ , new/ , work/ , search/ , reception/ and vote/ )... "the sending of messages which contain sexual... references ... is prohibited" warns LYCOS free SMS service: http://www.uk.lycos.de/service/sms/agb.html - click "Accept" to choose from list including "Nice Bum", "Sexy Minx" and "NORWICH"... "Buy it at BOL" - before reading further: http://193.122.15.169/reviews/generalfiction/0%2c6121%2c366440%2c00.html sendmoreinfo.com sending more info than you'd expected: http://www.ntk.net/2000/10/27/dohsend.jpg ... teen-popsters with a message: http://www.ntk.net/2000/11/03/dohdaph.gif ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful When they came for *our* keys, we'd always had some vague plan to fake an instant amnesia attack ("Who am I? What year is this? Are 'Adam And The Ants' still number one?"), but more legally advisable strategies - along with protecting yourself and your sources, plus evading surveillance in the first place - are the topics of LIVING WITH THE RIP: A JOURNALIST'S GUIDE TO SURVIVING CYBER-REGULATION (Thursday 2000-11-16, London's ICA, free but you must pre-register). It's run by City University's "Netmedia" crew, so it's pretty legit, with an impressive speaker line-up that includes the most famous of the numerous DUNCAN CAMPBELLS (that's one strategy to throw them off your trail right there), CASPAR "the friendly spook" BOWDEN, plus "Big Mouth" BILLY "Bass" THOMPSON. http://www.courseleader.com/about/press/mediaforum.asp - OK, so Bowden isn't a spook - at least as far as we know... Responding at last to our complaints that they "never tell us about stuff far enough in advance", the ARSDIGITA cult (along with "Runtime Collective") have 'fessed up to a *free* TWO-DAY BOOTCAMP ON BUILDING DATABASE-BACKED WEBSITES WITH SQL AND TCL (2000-11-18/19, in "sunny" Brighton, implying they have rather more optimistic long-range weather forecasting than the rest of the country). Certainly nothing sinister about this at all, nor in the fact that, usually when we mention these events, prospective visitors cheerily promise that they'll mail us afterwards to reassure us that they haven't come back "changed". Then we never hear from them again. http://www.arsdigita.com/events/event-info?event_id=2091 - didn't "Runtime Collective" once employ Gemini Man? And for those of you seeking more immediate gratification, you can always count on the KLF's JIMMY CAUTY, who'll be leaving no source of controversy untapped at 5pm on Bonfire Night, when he plans to set fire to a giant painting of Princess Diana dying in a car crash "outside the House of Windsor and the House of Commons" (and presumably it's made out of a million pounds or something). http://www.ntk.net/2000/11/03/krash.gif - like a Roman candle in the wind. Pop! Pop! Whoosh! Etc. http://www.ddonline.co.uk/thisisgrimsby.html - grimmer up north than previously realised >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering Now that the RIPA is beginning to bite, we guess it's about time to start rolling out plugs for all those useful technologies that completely undermine its intent of allowing government and bosses to monitor any of your communications they damn well like. Down at Def Con 1, Yaman Akdeniz's UK CYBER-RIGHTS org has done a deal with the Irish/American company Hush to rebrand their secure Webmail product for Brits. Hushmail uses a Java applet to encrypt communications between its servers and your machine, and pretty much guarantees secure communication between individual Hushmail users. It's not perfect, mind you: they use non-standard protocols, your private key is kept on their (non-UK) servers, and there have been some mutterings about the problems of trusting even a signed Java app. But it should work well enough to keep your boss from reading your mail, or the local authorities from casually snooping your traffic. It's also a lot easier to set up than PGP. For the more determined crypto fan, Canadian paranoiacs ZERO KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS have just released version 2.0 of their rather spiffing FREEDOM service. It's *very* open source at the moment - the new Linux client is MPLed, but still requires some battering of makefiles to compile. But with people like Ian Goldberg, Stefan Brands on board, the crypto is as sound as it gets, and the pre-compiled Windows version (still at 1.0) is very user-friendly. Freedom offers secure, anonymised surfing, e-mail and newsreading, and while it does cost money ($49.95 for five anonymous accounts - and yes, they accept cash), it's a great choice for companies wishing to preserve their privacy, a Windows user who wants a fire-and-forget encryption package, or a Linux hacker who wants to peer into how near-perfect forward-secrecy can be made to work in code. http://www.cyber-rights.net/ - and this is just the first wave... http://www.zeroknowledge.com/ - ...we hope >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista DEVIL has all the best tunes, sauciest lyrics, most revealing costumes: http://www.av1611.org/othpubls/teenidol.html ... dot-coms are in EMPIRE STRIKES BACK phase of "Lucasian business cycle", theorises newsletter from personalization.com - and they're not the only ones: http://www.vaderfor2000.org/ ... entire article (and board) fails to mention MICROSOFT: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/entertainment/newsid_1003000/1003985.stm or speculate on the timing of "recent unpleasantness" at: http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.ms-monopoly.com/ (vs http://www.satirewire.com/briefs/euro.html )... innovative, non-pointless JAVA: http://www.happyhub.com/network/reflex/ ... "if only we had an infinite number of bored employees, in an infinite number of offices - hey, wait a minute! we do!": http://www.claymath.org/prize_problems/million-dollar-minesweeper.htm new MONDO magazine is just another lame lifestyle publication, despite being launched in the year 2000... life more ironic than ONION: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/001031/80/anvew.html ... http://www.tragibutes.co.uk was presumably a viral for release of BLUE JAM on Warp Records - sorry... People for the Ethical Treatment of REFERRER INFO: http://www.smithsq.co.uk/ ... >> GEEK MEDIA << the less rude www.tvgohome.com TV>> ITV continues its unwatchable Saturday Night Movie run, with inconceivably dire VR kiddy romp LAWNMOWER MAN 2: BEYOND CYBERSPACE (10.35pm, Sat, ITV)... while C5 hits back with romantic cyber-nonsense THE ANDROID AFFAIR (12.05pm, Sat, C5), before clearing the decks for Discovery ripoff SHARK WEEKEND (from 8.05pm, Sat, C5) - using a definition of "shark" that's so flexible it includes a remake of Joe Dante's razor-toothed maze-running PIRANHA (9pm, Sat, C5), follow-up PIRANHA II: FLYING KILLERS (10.45pm, Sat, C5) - described by director James Cameron as "the finest flying piranha film ever made" http://www.wimpyjesus.com/cameron/articl33.htm , plus Patrick Stewart's whaling classic MOBY DICK (4.40pm, Sun, C5) - which isn't even a kind of fish!... aptly named mobile-endorser John Simm explores the darker side of "pay as you go" tariffs in yet another gritty, realistic housing-estate drama NEVER NEVER (9pm, Sun, C4)... self-referential Scream prequel WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE (10.30pm, Sun, C4) isn't quite as funny, scary or interesting as it should be... while the BBC2 AWARDS (10.30pm, Sun, BBC2) commend innovation in "Best TV Moment", "Ad Campaign", and "Internet Design" - "Internet Content" obviously being far less important nowadays... "Local Heroes" invention-reconstructor Adam Hart-Davis returns in WHAT THE ROMANS DID FOR US (8.30pm, Mon, BBC2), hopefully to be followed by other shows based on lines from "Monty Python's Life Of Brian"... C5 buries Michael "Kramer from Seinfeld" Richards' geek-classic UNSTRUNG HEROES at 3.30pm on a Tuesday afternoon... ANGEL squares up against Thunderbirds in the 6pm Tuesday slot, making space for a celeb-hosted TFI Friday... and, after "Con Air" two weeks ago, Tuesday night is exploding airliner night again, in Wolfgang "Perfect Storm" Petersen's aerial carnage AIR FORCE ONE (9pm, Tue, C5) - also starring Simon Quinlank as the Secretary of Defense... lame Western spoof WAGONS EAST! (10.50pm, Wed, C4) is notable both for being John Candy's last film, and for co-starring Melina Culea, aka "Amy Allen" from "The A-Team"... while, armed with nothing more dangerous than a broken table leg, Steven Seagal battles the dumping of lethal dayglo toxic goo in mildly amusing eco-trash FIRE DOWN BELOW (9.05pm, Thu, C5)... FILM>> something of a special week for film titles ending with the syllables "-owl" or "-er": Curtis "LA Confidential" Hanson imports a wintry cast from "The Ice Storm" (Katie Holmes, Tobey Maguire) plus Frances "Fargo" McDormand for Michael Douglas screwball dope-smoking middle-aged novelist crisis WOND-ER BOYS (http://www.capalert.com : teen in sleepwear with adult male in her bedroom with her; homosexual relationships, behaviors and innuendo; equating being sent home to parents as a bad thing; gunfire to kill a dog attacking a man)... another teen re-teaming is complicated by an affair with an older academic, in Jason "American Pie" Biggs and Mena "American Beauty" Suvari's sparky gross-out double nerd-makeover LOS-ER (MPAA: Passed '12' for strong language, and drug and sex references)... while the Dawson's Creek higher-education trauma continues as Joshua Jackson fictionalises George W Bush's secret Yale Illuminati sect THE SKULLS (more info at http://www.davidicke.com/icke/magazine/vol-5/bushsucks.html ) ... which almost rhymes with Pierce Brosnan pretending to be a white guy pretending to be a Native American in beautifully filmed eco-yawn GREY OWL (imdb: indians-adopt-white-boy / snowshoe / trapper / 1930s / biographical / based-on-true- story / beaver / canada / environmental / author / impostor / half-breed / native-american / lecturer / national-park / park-ranger / independent-film)... leaving heart-warming Northern fund-raiser PURELY BELT-ER (imdb: comedy / drama)... widely unpromoted Winona Ryder sub-Exorcist effort LOST S-OULS (http://www.capalert.com : threat with knife to the eyes; leaving the scene of an accident; a statue of the crucifixion being broken, causing Jesus to hand upside down with an open- eyed expression of horror) - which, nonetheless, casts Ben "Game On" Chaplin as the antichrist... plus Merchant-Ivory period piece THE GOLDEN B-OWL (imdb: Uma "The Avengers" Thurman, Jeremy "The Net" Northam, Kate "Shooting Fish" Beckinsale, Nick "48 Hours" Nolte - together at last!)... CONFECTIONERY THEORY>> eagle-eyed DAVID AMOR located a "Who Nicked The Nougat?" SNICKERS at "Gatwick Airport", describing the experience as "the same as a Snickers, but over quicker" ... POLO SMOOTHIES (99p for bag of about 40) turned out to be mildly preferable to Strawberry Campino, as well as being "30% larger than normal Polos"... while BEN MOOR inquired "Is that Chester the Cheetos Cheetah that Tony the Frosties Tiger is beating up in the TV ad?"... but the big talking point was, of course, CADBURY'S TANGO CRUNCHIE, first spotted in the wild by RICHARD IRONS - "tasted as if I was eating a Crunchie to try and get the taste of a rotten citrus fruit out of my mouth". "The sugary vim of Tango just wasn't carried through into the bar," agreed SIMON W JONES, comparing the whole to "sugar, chocolate and cheap marmalade", though STUART CAIE was more positive, arguing "They should call it Terry's Chocolate Orange Crunchie because, in all honesty, that's what it actually *is*". "Sounds like two companies jumping into bed together for a little bit of money," mused IAIN MACGARROW, "which is not that dissimilar to eating one - first it's quite fun and exciting, but then it just gets all sticky and disgusting". Hey, we quite enjoyed it... similarly, JAMES HOPKIN proclaimed the WHITE CHOCOLATE AERO "a far sexier beast" than the Cadbury's Snowflake ("Double yum!", he added, helpfully), though we're not sure if he's referring to the peculiar "Stuff Xmas! Treat Yourself!" CRANBERRY FLAVOUR WHITE CENTRE AERO we discovered recently in Colliers Wood. We'd also advise those seeking Snowflake-alternatives to try FOX'S excellent "Bubbly White Chocolate" ECHO biscuit bars, just 59p for a pack of 6... TV's MATT LUCAS regretted he was unable to tell us his views on the Snowflake, as he's "on a diet", though he could confirm that "Chocolate Rispinos are better than Chocolate Snack-A-Jacks. However, Caramel Snack-A-Jacks top the lot"... in which case, he'd best try to avoid both double-sized GIANT ROLOS (44p), and our product of the month, KELLOGG'S WORLD TEMPTATIONS cereal (UKP1.99) whose "Belgian Chocolate Dream" variety contains less sugar, yet 7.5 times more fat than Coco Pops - and consequently, we imagine, is the closest thing yet to edible heroin... finally, October's product-spotter award goes to MICHAEL REEVE for not just confirming our concerns over NESTLE'S WONKALATE, which is like raspberry-flavoured white chocolate, with green blobs in it ("another stunning victory for E-numbers"), but for also being the first to identify, following the success of Fruit Pastilles Body Parts, CADBURY'S CARAMEL EYEBALLS. "They're caramel, in the shape of eyeballs, wrapped in foil how eyeballs come," Reeve deadpans. "You get 10 in a packet. You will probably want fewer"... >> 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 "the slime is not included" http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=484291225 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.ntk.net/books Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/ 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. 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