"People will always raise this Prince of Darkness thing."
- Hermann Hauser on Microsoft's move to Cambridge, NEWSWEEK
it's not the *raising* we're worried about
>> HARD NEWS <<
soft targets
White boy riots swept the US following the SUPREME COURT's
repeal of the Communications Decency Act. For the rest of
the world, the (surely impractical) threat that non-US
residents would be fined up to $100,000 for smut-peddling
to Yanks has finally been lifted. Phew. Elsewhere, China
threw up more controls on IP access, Indonesia stated its
intention to censor Net access, Notts County Council
continued to pursue the JET report and life goes on,
constitutional or not.
http://www.eff.org
- God forbid that the American voice should not be heard
MICROSOFT announced J/Direct, a method that lets Java
programs use native Windows 95 code. Lazy programmers can
now write Java that looks cool, runs fast, but only
executes on PCs running Windows. In other words, Microsoft
wins. Sadly, many will be tempted - even hardened Java
hacks are having problems coping with Java's current
treacly speed and lousy interface. But help *is* on its way
with a new, optimised Java interpreter that runs up to
forty times faster than current efforts. Will it arrive in
time to save Java? Probably not - it's Microsoft's new Java
interpreter - with built-in J/Direct! Doh! That Bill Gates!
http://www.microsoft.com
- Who hath raised the Dark One twice unto this place?
British Digital Broadcasting obeyed the regulators and
dumped BSkyB from its ranks; their vital digital
terrestrial broadcasting license was granted as a result.
BDB now consists of mainly Carlton and Granada, although
BSkyB and the BBC will provide much of the content. It's
been a bad month for Murdoch: his head honcho at BSkyB, Sam
Chisholm quit (reputedly over clashes with Rupertkinder
Elisabeth Murdoch) and various headaches in the US sent his
international rep plummeting. Revenge might still be sweet:
his satellites start broadcasting a range of digital
services next year, wayyy before BDB. And he's still pals
with Mr. Blair...
http://www.sky.co.uk
- Great. Now we've invoked all three of them
Sad and glad tidings for lovers of ancient geek heroes.
JACQUES COUSTEAU, master of sea and scuba, inspiration to
John Denver, Jean-Luc Picard and science weenies worldwide,
passed away this week aged 87. Slim recompense can be
gained from the news that elder technoluster PETER SNOW is
leaving Newsnight to join Tomorrow's World. He will be
assisted by PHILLIPA FORRESTER, the Internet's darling. We
think Jacques would have been approved.
http://acin.edi.fr/cousteau/csteqius.htm
- the things that you've shown us,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/tw/newpres.html
- the stories you tell.
NETSCAPE and ... who are those other guys? both won the
right to export 128-bit 'strong' encryption from the US
this week. Usage, however, is strictly curtailed: the
facility won't be available for e-mail, and strong
encryption will only be possible when working from licensed
servers. Meanwhile, no-one seems to have noticed that
British company UK WEB have been selling patches to give
128-bit security since last year. Now how did that happen?
http://stronghold.ukweb.com Supreme court *that*
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
news we knew you knew
65% of polled "experience rude language" in chat rooms,
survey finds... "Virtual Private Line enhances customers
service for Honey Baked Chicken" - Compuserve press
release... Digital shelve Altavista IPO ... 72% of users
have visited porn site, survey finds... Good news for
twins: Vatican reveals clones will *not* have same soul as
original... 50% of executives overwhelmed by e-mail, survey
finds... Mir in dangerous accident; Queen in live net
broadcast... McDonalds won... BT schools plan "favours BT"
- politicians surprised, appalled... 33% of Internet users
quit after 6 months, survey finds... Four words: "Star
Wars Monopoly Game"
>> CULTURE <<
the philistine mindset
Which kind are you? Alan Hood, research scientist at
Britain's Defense Evaluation and Research Agency says that
the hacking community is fracturing into separate social
groups. Among the breeds documented by DERA are 'elites',
'darksiders', 'information brokers' and 'meta-hackers'.
"Meta-hackers are one of the most sinister things I have
run into," Hood says, "They scare the hell out of me." So
this isn't Emacs these people are hacking? No - "Meta-
hackers monitor other hackers without being noticed, and
then exploit the vulnerabilities identified by the hackers
they are monitoring." Oooh. Like DERA, maybe?
http://www.dra.hmg.gb/ Always scary to find a .gb domain
Talking of hackers, do *not* forget that Saturday 5/7/97
marks ACCESS ALL AREAS III and the official beginning of
the '97 hacking con season. Among the AAA^3 speakers will
be the dryly entertaining Ross Anderson (cryptomaster
extraordinaire), unstoppable sex-panther Cherie Matrix and
that evil journalist Michael McCormack. Inevitably, media
whores the NTK editors will also make an appearance: we're
speaking on "Tearing the Shrinkwrap: Your Absolute Moral
Right To Rip Stuff Off". Come along! It'll be fun!
http://www.access.org.uk hey! Who let the meta-hackers in?
The iBS INTERNET BOOKSHOP has confirmed many prejudices
with its current top 20 bestseller list for the period May
to June 1997. Straight in at number 1 is Neverwhere by Neil
Gaiman (people figuring that it might work better as a book
than as a TV show?), with Iain Banks (Excession), JM
Straczynski (Babylon 5), Scott Adams (The Dilbert
Principle), and - you've guessed it - Terry Pratchett (3
separate entries) filling out the top 10. Bab 5 reappears
at number 17 in comprehensive A-Z form, there's a couple of
Pride And Prejudice spin-offs for those more sensitive
souls, and the only non-fiction titles are Creating Killer
Websites by David Siegel and Larry Wall's Programming Perl.
http://www.bookshop.co.uk
- I don't get it. Where's the TekWar?
>> TRACKING <<
we do not want what we've already got
You haven't been there in years, and you delete those
HotFlashes as soon as they arrive, so you might not know
that HOTWIRED is to get a redesign on July 1st. It
certainly needs one: top story last week from the flagship
of the digital revolution was "How to use e-mail with your
browser". Hardly "Aux armes, citoyens" is it?
http://www.hotwired.com whinge, whinge, whinge
Fancy helping out with a good cause? How about a good,
massively parallel cause that involves home computers, the
Internet, and the search for extra-terrestrial
intelligence? Where do you sign? At...
http://www.bigscience.com hallelujah
Looks like the game you dreamt of while reading Microserf's
will soon become a reality. ADVENTURE ON LEGO ISLAND is
slated for release this Autumn: aimed at kids, it's also
said to have "adult appeal". I'll say. Build your own lego
world, and fight an enemy - made of lego! Published by
Mindscape, multiple platforms, RRP UKP22.95, coded, we
think, by Above The Garage Productions.
http://www.atgp.com/
And is this Clarke-Willson guy Michael or Bug Barbecue?
>> MEMEPOOL <<
ideas turbulence yard
IBM VoiceType in the sales top ten for three weeks - good
word of mouth or appalling games sales? ... X-Files film to
star killer bees... "Someone just walked over my
homepage"... Squid caching... new look for summer - highly
visible nipples (and that's just the *boys*) ... <GEEK>
NYTT TEGNESERIEBLAD! JEPP, JEPP! ... Plot Coupons...
Murdoch takes over Sky, Turner takes over Time Warner...
Fifth Element and the Euro-SciFi renaissance... Kevin Bacon
to lead in "Life of Erdos"... icq - covert israeli password
snaffler?... www.ditherati.com ... black boxes for cars...
next food scare: chlorinated chicken... Calling Bill Gates...
>> MO' MEDIA <<
full motion video by e-mail
TV >> And who are those cheeky geeky guys popping up on
CYBER CAFE (2.45am, Fri pm/Sat am, LWT; regions may vary) -
could it be the editors of NTK now?... and are we the only
people who thought RAIN MAN (10pm, Sat, BBC1) was about the
hassles of having to look after an annoying yuppie younger
brother?... The "Into The Unknown" season concludes by
delving into the human psyche, with behind-the-scenes docu
MILLENNIUM: FACT OR FICTION (11.05pm, Sat, ITV), 'Nam
psycho-thriller JACOB'S LADDER (11.55pm, Sat, ITV), and
Chris Carter going way darker than the X Files in the 'real
thing', MILLENNIUM (10pm, Sun, ITV)... sticking with sf,
this current series of THE OUTER LIMITS (9.35pm, Sat, BBC2)
is pretty dumb - but better than you'd think, at least
compared to incoherent sixties nonsense like BARBARELLA
(11.35pm, Mon, BBC1)... sending celebrity lookalikes -
including Fergie, Madonna, and Nelson Mandela - into
singles bars is the intriguing premise of all-week
10-min slot SINGLES (7.50pm, Mon-Fri, C4)... that one with
the cows and the veggie cult heralds (at last) a decently
understated episode of THE X FILES (10.20pm, Tue, BBC1),
followed by the suspiciously similarly themed movie
DEEP RED, starring Michael "Terminator" Biehn... and,
finally, when they call THIS LIFE (9pm, Thu, BBC2) a
"twenty-something" drama, are they referring to the age of
the cast or how many sodding episodes it seems to
have been dragging on for?
MOVIES >> No-one's dared put out anything decent in the
same week as Joel Schumacher's BATMAN AND ROBIN (Clooney,
Arnie, Thurman, blah blah blah) - and that, tragically,
seems to include BATMAN AND ROBIN. If you haven't yet
enjoyed the test-screening responses for this $200-million-
plus stinker, they include such gems as "deplorable", "the
dialogue was *all* one-liners!", "I would not wish it upon
my enemies", and, most succinctly, "DEATH TO SCHUMACHER!".
The full review (from the same reassuringly deranged
source) reports that punters are now *booing* the
director's name as soon as it appears on-screen...
http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/cool61.html prelude
http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/reviews.html to doom
BIO >> Remember reports that LEPTIN is secreted by mice
when they've had enough to eat? And how everyone scurried
off to prove that fat people suffer from low levels of
Leptin? Well, no: turned out we all have the same levels of
Leptin after all - people are just greedy bastards. Now,
just as the Leptin funds were vanishing, UK scientists have
found two obese children with Leptin gene defects. It's so
nice we now have a human model of a mouse disease... For
those of us with plenty of sit-down-and-stay: the AMERICAN
COLLEGE OF SPORTS MEDICINE says that vigorous exercise does
nothing to improve your health. Moderate occasional
exercise, however, is of value. This may involve walking,
playing with children (your own, presumably), breathing and
moving your bowels. Just do it... A hominid specimen has
been found in Spain which may be the ancestor of HOMOS
NEANDERTHAL and SAPIENS. Scientists say it has features of
both Neanderthal man and Homo Sapiens. Well, so do many
people I know... CHARLES MURRAY, co-author of the Bell
Curve, claims in a new study on siblings that IQ correlates
with higher income, more education, fewer offspring and
less illegitimacy. Well, I have plenty of degrees and no
children - so why aren't I earning more? Maybe it's Leptin-
induced illegitimacy... - doctor@spesh.com
>> SMALL PRINT <<
Need to Know Now is a useful and interesting UK digest of things that
happened last week or might happen next week. You can read it
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