Need To Know 1998-07-17

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_ _ _____ _ __ <*the* weekly high-tech sarcastic update for the UK> | \ | |_ _| |/ / _ __ ____17/07/98_ o Join! Mail 'subscribe ntknow' | \| | | | | ' / | '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ / / o to majordomo@unfortu.net | |\ | | | | . \ | | | | (_) \ V V / o Website (+ archive) lives at: |_| \_| |_| |_|\_\|_| |_|\___/ \_/\_/ o http://www.ntk.net/ SHIMOMURA: --Mitnick is saying, "fuck you!" Fuck you to the WELL. Fuck you to electronic democracy, or whatever you call it. Fuck you to privacy. Fuck you to the law-- Agent Carson, what are the statutes on receiving stolen property? Because it seems pretty fucking clear to me that that's what we're dealing with here-- GILMORE RISES AND HEADS TOWARD SHIMOMURA. BARLOW THROWS HIMSELF IN BETWEEN THE TWO MEN. ANDREW PUSHES HIM AWAY. GILMORE AND SHIMOMURA ARE FACE TO FACE, INCHES APART. - extract from Miramax script TAKEDOWN http://www.kevinmitnick.com/review.html ...so I take it you won't be joining our blue ribbon campaign? >> HARD NEWS << G's and Q's Mac users celebrated APPLE's increasing ability to suck money off them this week, as the company revealed profits of 62UKP million for the last quarter. Gross margins were up, thanks to the elimination of all those unnecessary clone-makers, and inventory problems eliminated by selling just three ingeniously demarcated product lines: the G3 laptop, the G3 server, or the G3 desktop. But the "any model I want, as long as it's Mac" brigade haven't got *just* themselves to thank for the company's return to healthy, quasi-monopolist form. As vital on the balance sheet was British Acorn remnants ARM, whose IPO earlier this year handed co-founders Apple a cool 20UKP million. All those Archimedes owners will be *so* pleased. http://www.apple.com/ http://www.acorn.com/ http://www.arm.com/ fruit and nut cases http://www.microsoft.com/ *cough* $1.36 billion *cough* A young - but slightly unbelievable - couple choose to leave the innocence of a virginal relationship and allow everyone on the Net to watch them as they attempt to screw one another for the first time. Yes, REAL NETWORKS and their minority shareholders MICROSOFT, ostensibly partners but frankly gagging for a punch-up, finally let the fists fly with Real's official beta release of G2, their new RealAudio, RealVideo, RealPix, RealKitchenSink streaming system. As from now, Microsoft's currently piss-poor Netshow will not be compatible with streamed Real content. Nor will Microsoft support SMIL, the newly proclaimed standard for synchronising these kinds of multimedia hijinx. They say that's because it's "unnecessary". Unnecessarily compatible with G2 - which does support it. http://www.real.com/ - G2, G3 : are those brandname consultants on strike or something? http://www.ourfirsttime.com/ - not the same people as http://www.ourfirstanalsex.com, it seems Distributed computing. "Hive minds". Network effect. Pah. Everyone knows that money buys you real power around here, even if no-one expected the eminently decentralised JOHN GILMORE to prove the point. With 250,000UKP and a nifty piece of dedicated parallel hardware, he snapped the back of the latest code-cracking DES challenge in an embarrassing two and half days - hardly time for his chief rivals, distributed.net, to get their latest key-crunching client out the door to their thousands of volunteers. http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/07/biztech/articles/17encrypt.html - now to set it on Shimomura's ASS http://www.distributed.net/ - bunch of time-wasters, as it were http://www.cygnus.com/~gnu/ - routing around the whole damn thing >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious .NET magazine wants ten of its readers to test their personalities online - optimistic in oh so many ways... ... MARKS AND SPENCERS may sell Microsoft products - looking forward to that "no questions asked" return policy... FRANCE rails against US cultural imperialism, plays STAR WARS theme at World Cup Final - how imperial can you get? ... POINTCAST IPO "postponed"... Giant 'Z' in sky was meteor, not return of 2000AD's ZENITH ... SOUTHERN COMFORT run "Southerners have their own rules" ad during showing of DELIVERANCE... www.bedepot.com runs on Windows NT... Cameo, the Electoral Roll database [NTK 19/06/98] "rethinking" site after around 3,000 free trial requests per day... artists at http://www.triggerhappy.org describe own work as "a folly... self-defeating... meaningless"... URL for Lycos Spain? http://www.es.lycos.de/ of course! >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful It's all far-flung, far-future farragos this week. If you're quick, you might be able to book a flight to Las Vegas for DEFCON VI, the incrementally calm rating for the exponentially riotous annual hackers' convention. Sights to see during the 31/7/98 weekend will include GSM hacking, the setting off of hotel fire extinguishers, Lorenzo "infowar" Valeri, teenagers getting arrested for curfew, Bruce "counterpane" Schneier, disoriented would-be screenwriters, Se7en's notes on social engineering airlines and hotels (vital for DC7) and the release of the Cult of the Dead Cow's new remote Windows administration tool, Back Orifice. We'll have to leave you guessing just how remote that administration can be... http://www.defcon.org/ comprehensive http://www.counterpane.com/ legitimate http://www.cultdeadcow.com/ moo It should be slightly easier to pursuade your boss to pay for your ticket to PERL CONFERENCE 2.0, which is oooh, yonks away (16/10/98-20/10/98) and in San Jose to boot. We don't really have to say why you should be going (Larry Wall? Netscape keynote? "Guru-is-in" tutorials? A chance to talk entirely in regexps?), we just thought it was time to remind you. http://conference.perl.com/ CPAN live! >> TRACKING << no ftp, no comment Netscape 4.5 is a whole half better than Netscape 4, and includes lots of mildly useful, slightly desparate attempts to up the Netscape Website hits by redirecting keyword searches to the site, and a new "find related links" feature. First reactions are that these capabilities are intrinsically evil; closer inspection shows some neat configuration possibilities (so you can pick your own related site server - even tie it into Altavista). IMAP's noticeably better, and the mail client looks a bit less slapped-together, but the really cool extras to let you remotely access your bookmarks, address book and calendar are yet to come. We'd say wait. For about two days, then capitulate to your craving and download it anyway. ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/communicator/4.5/4.5_PR1/english/ - is this another bloody Godzilla tie-in? They always say, don't they, that what Linux really needs is a few decent games - and what better place to plunder than the past works of David Braben. Taking its title from the impressive-at-the-time 1989 Archimedes original, ZARCH is a sort of cross between Lander and a 3d version of Defender. Almost exactly as you remember it - and twice as disappointing - this was one of the only reasons the nation's school computers ever got used. We're still waiting for XFrak though... http://www.nerdnet.nl/~thom/software.html - Not really a virus, but since it's a binary we can't say for sure... >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista Things We Can't Tell You, I: which Website provider was raided after the attempted IRA London bombing... Leave Robert Denby *alone* ... where were you when you first heard about the Challenger explosion movie?... Somerfield take over Kwik-Save ... Bianca's Smut Shack bought by - Zapata? ... Dummy Cow! http://www.gencor.ca/imv/dummy_cow/ ... http://www.unrealnation.com/crackhouse/catscan.html ... Things We Can't Tell You, II: crash the NT Executive, win valuable passwords ... subliminal Bill: Starship Troopers "United Citizen Federation" single, track 2, 1:03secs, ... who wants to write the Linux Martyr HOWTO?... laughing at Amazon Sales Rankings... Clan Light Lunch? ... now what are we going to do with all these Northern Ireland/Orange phone gags? ... US readers! Watch PBS for once in your lives for the eye-opening PLANE CRAZY with Robert X. Cringely - 22/07/98! >> GEEK MEDIA << may contain strongly-typed language TV>> we're pleased to announce that sports coverage has been suspended due to over-running of quirky B-movies: John Hughes auditions Macaulay Culkin in similar, superior Home Alone prequel UNCLE BUCK (8pm, Fri, BBC1)... Robert Powell traps the inspiration for Ghostbusters' Slimer in paranormally good '70s Brit-schlock, THE ASPHYX (12.55am, Fri, BBC1)... Jonathan Ross lays waste to "so bad they're good" myth with hideous overdose of GODZILLA DAY (11am-10pm, Sat, Sky Movies Gold)... and the line "Objection, your honouAAAARRRGGHH!!" does not appear in THE TRIAL OF THE INCREDIBLE HULK (3.15pm, Sat, some ITV), though it does have visually-challenged superhero Daredevil and "Slider" John Rhys-Davies... Neil Morrissey inexplicably returns in a whole bloody series of THE VANISHING MAN (7.45pm, Sat, ITV), just after Carrey vs Cox in the always-remarkable ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE (6.15pm, Sat, ITV)... yup, MIAMI RHAPSODY (9pm, Sat, C4) is a bit like Woody Allen lite - or a very good sitcom episode... and Frank Black strives to find anyone who cares about a new run of MILLENNIUM (10.30pm, Sat, ITV)... a season of Stephen King's famously unfilmable fables starts with DOLORES CLAIBORNE (10pm, Sun, C4)... though more nudity, less coherence in TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (11.45pm, Sun, BBC2)... sadly, it doesn't seem to be former page 3 model Gail McKenna among Terry Nutkins' BRILLIANT CREATURES (4.50pm, Mon, ITV)... but it is oafish Bob Mills hosting new trivia panel game NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT (11pm, Mon, BBC1)... not just another example of the BBC ripping off American titles for their own shows - WEIRD SCIENCE (12.05am, Mon, BBC1) is genuinely a spin-off from the 1985 John Hughes movie... Mad About You retread LOVED BY YOU (8.30pm, Tue, ITV) returns with a VR episode... Stephen Jay Gould believes Stephen King's THE TOMMYKNOCKERS (10pm, Tue, C4) to be the best evolutionary allegory ever... Clarkson and co battle a nightmarish Mad Max flooded-Earth future in TOP GEAR WATERWORLD (8.30pm, Thu, BBC2)... and let's raise a glass to unsubtle product placement in three-part carbonated retrospective THE COCA-COLA CONQUEST (11.55pm, Thu, C4), "tracing the history of the soft drink, and its lifelong competition with rival Pepsi" (The Radio Times)... FILM>> au contraire, GODZILLA (imdb: action / sci-fi / godzilla / giant-monster) appears to be entirely in the spirit of the originals, in that it's largely rubbish. But c'mon, who really expects monster movies to make sense now?... sub-aqua kiddie fun resurfaces after 9 years in the form of THE LITTLE MERMAID (imdb: animation / children's / musical / romance / sea / underwater / little-mermaid / ocean / family / disney-animated-feature / comedy) - but of course the search term you're looking for is really +"little mermaid" +"obvious penis"... and to commemorate the launch of MicroSoft's sinister purple robot child-minder ("Clean Up! Clean Up! Everybody do their share!"), sing along with BARNEY'S GREAT ADVENTURE (imdb: children's / family / dinosaur) - though, despite the implicit suggestion of the title, the film does *not* depict Barney's first sexual experience... PRO-CELEBRITY FEEBDACK>> thanks to all who wrote in with eye-witness sightings and tastings of Callipo Shots and Winner Tacos [NTK 03/07/98], especially Connected columnist MICHAEL BYWATER for his mouth-watering depiction of the "magnificently chundrous" Winner Taco - "the heavy insulating wafer clamshell protecting the tradition Walls' pigfat-style icecream from unsightly heat-exchange phase-shift, sealed at its lip with thick and somehow unconvincing chocolate". Michael generously describes NTK as "the best-written publication in Britain" - coming from the man who invented Starship Titanic's "Pulsating Inconvenience from the Planet Sprod", high praise indeed!... sticking with self-indulgence, tubby cyber-subscriber BRUCE STERLING queried our gag that his 'Triple Xtra Large' feature in the new Wired "strangely omits himself": "The heck you say; my Triple Xtra Large self is not only on the cover, it's inside a little monorail... it's even packing on the pounds in Le Jules Verne... You should get up from the keyboard and eat something." Cheers for the tip Bruce, but we're comfy eating where we are... this reader's URL http://ourworld.darq.net/p.hampton-forbes/ revived fears that NTK "may be attracting the wrong element"... and "Funny. Very funny. Hilarious." writes bedroom techno boffin, Q Magazine demo compo winner, and former Doom champion, DAVID MCCANDLESS, no doubt referring to the fact that instead of giving "a plug" to his site http://www.wakeywakey.com, we inadvertently registered the address http://i.am/a.gaylord, pointed it at his page, then printed that URL instead [NTK 10/07/98]. NTK regrets the error... >> 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. It is registered at the Post Office as "too bloody distributed". NEED TO KNOW THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK. Archive - http://www.ntk.net/ Excuses - http://www.spesh.com/ntk/ Unsubscribe? Mail majordomo@unfortu.net with 'unsubscribe ntknow'. Subscribe? Mail majordomo@unfortu.net with 'subscribe ntknow'. NTK now is helped by VIRGIN NET, THE ILLUMINATI and UNFORTU.NET. They worry about us, but we don't worry about them. (K) 1998 Special Projects. Non-business copying is fine, but retain SMALL PRINT. Contact terry@spesh.com for commercial license details. Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com.