Need To Know 1999-05-21

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"LUCAS: That's sort of why I say a benevolent despot is the ideal ruler. He can actually get things done. The idea that power corrupts is very true and it's a big human who can get past that." - from (suppressed?) New York Times interview at http://www.dejanews.com/=dnc/getdoc.xp?AN=458243634 ...and we hear George is *looking* like Jabba these days, too >> HARD NEWS << we sound like schnews SORM-2, the Russian security service's plans to monitor the Internet, finally broke this week, with one Volgograd ISP manager, Nailj Murzahanov, deciding he'd had enough, and suing the spooks in court. SORM-2 is a Tap-You-Yourself policy by the cash-strapped KGB successors, the FSB: it requires ISPs to connect their local FSB office for free to their pipe, with agents able to sniff any and all packets (incoming and outgoing) from the comforts of their offices. Oh, and the ISPs have to provide free support and training. Weirdly, in the year since the proposals were leaked, almost none of Russia's 350+ ISPs have protested. Nailj, who runs Bayard-Slavia Communications tried, and says he received death threats and - almost as bad for a Russian - an unscheduled audit from the dreaded tax police. Finally he was given just one month to be the first ISP to implement SORM. After that, the FSB cut off his feed. Now he's taking them to court for constitutional improprieties. Nailj's fellow sysadmins, though, remain quiet. But then, why make a fuss? As Andrei Sibrant, of Moscow's Glasnet said last year: "there is no reason for human rights groups who know nothing about the business to provoke a conflict". http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/466/internet.htm - and then they came for root http://www.libertarium.ru/eng/sorm/index.html - still masters of terror, as the X.25 references will confirm Wouldn't happen here, of course. So, in other news: European Justice ministers are meeting next week to discuss the all new ENFOPOL proposals. These are, you'll recall, a draft EU ruling that would require all Internet Service Providers to set up "high security interception interfaces inside their premises". Interfaces which would, if feasible, be linked remotely to government security agencies. But this time you don't get the death threats and the taxmen. But then again, we wouldn't know, because no ISP has complained yet. http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg15/en/intprop/intprop/copy2.htm - too busy stopping them outlawing Web-caching, we guess http://www.freepatents.org/ - or trying to stop them introducing software patents... http://www.heise.de/tp/english/special/enfo/default.html - bloody human rights groups trying to provoke conflicts So, in a depressing week for civ libs, what can you do to cheer yourself up? Well, perhaps not peruse DUNCAN CAMPBELL's ECHELON report, with its perky descriptions of NSA taps at MAE-East and MAE-West, and happy-smiley descriptions of transatlantic mass interception technology. But we *do* like the suggestion that spun out of one of its discoveries. You knew, we assume, that the non-American versions of Lotus Notes encode 24 bits of their 64-bit encryption key with the NSA's key (thus making it possible for the NSA to crack European companies' private communications)? No? Oh. Sorry. Well, anyway: why not spend this weekend reverse-engineering it, to discover what the NSA public key actually is? That way, everyone can change it on their copies of Notes so that the NSA can't snoop. And we can all send them secure messages about exactly what we think about all of this unchecked, unbalanced, undiscussed, unpriced and, we'd suggest, unhinged surveillance apparatus. http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/I.Brown/archives/ukcrypto/0399-0699/msg00661.html - your free hint http://www.eff.org/descracker/ - hey, and if it's <56bits, we can *become* the NSA >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious N64 down to UKP49... AUSTRALIA gives up zoning DVDs ... TELEDESIC - F-ff-ff-fff--aallc ... now we know one paperless office - http://www.ntk.net/doh/dabs19990521.gif ... 2038 METEOR to arrive just in time to prevent UNIX date bug... DEJANEWS *still* using Apache beta, a year on [NTK 1999-06-05]... E3 full of people claiming to be "JOHN CARMACK - id software" ... SLATE advertising on Salon... a million jackpot if you reach the end of http://www.camelot.co.uk/ ... REGISTER too scaredy-cat to publish MI6 story ... "cre@ted.in.uk"? Oh God... BOL says "Just William & Girls" by Richmal Crompton will be published in 2008: scweaming until it's Y2K ... ESR begs hackers to heal divisions, work on kindness, declares RMS to have poor personal hygiene... RICHARD BRANSON wanders out of live Webcast "to go to toilet" ... "Perhaps you remember when computer magazines routinely carried 'Build your own PC in five minutes' type features. Not any more. Today, it's not worth it." - COMPUTER ACTIVE 20 May page 110... "Next Issue - Do It Yourself. We tell you how to build your own computer" - COMPUTER ACTIVE 20 May page 93 >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Maybe someone's accidentally kicked over the server for this weekend's festival of CAPOEIRA 2000 - the Brazilian martial-arts/acrobatic-dancing hybrid popularised by Eddy Gordo from Tekken 3, and Gun's "Steal Your Fire" video (at The Rocket, 220 Holloway Rd, London N7, tel 0171 684 1260) http://www.slink.net/fantasma/ - or maybe it's one of those "blocking" moves ...apparently "Winn Schwartau" isn't a Dutch hacking tool, but a highly respected non panic-monger in the steadily grant-expanding field of INFOWAR CON '99 (1999-05-27/28, Copthorne Tara Hotel, London) http://www.infowar.com/Iwcon/IW99/conference_show.html - hey, you guys schwartau'd out my Windows! ...the EROTIC OSCARS and SEX MANIACS BALL (Sat 1999-05-22, The "Pleasure Rooms", London N17) prey on the deviants lured to London by INTERNET WORLD (1999-05-25/27, Earls Court 2) http://www.sfc.org.uk/oscars/ - bgcolor="#ff0088". Mmm, *sexy*. http://www.internetworld.co.uk/ - "Try it. Touch it. Test it." Mmm, *sexier*. ...and at least one NTK staff member had agreed to speak at this year's music-biz backslapping conference IN THE CITY (1999-05-27/28, Glasgow Hilton), till it turned out they weren't in the habit of paying accommodation or travel expenses. That MP3 piracy must be hitting them harder than we thought... http://www.inthecity.co.uk/ - can't afford to update last year's site either? >> TRACKING << making good use of the things that we find "This SETI@HOME screensaver's rubbish. I've been running it for weeks and haven't found a single alien", writes one angry correspondent. "Oh, *sure* I'm looking for aliens with my spare processor cycles. NASA=NSA man!" adds another. Probably enough paranoia for us this week. Nonetheless at least some of you should start training up on the peculiarly hibernian SPACE INVADER screensaver, an emu-perfect rendition of the 1978 classic. You know, just in case. http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ - we reckon we're just MPEG encoding the Arecibo CD collection http://come.to/invadersaver - come to ... Visual Basic... Many fans had nothing but praise for its technical achievement, but one critic in particular - NTK's Lloyd Wood - felt the need to voice his disappointment over the much-publicised "new chapter" in ASCIIMATION STAR WARS. "The animation is amazing," Wood concedes, "particularly when you read the FAQ and you realise that the author doesn't seem to have heard of Unix terminal support, curses etc and he's doing it all in a text editor and displaying chunks at a time. He's not generating deltas." Concerned by the creator's status as a lone auteur, Wood advises: "Somebody find a copy of the Twilight Zone VT100 animation, send it to him (and send me a copy), and explain how he can view it. Then explain rendering deltas using terminal support so he can do ASCII-MPEG, introduce non-flickery special effects, and call it 'Star Wars - the Special Edition'". http://www.fortunecity.com/tatooine/lucas/339/page1.html - requires THX-enabled Java 1.1 http://www.velkro.net/bow/bow9.txt - features excellent "N4rq V4d3r" >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista XSL vs CSS: let battle commence!... is this a joke? [Y/N]: http://shadow.ieor.berkeley.edu/humor/ ... View Sourcing QNX auctions... So, is PETER LLEWELLYN going into space, or isn't he?... Whatever happened to JOEL FURR? Did he end up like we all imagined he would?... one way to stamp out MAME piracy, we guess: http://www.midwayarcade.com/locations ... http://www.csd.uch.gr/~asidirop/pozdrav1.jpg ... Arf, arf! ZENO humour: http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~demon/ ... PATRICK MOORE pronounces Websites as "w w w stop bbc stop co stop uk" - and now must we all ... Death of USENET predicted: http://x4.dejanews.com/=dnc/getdoc.xp?AN=339458840 ... still spotting marketing people with "http:\\" in their sigs (step forward this week, JULIE PEARCE, marketing manager of Mediasurface) ... these aren't the PREQUELS you're looking for? http://members.aol.com/moseisleym/sw-main.html ... here are data-points your team leader has been requesting: http://www.cynicalbastards.com/wankometer/ (apparently http://www.sun.com/sims/hotnews/outsource.jhtml is in the lead) ... now the press furore is over: who's next? http://www.insomniazine.co.uk/celebrities.html - or could be decoys: http://members.tripod.co.uk/humphrey/william.htm ... >> GEEK MEDIA << the less rude http://www.ntk.net/tvgohome/ TV>> a plot we can all relate to: three kids raise 100 dollars to see Melanie Griffith naked, then get her to marry their dad when they realise they've been ripped off, in consumer-conscious prostitution comedy MILK MONEY (10.55pm, Fri, C4)... an unmissable sweeps episode of FRASIER (10pm, Fri, C4)... plus, The Pretenders and country legend Steve Earle headline what might be a special former heroin users' edition of LATER WITH JOOLS HOLLAND (11.20pm, Fri, BBC2) - though, in a way, aren't they all?... THE PASSWORD IS COURAGE? (11.55am, Sat, BBC2) - no, the password must contain at least one non-alphabetic character... Lea "Back To The Future" Thompson and a cute robot accidentally blast off in kiddie romp SPACECAMP (7.30pm, Sat, C4)... a double treat for Jeff Daniels fans with DUMB AND DUMBER (6.20pm, Sat, ITV) followed by pre-Scream film-within-film Woody Allen farce THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO (2.35am, Sat, C5)... let's hope John Carpenter's brain was taken over by child-aliens when he "directed" sleepwalking Midwich Cuckoos remake VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (10.15pm, Sat, BBC1)... and the man at the back said: "Everyone attack" - and it turned into a BELGRADE BLITZ (7pm, Sat, C4) - with subsequent shorts KOSOVO ONLINE (12.55am, Sat; 12midnight, Sun, C4) plus THE WEB WAR (7.55pm, Mon-Fri, C4) featuring "well known personalities" - what, Kate Humble? - nodding sagely at amateur HTML propaganda... in accordance with prophecy, there are indeed further yuks to be had in the form of LEGEND OF FONG SAI-YUK II (2.25am, Sat, C4)... preceded by nutty sounding alterno-fest DPROGAM (1am, Sat, C4), starring Nick "UFO" Pope, Alexander "LSD" Shulgin, and Jah "terrible bass player" Wobble... we're sure it's a hilarious insiders' satire on Hollywood, but we still just don't "get" GET SHORTY (10pm, Sun, C4)... it's *exactly* 1 year and 2 weeks since C5 last showed lame Jeff "Lawnmower Man" Fahey VR trash ADDICTED TO LOVE (9pm, Sun, C5) - not based around the Matthew Broderick film based around the Robert Palmer song of the same name... you're better off with sub-Harryhausen ho-ho WARLORDS OF ATLANTIS (5.40pm, Sun, C4)... it's obviously Jeff Fahey week on C5, as he pops up again in terrorist train-pun LETHAL TENDER (9pm, Mon, C5)... promising, gimmicky snuff thriller MUTE WITNESS (10.35pm, Mon, C4) marks the debut of the director of An American Werewolf In Paris... and maybe it's the presenters and pet-owners who need their heads looking at in Philippa Forrester prime-time animal therapy BARKING MAD (8pm, Tue, BBC1)... not enough Jennifer Lopez in Snipes/ Harrelson actioner MONEY TRAIN (9pm, Tue, C5)... not enough Will Smith in Goldberg/ Danson "comedy" MADE IN AMERICA (7.25pm, Wed, BBC1)... probably not much OJ Simpson in unsporting clip-show WHEN ATHLETES ATTACK (10pm, Wed, ITV)... but last? - and best? - of this run of POLICE SQUAD (7pm, Wed, C5) features Drebin as a nightclub entertainer and the jokeless punchline "I don't think I could take 67 more of those"... FILM>> you know, someone should make a film where the most beautiful, desirable person in school turns out to have a fantastically geeky side - but of course semi-amusing Matthew Lillard ultra-conformity advert SHE'S ALL THAT (imdb: teen / high-school / party / art-student / prom / popularity / bet / makeover) has to be just like everyone else, and does it the other way around. And it's directed by a former choreographer - natch... Mark "Marky Mark" Wahlberg continues his startling impersonation of that weird spanner kid from your primary school when partnered with Chow Yun-Fat in average police shoot-'em-up THE CORRUPTOR (imdb: mafia / gangster / gangs / new-york / police / triad / betrayal / boss / chase / chinatown / corrupt-cop)... while the biggest con in Stanley "Big Night" Tucci's old-fashioned farcical swindle-rama THE IMPOSTORS (imdb: 1930s / screwball) is making you think it'll be any good... so, our tip, salvaged from this week's wreckage: Sam Raimi swaps the Evil Dead for the greed-fuelled living, in deceptively uncomplicated Bill Paxton / Billy Bob Thornton wintry chiller A SIMPLE PLAN (imdb: murder / fratricide / money / pregnancy / small-town / snow / tragicomedy / stolen-money / librarian / tragedy / fbi / police / hospital / accountant / violence / twist-in-the-end / winter / based-on-novel / brothers ) - like "Shallow Grave", but good... or maybe Stephen King's most terrifying monster of all - Adolf Hitler! - in Bryan "The Usual Suspects" Singer's predictably harrowing David Schwimmer Nazi nutfest APT PUPIL (imdb: adaptation / psychological / teen / nazi / holocaust / evil). Can't imagine they'll be discussing its "Bloody Revenge of Internet Nerds Obsessed With Holocaust And Nazis" plot at Columbine High movie night any time soon... "I THOUGHT I RECOGNISED YOUR FOUL TASTE">> first, as promised, a round-up of fruit ices (and adulterants), kicking off with reader TIM BANNISTER's timely composition-analysis of WALLS' STAR WARS: EPISODE 1 "BATTLE DROID" FLAVOUR LOLLY (UKP0.35): "purports to be apple flavour... everyone I know thinks it tastes foul. It does smell a bit like a urinal block... the most refreshing thing in the freezer"... frozen north correspondent ALI DANIELS claims WALLS' SOLERO SHOTS are merely CALIPPO SHOTS by another name, and instead recommends TREATS' 5-ICE (price unknown), a stripey 5-flavour giant Fruit Pastille-style lolly which leaves you with "a useful 10" long piece of 1/4" dowling, which you can use to poke your respected colleagues in the side"... not much between the jelly blobs in NESTLE'S A BUG'S LIFE and WALLS' MR SPOT; our award for excessive innovation goes to NESTLE'S CRACKLER (about UKP0.45, Buzz Lightyear on pack) - an "orange and cherry" water ice containing what can best be described as a small, bullet-shaped payload of frozen popping candy. Don't eat it and let it melt of its own accord, and it collapses into a purple mass of seething, fizzing protoplasm... similarly, how much hot tea can you drink through the hollow chambers of otherwise standard chocolate bar CADBURY'S DAIRY MILK QUICK (UKP0.35) before it melts in on itself like a bad Dr Who villain?... in other confectionery news, it is of course "NESTLE'S special skill in combining chocolate, toffee and biscuit that makes ROLO COOKIES (UKP0.28) so delicious" - though much less biscuity than we expected, going from the precedent of the Cookies & Caramel Rolo Eggs... over in pudding corner, the "Chocolate flavour custard" variant of BIRD'S SCOOPZ (UKP0.57) is perhaps the least violently disappointing, followed by the strawberry Angel Delight one, then the bizarre vanilla custard featuring apple-tainted biscuits... while the junior MULLER YOGZ 4-PACK are perhaps the most palatable of the "candy corner" yoghurts, in various sugar-heavy flavours (though no "YOG SOGOTH" version yet, Cthulhu fans!)... and finally, thanks to everyone who sent in the result of the consumer referendum at http://www.cocovote.com - if you hadn't guessed from the widespead offloading of old boxes of "Choco Krispies", a vast majority wanted them renamed COCO POPS - in accordance with natural law. Apparently "almost one million votes were cast", about the same number as in recent elections for the Welsh assembly... >> 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 "culturally corrosive" http://www.oreilly.com/people/staff/stevet/netfuture/1999/Feb2599_85.html#3 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@lists.ntk.net with 'unsubscribe ntknow'. Subscribe? Mail majordomo@lists.ntk.net with 'subscribe ntknow'. NTK now is supported by UNFORTU.NET, and by you: http://www.ntk.net/books/ (K) 1999 Special Projects. 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