Need To Know 1999-11-05

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"Little did he know that applications such as online auctions, MP3 or network gaming would come about and change the face of the Internet forever, despite being virtually unknown and technically impossible only a year ago." - EVA PASCOE, The Independent, 1999-11-01 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/Digital/Columnists/eva011199.shtml ... actually, finding MP3s has been "technically impossible" since 1996 >> HARD NEWS << flashy boos So it seems we've now spent over 200 man-hours redialling the CallNet registration line, kept sane only by elaborating our revenge fantasy of arranging a date between the CallNet0800 hold lady and That Turkish Guy. But we've spent that time growing wiser, stronger, more... clueful. Rather than a NAG-centric piece of work as we thought last week, they do say the 0800 system is mainly a World CallNet operation. It's got upstream bandwidth from NAG, C&W, AT&T, and Cybernet, with outs at Lynx, LoNAP and Manchester and (via NAG) Telehouse NY. Yes, they will throttle registrations when the lines start doing a Screaming.Net. And lest we sound too positive - and we're always too soft on ISPs that turn out to be managed by NTK subscribers - we still think that they're going to hit that limit a damn site quicker than they thought, and we're *still* coming up with horrendous abuse scenarios that could push demand even further. Plus we have no idea what their business model could be, apart from praying for a swift kick to that NASDAQ share price. Oh, hell, let's ride it for as long as we can, hey? http://www.callnet0800.com/ - 0800 058 0800 this is worse than when everyone http://www.f1racing.co.uk/ - 0800 058 5855 thought we were in the pay of Freeserve http://www.4unet.co.uk/ - 0800 058 5555 *and* we don't have an account yet. damn If Internet time is measured in femtoseconds, government crypto time continues to grind away in terms that make geological epochs seem a bit flighty. So, if you're still with us, here's where it's at. The DTI Select Committee report on the Electronic Communications Bill slid out last week, stating the obvious: that it still smacked of key escrow, and trying to prove you never had a decryption key [see NTKs passim] was, while nothing like what some "hysterical" commentators were gabbling [qv ibid], still damn iffy if you asked them. Two conclusions of the report were clutched at glacial pace by the DTI. Firstly, that the spook-led wiretapping clauses should be punted off to the Home Office's own Interception of Communications Bill (the DTI duly leaked to the FT their intention to do just that). And secondly, that the industry should hurry up with their own self-regulatory crypto code of practice. Cue the latest DTI fall-gal Patricia Hewitt trying to scare the Alliance for Electronic Business board into action. Fine: but short of turning in all their private keys to the spooks, what are we supposed to be regulating again? http://194.128.65.4/pa/cm199899/cmselect/cmtrdind/862/86212.htm - hurry ... up ... you ... e... business ... slouchers... http://www.vnunet.com/News/102824 - Patricia Hewitt: "twitchy" http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/I.Brown/archives/ukcrypto/0799-1099/msg01433.html - inoculated! no returns! Talking of wiretaps, how exactly did CHANNEL FOUR NEWS manage to "intercept e-mails" which revealed an impending cyber-attack on News International, planned by cyber-terrorists for their city-shaking November 30th cyber-riots? Might they have been obtained for them, perhaps, by one Mr D.K. Matia, star witness of Monday's item, and employee of - you guessed it, conspiracy rentaquotes MI2G [NTK 03/09/99]? You know, we don't want to sound like we're scaremongering, but MI2G seem to know an awful lot about these Net anarchists. And given that there were only 2000 hits on www.n30.org at the time, and no UK contacts, there surely can't be many other people who *could* be the British masterminds behind this Global Internet Menace. Yes, we'd definitely keep a close eye on these people. Especially if we were a gullible member of the proper media with a gap to fill in the schedule. http://www.itn.co.uk/World/world19991101/110108w.htm - "Who was behind such an international uprising?" - "The answer was no-one" http://www.kumite.com/myths/opinion/thoughts/1999/mi2g.htm#991104 - MI3G and *two* NTK employers... how could we not put it in? http://www.ntk.net/doh/19991105bbc.gif - more made-up news >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious * SPECIAL "NO KEVIN WARWICK" MEDIA BLACKOUT EDITION * NT error of the week: "Insufficient disk space to delete file" ... THE SUN's two-step guide to online news gathering: http://www.ntk.net/doh/19991105sun.png ... TONY BLAIR promises to make Net access "as cheap as a local phone call", says MIRROR - and we all know how cheap that is ... LINUX ANSWERS editor says site *doesn't* crash Linux browsers (and, anyway, it's fixed now) ... LINUX ANSWERS editor quieter on the whole LINUX ANSWERS Website running on NT issue ... BT's http://www.comeback.bt.com/ reconnect number gets disconnected ... WATERSTONES starts previewing books due in 1900 : http://www.ntk.net/doh/19991105water.png ... TIMES INTERFACE claims "56K modem can transfer 56 kilobytes of data per second ... "An English message will not be understood by the growing number of non-English Web users", reveals NUA ... you don't want to know what OS your plane is running: http://www.ntk.net/doh/19991105virgina.jpg ... and you thought REAL'S Jukebox was privacy busting: http://securityportal.com/list-archive/bugtraq/1999/Nov/0051.html ... "Security is our only business", say ADT: http://www.adt.com/3bussec/medco_action.cfm::$DATA says not ... LINUX ANSWERS editor not commenting on http://www.ntk.net/doh/19991105la.jpg name-calling ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful It's time to uninstall those installations and hastily unplug the pirate radio stations: the CLINK STREET kids are quitting their all too temporary autonomous zone. Yes, Backspace (and the associated AudioRom and Coldcut satellites) are being evicted, and to commiserate, there'll be an orgy of critical self-examination with film show and food called <BLINK>, tonight at 1999-11-05. Fireworks will no doubt play a part, but instead of the usual audience going "ooh, ahh", expect more "yes - I see - how very ingenious" over the gentle rustling of stroked goatee-beards. Meanwhile, VXSLAB are putting on a party at the Clink-in-exile, THE FOUNDRY, next Wednesday 1999-11-10. Entertainments will include "geek DJs, live MIDI and Perl poetry". All sounds eerily familiar, but hey that's life in the avant garde, right? http://bak.spc.org/timeline/ - last one to leave, close the bloody tag http://www.vxslab.org/ - no RMS though, the lamers >> TRACKING << making good use of the things that we find There's some very tortuous "GIF awk" joke under the surface of today's "Burn All GIFs" protest, but you won't find it here, because WEB2PNG is written in Python. It's a utility, written by ESR and included in his GIF2PNG distribution, that'll romp through your Web directories and optimise away any of those evil patent-law-suite-beckoning GIFs, replacing them with deliciously topical PNGs. As if you hadn't guessed. We're going to wait just a leetle bit longer (until those non-PNG compliant browsers die off a bit more, and we can work out how to do animated PNGs) but, hell, if *you* did that too where would you be? Looking down the wrong end of Eric's .45 when the revolution comes, that's what. http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/gif2png/ - consider that to be your final warning and or resting ground Official NTK policy is that if you're not reading this in its definitive, non-proportional e-mail form, you're a fricking girl. And all the best fricking girls these days have a Palm, so JUSTIN MASON has been kindly running the Web page through his brilliant sitescooper (aka snarfnews) program, and dumping the results for download at his site. NTK is available in DOC and iSilo formats, as are all kinds of other girlish, lavender-smelling Websites you may want to read, like The Register and the Linux Weekly News. And "Dr Koop's Health News". http://jmason.org/software/sitescooper/installable/iSilo/NTKnow/ http://jmason.org/software/sitescooper/installable/DOC/NTKnow/ - it's unnatural, we tell you >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista ZDNET UK get threatened with writs from *two* top Linux hackers after blurting off-the-record business plans online ... porn Prisoner parodies ... being sentenced to online community service ... Wrestling surveys : this time it's very personal http://www.wcwmayhem.com/hack2.html ... Telcos tell customers not to pick up the phone at 00:01, 2000-01-01 to "see whether they're still working" ... COMPUTERGRAM vets leave to form "new media company" ... ATLAS SHRUGGED - the TV mini-series? ... slamming meets trolling meets JOY meets RMS: http://x34.deja.com/=dnc/getdoc.xp?AN=542860398 ... E: just say no - http://www.persistence.com/e-nough/ ... 11 O'Clock Show's http://corrdev6.smallpla.net/cgibin/alig.pl vs DIGBY's http://www.spinnwebe.com/todd/ ... Debuggles: http://www.hypercult.com/betty/net.html ... http://www.boo.com/default2.htm - as if Flash wasn't evil enough, View Source ... unique approach to credit card transactions: http://www.omo-norma-kamali.com/celebfrm.htm ... >> GEEK MINI-MEDIA << get out even less TV>> Despite the deceptive spelling, PYRATES (00:35, Fri night, BBC1) isn't an Iain Softley-style take on the warez scene, but a Kevin Bacon arson comedy... Sky One suspends normal, American, programming for the weekend, instead celebrating all forms of televisual Australiania - Mel Gibson guests in a new SIMPSONS (18:30, Sun, Sky1) and, not being a station that could be accused of cheap cross-promotion, the gala opening of Fox Studios Australia... After only a few minutes of Schumacher's Dark Knight in BATMAN FOREVER (22:00, Sat, ITV) you'll be scrambling for the Lament Configuration of HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II (23:05, Sat, C4)... which of these two sounds more like a TVGoHome entry? C4 examining testicular problems in EMBARRASSING ILLNESSES (20:30, Tue, C4) or AIRBORNE (21:00, Tue, C5) - a Steve-Guttenburg-action-vehicle?... proof that even if you've got a Michael Crichton script peppered with gratuitous tech references and a cameo from Bruce "Ash" Campbell, it's still not going to distract anyone from the fact that CONGO (22:30, Wed, BBC1) just a really bad monkey movie. Bad monkey! FILM>> Majestically dull, effects-free kiddie frightener THE SIXTH SENSE (imdb: fear / supernatural / twist-in-the-end) is released this week, featuring Bruce Willis in his least violent role since "Look Who's Talking", a patently obvious "twist" and, as http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ points out, "a child in underwear urinating"... C4-funded EAST IS EAST (imdb: comedy) is like "Goodness Gracious Me" meets "The Grimleys" - but in a good way... Robin "no beard" Williams' JAKOB THE LIAR (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : "Passed '12' for moderate violence and wartime horror") looks like it's "Life Is Beautiful" meets "Good Morning Vietnam", but'll mostly be remembered as headline fodder during the forthcoming useit.com backlash... and THE OUT OF TOWNERS (capalert: transvestism / *more* urinating in public) tries to recapture the magic of "Housesitter" by reuniting Steve Martin and Goldie Hawn, with John Cleese as - get this - a hotel manager! DAVE'S ON EXTENDED FOOD LEAVE >> SEND NO CHOCOLATE FOR NOW >> 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 "now *that's* a bonfire" http://www.enterprisemission.com/call.html 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 (K) 1999 Special Projects. Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/ Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com - remember your work email may be monitored if sending sensitive material. Remember: Sending >500KB attachments is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.