Need To Know 2000-03-24

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"Portugal wants to create a common lexicon made up of a set of keywords in different European languages. It seems to be very concerned with the tech-slang of hackers, 'such as for instance the use of the letter z in the end of words by the hacker community (passwordz, gamez, crackz, softwarez).' The ignorance of such mechanisms makes it, according to the document, 'an extremely hard task to achieve good results in the research'" - the EU struggles with the use of encryption amongst cyber-terrorists http://www.heise.de/tp/english/special/enfo/6672/1.html ...you know, wildcard technology is going to blow this scene wide open >> HARD NEWS << if they only knew Like a supply teacher late for his first class, Charles Clarke, Home Office minister in charge of Not Being Scared by The Crypto Freaks, looked most put out by the giggling during his speech at Wednesday's SCRAMBLING FOR SAFETY. Whenever he tried to praise the work done by the experts in the audience, the experts laughed - and not in a nice, self-deprecatory way. And when he patiently answered the question "how do you prove that you've forgotten your password to your key, when failure to do so makes you a criminal?" not once, but five times, everyone smiled like goons. And excuse me, but *WHO* was snickering at the back when I mentioned drug barons and terrorists? Sadly for Clarke, most of the attendees had spent the half-hour time while they waited for his appearance scurrilously sketching out predictions of his key points. Chief among them: Talk highly of the audience; dissemble furiously when asked about the "forgot password? got jail" provisions, and whenever the need for the bill was questioned, segue to the "Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse" defence: to protect us all from terrorists, paedophiles, drug dealers, and money launderers. As it was, Clarke was lucky no-one shouted out "bingo!". What makes it all the stranger is that much of the audience weren't bear-like cypherpunks at all, but professionals entrusted with tough security jobs in multi-billion pound companies. Even more peculiar: when the opposition spokesmen gave their viewpoints after Clarke vanished back to the HO, everyone went quiet, looked increasingly surprised - and even applauded at the end. Both Mr. Heald (Con) and Mr. Allan (Lib) appear, in the space of two weeks or so, to have got it. So there's a glimmer of hope that RIP might get fixed after all. http://www.stand.org.uk/ - blah blah blah read about RIP blah blah fax your MP http://www.cyber-rights.org/documents/hc-rip2.htm - because somebody's listening This week, the Observer exclusively revealed the dark side of "the underbelly of the Net" - USENET. Something, they railed, should be done about it. It's good to see that they've managed to maintain their level of indignation about this whole "illegal material on the Net" shocker since their last exclusive on the problem, back in August 1996. Something was done then: among them the closing down of a Finnish anonymous remailer - heavily used by the Samaritans and support groups to protect their clients' anonymity. The Observer's assertion that anon.penet.fi remailer was a den of paedophiles depended on quotes from an "FBI investigator" - who later turned out to be nothing to do with the FBI, but a sergeant at a Californian sheriff's office. He strenuously denied the viewpoints that the Observer ascribed to him. This time, they claim that "Internet sources" - anonymous, this time - revealed "over forty" newsgroups containing illegal posts (but have yet to tell any of the authorities what these groups are), and imply a sinister conspiracy to keep them quiet between Demon and the industry's watchdog, the Internet Watch Foundation - while forgetting to explain exactly what advantage Demon and the IWF would have for allowing illegal material to be propagated in the first place. Actually, it's odd that the newspaper doesn't make an explicit link between the two stories, given that they're make exactly the same discoveries. Maybe that's down to the fact that last time, they fingered Clive Feather, the Demon newsmaster, as Britain's "pornographer in chief". Whereas now, Clive's a board member of the IWF, and one of the few people who could actually claim to be really doing something about it. Rather than just sitting around, recycling the same stories. http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/observer/uk_news/story/0,3879,148489,00.html - not that we'd ever do that http://hotwired.lycos.com/netizen/96/36/index4a.html - hey, maybe Declan can re-animate his Observer expose too D-Day for ADSL, as BT finally turns on broadband in the 400 selected exchanges ready for end of March, and the Great Leap Forward. But BT's getting increasingly paranoid about making any move that will knock their short term profits. Even the "poor results" in last year's 3rd quarter has them streamlining like crazy to please the City. That means lowering the headcount: they're planning on losing 3,000 middle managers, and the company's has offered a full year's salary to all management over the age of 59 if they retire now. So what are the chances of those 1200 other exchanges getting ADSL soon, given the technical difficulty of offering it in remote areas and the nasty possibility that widespread use will temporarily wipe out BT's lucrative leased-line service? We wait with bated breath the release of the full timetable... http://www.bt.com/broadband/ - although we advise not holding said breath >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious god help us when they discover *pre-emptive multi-tasking*: http://www.diskbooks.org/part1.html#hs1b10 ... MITNICK FLICK smuggled out - in France!: http://www.cybertraque.com/ ... Domain name not registered: killdando.co.uk ... MS "high on management": http://www.ntk.net/2000/03/24/hashfile.gif ... http://www.symantec.com/press/2000/n000321c.html - new features in this upgrade... special "Mission Impossible" dept: http://www.cia.gov/cia/employment/jobpostings/theatrical.htm whois happygeek.com... 3 more IRIDIUM users than you thought: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000320/tc/iridium_norway_1.html best "best viewed with" http://www.canda.com/ ... all very amusing: http://www.fenn-den.co.uk - until someone clicks on the "about us" link... post-show online chat for last night's "video games violence" DISPATCHES makes at least one convert: http://www.ntk.net/2000/03/24/c4chat.gif ... guy seems to know a *bit* too much about JILL DANDO: http://www.jilldandofund.com/ ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful And what nicer gift could there be for our UK "Mother's Day" than your continued absence - because you (or your mother) are in Boston for the second international GEEK PRIDE convention (actually starts Fri 2000-03-31, hence the advance warning). Music, technology and talking are all on the agenda, with the usual gang of idiots (well, two core NTK personnel, for a start - plus Keith "Tasty Bits" Dawson, Rob "Slashdot" Malda, and Eric "Duck!" Raymond) - and for any of you perhaps dissuaded by the early pre-publicity, it now sounds like Jon Katz may not be attending after all. http://www.geekpride.org/ - hey, Mother's Day and April Fool's don't coincide this often http://www.brunel.ac.uk/research/virtsoc/text/events/GetReal.htm - early registration for VR seminar too. "Get Real", indeed... >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering You'd think the guys behind OPERA, the low-fat browser with the funny low-slung URL box, would know enough not to fall for the Law of Software Envelopment, wouldn't you? But noooo. The new beta of 4.0 manages to squeeze HTML 4.0, HTTP 1.1, CSS1 & CSS2 and XML parsing onto the traditional 1.44MB single floppy, then blows it all with an improved 300K POP mail client which takes it over the limit. Oh, how could they? http://www.opera.no/ - 25 days to really definitely seriously consider buying it http://www.jwz.org/hacks/ - then grudgingly switch to watch Mozilla crash for free >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista sending threatening emails to previous recipients via the "back" button on DOME web terminals... countering usual press comments that the X-Box is MS's "first venture into hardware" by calling it the MSX-Box... http://fyl.xymox.net/sworigmi.htm vs http://www.geekhaus.co.uk/toybox/trek.htm ... not that I'm *really* bitter http://www.ozemail.com.au/~ksolway/misogyny.html ... Windows DeCSS installs registry key under a key called MPAA (HKLM\SOFTWARE\MPAA\DeCSS)... "right to life" imitates ONION http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000320/zo/suicide_2.html ... http://www.rconline.net/archiv-05/mig29/mig29.shtml - the MIG they'd let Larry Ellison bring into the US... JAVA - with legs - http://www.soda.co.uk/soda/constructor/ ... life imitates MCSWEENEYS: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2000/03/23changes.html ... ... sometimes nothing beats jamming a pair of scissors into your crotch: http://www.armchair.mb.ca/~scissors/ ... one Flash dude: http://download.theforce.net/stardudes.html ... >> GEEK MEDIA << the less rude http://www.tvgohome.com/ TV>> the increasingly odd-sounding OPEN MINDS slot (9am, Sat, BBC2) features Richard Dawkins, Tony "Mind Maps" Buzan, plus items on "cybersouls" and carbon dioxide... which may soothe you back to sleep if you've woken too early for Sky's later weekend showing of the persistently excellent fmv cgi STARSHIP TROOPERS: THE ANIMATED SERIES (10.30am, Sat, Sky1; 7.30am, Mon-Fri)... Keith Chegwin aptly introduces the TOP TEN REALLY ANNOYING RECORDS (8.55pm, Sat, C4)... followed by - ideally - a revival of Game For A Laugh's old "watching us, watching you" slogan in THE BIG BROTHER STORY (10.30pm, Sat, C4), re: the surprise Dutch webcam popularity-contest hit... in a weird "little book of" stab at modern-day relevance, a new series on Western PHILOSOPHY subtitles itself as A GUIDE TO HAPPINESS (7pm, Sun, C4) - can't wait for the one on Nietzsche... plus you can skip the rubbish ending of SPEED (9pm, Sun, C5) and still catch that cool twist at the end of THE USUAL SUSPECTS (10pm, Sun, C4)... Inspector Morse takes on his toughest villain yet - Adolf Hitler! - dressed as MONSIGNOR RENARD (9pm, Mon, ITV)... and Channel4 sets up a new kangaroo court to investigate both "criminal acts" in HATE CRIME (11.40pm, Mon, C4) and policemen who run over its own presenters in DISPATCHES (9pm, Thu, C4)... I POSED FOR PLAYBOY (11.10pm, Mon, C5) blurts out Lynda "Wonder Woman" Carter - here aged 40... we still have a soft spot for Jim Carrey lawyer caper LIAR LIAR (8.40pm, Wed, ITV) - not just because it provided the start quote for NTK 1997-05-09... while Yorkshire-centric news spoof FOCUS NORTH (12.30am, Thu, C4) concludes with an all-new episode from the future, where our so-called "swear words" have lost much of their power to offend... FILM>> perhaps even more controversial than the (censored?) performance of South Park's "Blame Canada" at the Oscars (apparently they *did* ask "that bitch" Anne Murray to sing it, but she declined), we can't find any reference on viewaskew.com to Kevin Smith slagging off Paul "Boogie Nights" Thomas Anderson's ultra-long Aimee Mann video MAGNOLIA (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ : graphic fall injury; exceptionally hateful screaming; "I am firing pearls at you" when spouting boasts of sexual conquest; admission of adultery with oral sex and other sexual improprieties; insane mannerisms in aggression) - plus, after this, 2 Days In The Valley, Short Cuts, (and Boogie Nights as well) just what *is* it about LA's San Fernando valley and its residents' multiply intertwining lives?... apparently it's supposed to be a chick- flick "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", but the prospect of Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder running round a mental home in their pyjamas surely risks attracting quite a different demographic for James "Copland" Mangold's GIRL INTERRUPTED (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ : sensual positioning; brief lower female nudity, front and back; teen girl unbuckling pants of teen boy to perform oral sex; incredibly arrogant aloofness about suicide; graphic suicide)... and Norman "Rollerball" Jewison returns for another look at sporting violence in overblown miscarriage-of-justice punch-up - based on both "The Inspirational True Story Of A Champion" *and* the Bob Dylan song of the same name - THE HURRICANE (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ : exaggerated boxing violence; improper intimidation by police; multiple rear male nudity; a slime slug attempting to molest a child; three murders by gunfire with bloody detail) - again coming in for some criticism over "dramatic reinterpretation" of the facts, since fallen-from-grace '70s snooker star Alex "The Hurricane" Higgins was, in reality, neither American, nor black... >> 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 "Now that crazy's Knowledge!" http://penn.netroedge.com/~mrt/cgi-bin/t.cgi?field=www.ntk.net 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) 2000 Special Projects. Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/ Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com Press releases from naive PR people to pr@spesh.com Remember: Your work email may be monitored if sending sensitive material. Sending >500KB attachments is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Your country may be at risk if you fail to comply.