Need To Know 2002-05-24

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"The Terminator films are set a couple of decades too early, and we have no idea how to do time travel, but most of the rest of the film is technologically feasible." ... IAN PEARSON, "a futurologist", Sunday Times, 2002-05-19 - although here at BT we cannot stack skulls quite as neatly yet >> HARD NEWS << skirt the truths So CNN call us up and ask: "Could you demonstrate the magic marker trick for defeating copy protection on Celine Dion CDs?" And we say: "Sure, but you know it only circumvents *some* copy protection systems - Cactus Data Shield 100/200 and KeyAudio, apparently?" CNN don't seem too worried about this, and turn up with an "Attack Of The Clones" soundtrack, with "Will not play on PC/Mac" on the front. And, true enough, it won't read at all in our HP8100 CD-Writer Plus. "Do the magic marker trick", they plead, as we search in vain for the distinctive multi-session-style outer track, all the while explaining the numerous different kinds of copy-protection in contemporary usage, and eventually concluding "Oh, let's just try it in the other CD drive". And lo and behold, it rips without a hiccup from the crappy old LiteOn LTN382 32X using Easy CD-DA Extractor 3. The CNN crew try to hide it, but you can see the disappointment on their faces. In some ways, we shrug, this is a less televisual, but more interesting, story - all you need to get round copy protection is a friend with moderately lame old hardware. Unless that's illegal under the DMCA nowadays as well. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/25274.html - vs http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02002-03-22&l=162#l http://uk.eurorights.org/issues/cd/docs/celdion.shtml - love that new logo... All we ask for in the criss-crossed world of cyberrights is the occasional MASSIVE FIST-FIGHT. The closest this week was on the US BROADCAST PROTECTION DISCUSSION GROUP's conference call. This is where the MPAA and friends were finishing off the pseudo "consensus" they need to dictate little copyright-cop-chips in every part of the American digital network. Pesky meddling journalists were banned from the call: just as well, because haxx0rs weren't. Gatecrashing phreakers spent much of the call jaunting around the phone bridge reminding the Hollywooderati just how 0wned they were. Owned by feelingless multinational combines, of course. Hollywood, we imagine, will now mandate magic telephone chips that recognise when people who aren't in suits are making calls, and stop them until their motives are better known. http://bpdg.blogs.eff.org/ - hint, phreakers: don't piss off your future counsel If only someone was to inject the same level of thrillpower into the EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT's current deliberations. Confident in the belief that nobody is still awake, the MEPs are capitulating like craven dogs over the permanent storage of ISP logs and such. Given a choice between a nice, juicy clause that says member countries won't retain data unless it's for national security, is a temporary measure, and (best bit) "based on a specific law which is comprehensible to the general public" - or a pile of namby pamby Eurodrivel that says countries can monitor their citizens any time they damn well want ... well, guess which one both the left and right are going for? Statewatch has all the dreadful news. Vote is on May 29th. There's a petition. You can sign it. We understand pissing in the wind helps, too. http://www.statewatch.org/ - bad week http://www.stop1984.com/index2.php?text=letter.txt - we could have thought of less fatalistic domain names, but >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious this week's more-common-than-you'd-think GOOGLE typing error: http://www.google.com/search?q=accuntants ... don't most mobile networks try to play down this "undocumented feature"?: http://www.ntk.net/2002/05/24/doht.gif ...all clipart extensively tested on potential clients: http://www.hotbanana.ca/ ... return of classic BBC tech pics - "Girl murdered on internet": http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_2000000/2000959.stm - police are searching for a frustrated broadband customer: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2002000/2002160.stm ... trapped in HOLLYOAKS: http://www.hollyoaks-online.net/ - freed by the "Harlow [Too Much] Online Learning Initiatve": http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Do+not+reveal+to+Non+HOLLi%22 ... memo to self: avoid THE TIMES' pizza delivery service: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2-302787,00.html - "As the Italians say, revenue is a dish best delivered cold" ... AMAZON being slightly over-eager in its suggestions again: http://www.ntk.net/2002/05/24/dohvenus.gif ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Hey, nearly a whole week free of plugs for EXTREME COMPUTING (from 11am, Sun 2002-06-09, The Camden Centre, etc etc - now featuring John "Meteor Storm" Hollis and Nigel "Chuckie Egg" Alderton). However, in our really quite exciting role as "media sponsor", we're also compelled to mention the annual UKUUG LINUX DEVELOPERS' CONFERENCE (from 2002-07-04, Bristol, from UKP40+VAT if you book before Fri 2002-05-31, student concessions available), coincidentally the same day as the closing date for this year's NET-MEDIA ONLINE JOURNALISM AWARDS, which we accepted so graciously last year. Meanwhile, continuing this summer season of digital arty get-togethers, there's PLUG AND PLAY (from 6pm, Sunday 2002-05-26, Public Life, London E1, free we assume), the art/music event where you PLUG in whatever electronic kit you've brought, then use it to PLAY some music or videos. Public Life is of course the converted public toilet just opposite Spitalfields Market - and the only limit which the organisers wish to place upon your boundless creativity appears to be "no fucking bongos". http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2002/ - ah but do they have Indymedia and circuit bending? Exactly. http://www.net-media.co.uk/awards/ - hoping to give someone else a chance this year http://www.gabba.net/pnp/lofiframe.htm - and quite a bit cheaper than http://www.vjs.net/ as well >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering Use Outlook Express? Yes? No? Whatever. You still badly need to know about OE-QUOTEFIX, the tiny utility by Dominik Jain that saves the world from Outlook's braindead quoting. Quotefix sits in the System Tray and silently waits for you to hit "reply" in Microsoft's mailer, then instantly reformats Outlook's illusion of what a reply mail looks like into something a bit saner. All the ">" quoted bits are reformatted to fit on a 72 line, and a proper "Darth Tyrannus wrote:"-style accreditation added on the top line. Then, just for giggles, it colourises it so you can see who said what. Quotefix is utterly invisible, does nothing nasty with DLLs, exists completely independent from OE itself (you can run Outlook with or without it), and is free. If you must use Outlook Express, you can at last take part in long threads without fscking up the structure of the replies. And if you don't have OE, send this to your friends who do, as a handy way of starting to talk to them again. http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/quotefix.php - It's not for them. It's for us. >> MEMEPOOL << ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/ best gagpipe-alike so far: http://www.martian.fm/bazooka.htm ... RICH HERRING touches every base: http://www.talkingcock.co.uk vs http://www.doyourecall.com/ ... finding patterns in noise, find the text on the page: http://www.astro.ubc.ca/people/scott/cmb.html ... proving that not all American fundamentalists are gun nuts: http://www.knifeforums.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=UBB64 ... *one* open WiFi AP inside the Research Labs, and they're away: http://www.martleshamwireless.org.uk/ ... "I finally tracked it down to the sound bouncing around between my glasses and my eyes before being reflected into my ears" - when audiophiles go awry: http://rogerdarlington.members.beeb.net/Tweek.htm ... this week's secret base: the NSA monitoring station in MORWENSTOWE, CORNWALL www.multimap.com/map/photo.cgi?x=220507&y=112750&scale=25000&rt=overlay.htm gentle zine stories from when copiers and PDFs were relevant: http://free.freespeech.org/greeblefew/ ... yummy giftext! http://bokstavskex.framtid.nu/agi/default.asp ... CHRIS MORRIS, pre-Dark Side? http://moof.org.uk/images/attackoftheclones.jpg ... actually, more science and history might help you better: http://m.doubleclick.net/viewad/421314/adc_afta_louis_468x60.gif ... the military-industrial-fastfood-entertainment complex presents http://www.defenselink.mil/news/May2002/n05222002_200205222.html >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> as the reality TV ratings war intensifies, contestants will be permitted - nay, encouraged - to "flip out" and beat the shit out of each other in the new series of BIG BROTHER (9pm, Fri, C4)... the ubiquitous Dermot O'Leary doesn't even make the bands dress up, or choose interesting songs, in sub- "Stars In Their Eyes" cover version show RECOVERED (12.50am, Fri, BBC1)... or you can sing along with THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST (8pm, Sat, BBC1) in either French or English, thanks to http://www.ifrance.com/faneuro-france/chansons2002.htm - in inconvenient Word doc and pdf formats... this week's bizarre movie selection includes Tarantino-script-doctored submarine workplace face-off CRIMSON TIDE (10.25pm, Sat, ITV), radically re-edited Katie Holmes "Stepford Teenagers" romp DISTURBING BEHAVIOR (9pm, Sun, C5), Claudia "Babylon 5" Christian low- budget sex farce HEXED (1am, Sun, ITV), Helen "Supergirl" Slater in Brit hacker effort THE STEAL (11.45pm, Sun, BBC1) plus disappointing pro-Glock "The Fugitive" knockoff US MARSHALS (9pm, Mon, C5)... but obviously you can turn down the annoying Quentin Willson commentary and just admire the ground-effect vehicles in ULTIMATE HOVERCRAFT (8pm, Sun, C5) ... Jean-Claude Van Damme, Roger Moore team up for hilariously poor would-be "Tekken: The Movie" THE QUEST (11.30pm, Mon, ITV), scheduled vs sensationally non-exploitative docu-feature PORNSTAR: THE LEGEND OF RON JEREMY (11.05pm, Mon, C4)... and brutal "sci-fi" prison drama OZ (11.05pm, Tue, C4) returns for a new series, hotly pursued by puerile Damon Wayans retarded- superhero spoof BLANKMAN (1.15am, Tue, C4)... DANGER! 50,000 VOLTS (7pm, Wed, C5) appears to be an unofficial "Worst Case Scenarios" adaptation... Sherilyn "Twin Peaks" Fenn has another close encounter in straight-to-video sci-fi THE SHADOW MEN (8pm, Wed, C5)... Mark Thomas imitates multimap's aerial photo option in SECRET MAP OF BRITAIN (11.05pm, Wed, C4)... asteroid-disaster ensembler DEEP IMPACT (8pm, Thu, BBC1) isn't too bad, once you get past the preposterous "Ellie/Extinction Level Event" confusion at the beginning... as CUTTING EDGE: BOYS ALONE (9pm, Thu, C4) finds out what really happens if ten 12-year-old boys live without adult supervision for a week, and whether they actually do fashion elaborate home-security systems, as predicted by the literary classic "Home Alone"... FILM>> as if any further recommendation was needed, Mia "24" Kirshner plays Sarah Michelle Geller's "Cruel Intentions" character in the rip-roaringly cynical NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Not+Another+Teen+Movie : Cerina "Yellow Power Ranger" Vincent is topless throughout the entire movie. In fact, she never is shown wearing any clothes at all - except for a scarf in one of the deleted scenes; both sides of [Chris Evans'] buttocks, but no crack)... Val Kilmer *is* abstract expressionist Willem DeKooning in Ed "The Abyss" Harris' best-actress-Oscar-winning painting potboiler POLLOCK ( http://www.screenit.com/movies/2000/pollock.html : [Jennifer Connelly] shows cleavage - and does so in other scenes in various outfits. Later, we see her in bed with [Harris], but other than that suggesting sex, we don't see any activity or nudity)... otherwise there's Bruce Willis' unexpectedly grim movie version of the popular "Hogan's Heroes" sitcom, HART'S WAR (imdb: wwii/ prisoners-of-war/ based-on-novel/ airplane- accident/ court-martial/ cover-up/ dogfight/ escape/ falsely- accused/ frame-up/ honor/ murder/ POW-camp/ racism/ radio/ secret-plan/ shoe/ torture/ train/ traitor/ tunnel)... Jim Carrey's latest serious yawnfest, McCarthy-era '50s drama THE MAJESTIC ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/majestic_the.htm : Carrey opened his face a little in one of the kisses but it certainly was not the Patrick Swayze kiss with his face disappearing behind the hole of his mouth with his tongue dragging the ground then slapping the slimy configuration on his kissing partner; The House [of] Unamerican Activities Committee was doing what needed to be done during the cold war)... or Viz Comic-alike Brit-made fart-fest THUNDERPANTS ( http://www.bbfc.co.uk/ : Contains mild bad language and flatulence theme), which already seems to have been reviewed by a chatbot: http://uk.imdb.com/CommentsShow?283054-1 ... >> 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 "baked beans"? http://labs1.google.com/sets?hl=en&q1=ntk&q2=&q3=&q4=&q5=&btn=Large+Set 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.geekstyle.co.uk/ (K) 2002 Special Projects. Copying is fine, but include URL: http://www.ntk.net/ Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com All communication is for publication, unless you beg. 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.