Need To Know 2003-05-23

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"Burrell has also dismissed claims that Diana was pregnant when she died or that she had taken cocaine. 'Her body was an absolute temple, she would not put anything into her body that was foreign' he said..." - http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030522/140/e0lsb.html ...so that covers the "pregnancy" rumours - what about the "taking cocaine"? >> HARD NEWS << an Elven ruse Best new coinage comes from the dependably pipe-smoking analysts of ukcrypto, who this week have been discussing what they call the "little elves" problem. This is a surveillance issue, noted by John Grisham, that no matter how much data you collect on the people, eventually you need a load of "little elves in booths" to plough through it all. Currently negotiating with ISPs about how government elves will get hold of the magic pixie traffic data dust is BOB LACK, the Home Office's consultant on the Data Retention Consultation paper (responses due by June 3rd, please show working). He's certainly had some experience with the tiny creatures of imagination. As PRIVACY INTERNATIONAL summarised this week, his campaign to get magic pixie facial recognition into the Newham CCTV network has, at current media estimates, led to... well, probably no arrests at all. Or at least, none that they're reporting. http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/2003-May/025858.html - "cabbages and kings" http://www.privacyinternational.org/countries/uk/surveillance/lack-faq.html - Lack attack Still, technology marches on. If you ask us, the real future is in *massively parallel peer-to-peer* elves. Take FLEET ONLINE. This Dutch business-oriented service was introduced a month ago to the UK. It's a pay-as-you-go site that lets companies instantly locate their employees' mobile phones, to a granularity of the nearest cell (ie 50m in urban areas). Positioning costs 25p a shot. Here's the real gimmick, though: you can sign up yourself, and then add any mobile phone you'd like to be geolocated. Oh sure, your victim will get an initial "Do you want to be tracked?" opt-in message, and then another in two weeks. But think of all the phones you can get physical access to long enough to say yes to that original text. Friends! Spouses! Potential stalking fodder! And what you could do in two weeks. Supposing you're a burgling elf: you could nick that phone, sign it up, give it back, find out where they live via the geolocator. And then *find out when they're out*! It's a RISKS Digest all of its own! http://www.fleetonline.net/ - that'll give the geourl people something to play with We don't normally get involved in local politics, but were nonetheless intrigued to see factions associated with computer security club LONDON 2600 so strenuously protesting the capital's 2012 Olympics bid. And sure, they make some interesting points about the lack of public consultation, the potential disruption to everyday life, and the fact that, let's face it, all sport is rubbish. However, there's another objection, closer to the heart of any metropolitan haxx0r, which they've inexplicably failed to mention so far: that the planned location of the Olympic stadium - around the disused Hackney Wick dog track - is currently one of the UK's finest Mad-Max-style "bartertown" weekly marketplaces for (among more traditional fare) pirate DVDs, distressed PC hardware and Eastern European pr0n. http://www.mayor-of-london.co.uk/cgi-bin/no-london-olympics-2012.pl - not too keen on that *disastrous* Congestion Charge either http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?x=537272&y=184904 - every Sunday morning, from 6am >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious "Mobile number portability could be available in Ireland from mid 20002:" http://www.onbusiness.ie/2001/0515/odtr.html - can't be too soon for always-ahead-of-his-time Michael Nyman: http://www.bfi.org.uk/videocat/index.php/page/item_view/code/317 ... end-of-the-first-century Roman forums very like those of today: http://www.roman-empire.net/wwwboard/wwwboard5.html ... for all those classical scholars who sent us www.lipsum.com/ : http://www.post-gazette.com/images2/20030513schooldistrictsmap.gif ... odd BBC stats: http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/23/dohtext.gif - maybe they should stick with vague comparisons to "the speed of e-mail": http://www.ntk.net/2003/05/23/dohbowl.gif ... http://www.mfigroup.co.uk/ "place great importance on the need to communicate effectivley"... David Icke, fnords and careless search-and-replace - together at last! (search for "yellow"): http://www.davidicke.net/symbolism/secretsocieties/july2002/symbols.html ... CMS made *too* fricking easy: http://www.phpgs.com/news.php ... another "security through 'please go away' messages" page: http://www.amberleymarine.co.uk/graphics.htm ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Next Fri (2003-05-30) is the closing date for the NETMEDIA EUROPEAN ONLINE JOURNALISM AWARDS (this year relocated to Barcelona) and THE NEW STATESMAN NEW MEDIA AWARDS 2003 (still sponsored by ID card advocates SchlumbergerSema). But if you're looking for strange bedfellows (in every sense of the phrase), you need go no further than next weekend's DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL (Sat & Sun, 2003-05-30/06-01, Donington Park, from UKP39.50 per day). It's a rebel-rousing monsters-of-rock spectacular headlined by IRON MAIDEN and brought to you by CLEAR CHANNEL, a company familiar to dedicated media-watchers for owning an alarming number of US radio stations and also sponsoring many of their pro-war rallies. On the plus side, however, their commitment to free speech does include backing this year's UK dates for inadvertent Bush-antagonists THE DIXIE CHICKS, whom the Clear Channel Live site painstakingly describes as "brash", "irreverent", and "among the foremost and most provocative ambassadors country music has today". http://www.downloadfestival.co.uk/ - vs http://www.clearchannelsucks.org/ http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/2003/04/000645.html - vs http://www.cclive.co.uk/events/details.asp?wid=8&rid=2278 http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/nma/nma2003home.htm - vs http://www.ntk.net/index.cgi?b=02003-02-07&l=19#l http://www.net-media.co.uk/awards/ - no prize for "Best Google-powered Armchair Investigation"? THE FREENETWORKS CONFERENCE in Las Vegas on June 7th-8th plans to be a giant association point of the wifi clans, with Consume, BAWUG, NoCat, Seattle Wireless and others comparing notes, etherpegging one another screenshots of one another etherpegging one another, microwaving each others' hardware and trying not to *all* wear their "Criminal Anarchist Parasite" T-shirts at the same time. $250 gets you entry if you can afford to wing it to Vegas. Mail us at vegasbabyvegas@spesh.com if you are planning to do so, and we'll see if we can't whistle up an NTK BOF For Poor Lonely And Suddenly Fantastically Drunk Brits of some kind. http://con.freenetworks.org/ - Death to the telcos! But first, a bit more work on this PHP node map >> TRACKING << sufficiently advanced technology : the gathering Hard to believe that BITTORRENT, the share-as-you-go adhoc-kamai de jour is over a year old. In the months of semi-obscurity, its author Bram Cohen spent much of his time twiddling the algorithm to scale better, and stripping out much of the interface to make it easier to use. So, naturally, the third-party BT clients that have sprung up in his wake concern themselves with adding tons more interface, much of which is concerned with tweaking the algorithm to get worse performance. Still, an easier way of creating a .torrent file, or setting up a tracker, was probably needed. kRypt appears to have two of the bases covered: his MAKETORRENT program lets you craft a torrent file that points to all the most popular trackers, and BURST!, his new client, lets obsessive downloaders juggle endless stats and manage multiple torrent downloads. Both are very Windowsy, leaving others toying with the far more Unixy SNARK, which wraps up a torrent creator with a built-in tracker to give you one-line distribution. But only for those non-infringing files, kids! http://www.dessent.net/btfaq/ - BitTorrent in a NutShell http://krypt.dyndns.org:81/torrent/ - Burst! More experimental even than http://ei.kefro.st/projects/btclient/ - the experimental client http://www.klomp.org/snark/ - the co-option of the co-evolution of co-operation >> MEMEPOOL << ceci n'est pas une http://www.gagpipe.com/ concrete barrier should deter "the casual bomber", reassures BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/2931044.stm ... experts divided: http://links.daqron.com/atkinsgood vs http://links.daqron.com/atkinsbad ... ultimate indignity - headless zombie rabbit gets parking ticket only a day later: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3047267.stm , http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/3051447.stm ... still think someone should remake "The Fast And The Furious" for the overclocking scene: http://www.sxoc.com/vbb/showthread.php?threadid=16216 ... the new Japlish: http://www.curtisfong.org/fobonics/ ... maybe they ought to mention it's also "derogatory slang for a black person"?: http://www.ultimatesambo.com/what.htm ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,952541,00.html vs http://www.google.com/search?q=%22tall+iraqi+citizens%22 ... http://www.casdon.co.uk/product_pgs/prod_521.html vs http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/exchange-glance/Y04Y4809448Y8910618/ ... http://ratesandavailability.com/10229343.htm room features "complimentary goldfish" - to appeal to lucrative visiting Danish artist market: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/3040891.stm ... >> GEEK MEDIA << get out less TV>> the perils of a phone-free existence are exhaustively highlighted in CAN YOU LIVE WITHOUT YOUR MOBILE? (8pm, Fri, C4) - for a start, you wouldn't be able to help fund new social surveillance experiments like yet another bloody series of BIG BROTHER (8.30pm, Fri, C4)... remember to shout "Look, a can of Guinness!" as they're examining the IRA camp satellite photos in PATRIOT GAMES (9pm, Sat, C4)... C5 explores ways of augmenting humanity in the original SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN (2.45pm, Sun, C5) and the execrable BABY GENIUSES (6.15pm, Sun, C5)... as C4 takes a more morbid approach with Achille Lauro opera THE DEATH OF KLINGHOFFER (6.55pm, Sun, C4), the special edition of U-boat epic DAS BOOT (1.45am, Sun, C4), plus a new series of SIX FEET UNDER (10pm, Sun, C4)... modern life in all its horrors is unflinchingly portrayed in career makeover show APPLY IMMEDIATELY (9pm, Wed, BBC2), marriage fly-on-the-wall MR AND MRS (9.50pm, Wed, BBC2), freakish homegrown chat format THE MICHAEL ESSANY SHOW (11.45pm, Wed, C4), and erratic but often hilariously uncomfortable "George from Seinfeld" sitcom CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (12midnight, Tue- Thu, BBC2)... while "Despite Warnings, Stubborn Mayor *Once Again* Refuses To Cancel Festivities" in Tom Sizemore monster nonsense THE RELIC (10.35pm, Thu, BBC1)... FILM>> of course, it's never going to have the impact of its genre-shattering predecessor - this inevitable followup has too many characters, improbable philosophical discussions, over-trailed special f/x and fart gags, so we say wait for the video release of Rob Schneider/ Anna Faris body-swap THE HOT CHICK ( http://www.capalert.com/capreports/hotchick-the.htm : homosexually-charged comedy about forced personality exchange; demonstration of urination; young boy pretending to be a girl; goth/witch, repeatedly)... to be honest, we were never that keen on the first "Matrix" movie, so it comes as a relief that they've ditched that tiresome geek-messiah-makeover plot in favour of something more like a big-budget episode of "Tron: the TV series" for wirework-kung-fu yawn THE MATRIX RELOADED ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Matrix+Reloaded+%282003%29%2C+The : at the end of the scene, as he lies naked with Trinity, Neo's ass is seen)... or it's Julia Roberts, David "X Files" Duchovny, David "Frasier" Hyde Pierce, and introducing David "Fight Club" Fincher - as himself! - in Steven Soderbergh's perhaps overly-experimental film-within-a-film FULL FRONTAL ( http://www.cndb.com/movie.html?title=Full+Frontal+%282002%29 : there may be something [of Duchovny's] to see here, but true examination won't be possible until this one's on DVD)... THE "VICTORIAN AFFECTATION">> which means it's time for our semi-annual round-up of what you, NTK's talented readers, have been busy writing. Iain Aitch provides a comprehensive account of "what he did in his holidays" - making crop circles, re- enacting WW2 etc - in extreme-daytripping odyssey A FETE WORSE THAN DEATH (Headline, UKP 14.99, http://www.iainaitch.com/ ) http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0755311906/needtoknow0e (like you're all going to dash out and buy the hardback) - not quite as funny as Jon Ronson (what is?), but covering slightly more entertaining material than Ronson tends to nowadays. For instance: a dog show where the announcer refers to the pets' owners as their "mummies"... there's (slightly) more bloodshed in James "Dragonmeet" Wallis' harrowing (and apparently semi- autobiographical) Warhammer novelisation MARK OF DAMNATION http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1841542792/needtoknow0e (Games Workshop, UKP5.99) - with a nice line in anachronistic humour amongst all the "By Sigmar!" exclamations... we haven't got hold of Ben Hammersley's CONTENT SYNDICATION WITH RSS yet http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596003838/needtoknow0e (O'Reilly, UKP20.95), following the sad news that they've canned his followup BLOGGING HACKS http://www.bookofblog.com/ - though we did enjoy the same publisher's new edition (but not-for-neophytes) PHP POCKET REFERENCE (O'Reilly, UKP9.95), a compact and comprehensive function lookup list should you, for whatever reason, ever find yourself programming without access to http://www.php.net/ ... in other dead tree news, EFF activist, star of last year's "Extreme Computing" event, and irrepressibly zeitgeisty "Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom" author CORY DOCTOROW http://www.craphound.com/down/ will be out and about in the *United* Kingdom in June, and potentially interested in any "speaking engagements" you may have to offer - mail us at NTK and we'll pass them on... and reader LLOYD WOOD became "Tom Paulin" to our "Late Review", by identifying William Gibson's PATTERN RECOGNITION (Penguin, UKP16.99) http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670875597/needtoknow0e as "essentially the same damn book yet again; more Gibson refined redux", though did subsequently muse whether "Star Wars Kid" is the "garage Kubrick" the book describes. Lloyd also proclaimed himself bemused by "all the fuss" over "the production values and effort" that went into Stephen Wolfram's A NEW KIND OF SCIENCE (Wolfram Media, $44.95), pointing out that "the Argos catalogue is almost 1200 pages, in full colour, FREE, and details stuff that actually EXISTS. Bet it racked up more mouse miles in Photoshop too"... >> 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 "last man standing?" http://www.brunching.com/debriefing.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? 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