Need To Know 1998-03-20

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"Douglas Rushkoff writes that watching his PalmPilot link with his PC 'was like watching a mouse rape an elephant'. Such casual use of a violent metaphor is a sad reminder of the 'toys for the boys' attitude that is so common in the computer industry, an industry that is still, apparently, geared towards the satisfaction of male sexual fantasies." - GUARDIAN ONLINE reader EZRI CARLEBACH the sexual fantasies of male mice - or male elephants? >> HARD NEWS << overly worthy views Okay, this is getting *silly*. It's now over a month since the UK government almost announced their policy on key escrow. Following that flurry of cancelled meetings, DTI officials said that an announcement would follow in "in another two weeks". Then we got the strongest hint yet that a statement would be made today in answer to a written question in Parliament. But now the DTI are now saying that it could happen - "within the next few days". Not that we're complaining: the ideal solution would be no statement at all. But we're curious as to the postponement. Could it be to do with the fact that this week Janet Reno, of the US Department of Justice, finally stated that they were not pursuing the domestic control of strong encryption? Or that this was the week when BT Labs cracked a weak version of a relatively new crypto-system, demonstrating the importance of strong protection? Or that this was the one week that Whit Diffie, inventor of public-key encryption and vocal opponent to key escrow, is over in the UK? Maybe not. It's probably just the DTI trying to stop the Home Office pushing through an old policy that not even its DTI creators believe in any more. Gad, are we that cynical? http://www.computerprivacy.org/archive/03171998-5.shtml - cops say no to key escrow http://www.labs.bt.com/projects/security/crackers/ - illegal under last week's proposed EC legislation, by the way http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/Author=Diffie%2C%20Whitfield - stop us if we're getting too sincere here Good rule of thumb for prospective Murdoch partners: if he seems as pleased with the deal as you are, you're missing something. Newscorp, until recently happy to file LINEONE under "ingenious tax write-offs", have been having a shakey time with their BT co-owners. Despite increased subscriptions (taking the service to a respectable 70,000+ from a rubbish 30,000 six months ago), and a swift tie-in with the BIB digital TV boxes, both sides seemed itchy for some payback. Enter United News & Media, who, with the enthusiasm of the Net newbie, fork over ten million UKP for a 33% share and the dubious privilege of sinking all *their* hot media assets (Meridian, HTV, Anglia, PR Newswire, The Express, Daily Star) into the obscurity of LineOne's walled garden. Meanwhile, down amongst the walled garden gnomes, veteran "virtual community" CIX got a management buy-in from a group backed by Legal & General Ventures. Cix "mom and pop" Keith and Sylvia Thornley get to hang around for three years. Their role is undefined, but will no doubt involve a lot of - what's that CIX phrase? Wibbling? http://www.unm.com/index2d.htm - the "two-dimensional" United Media Website http://www.cix.co.uk/ -L&G after those CIX bikers' insurance premiums, we guess http://www.landg.com/ - I think we've lost the American readers on this one SIMON "www.scallywag.org" REGAN *is* a bit mad, what with his Princess Diana murder conspiracies, his louche obsessions regarding Pamplona bullfighting, and his dogged pursuit of unlikely sleaze against prominent politicians. So when he got done for "borrowing" the contents of ex- minister of defence Michael Portillo's hard-drive via a guy who was supposed to be "cleaning" it for the MP, we assumed it would be another unhappy story of a eccentric hack getting done for his fixations. Luckily for Regan, the case just got thrown out. And luckily for everyone else, a legal principle was thrown out too. The Criminal Prosecution Service attempted to nab Regan on the dreaded Misuse of Computers Act. If this case fell, any journalist who - wittingly or not - received data on a digitally stored medium could be prosecuted for "unauthorised access to computer information" - even if receiving the same data on a piece of paper would break no law. The judge ruled that the guy clearing the disk was authorised to copy it. Good to see the old "for backup purposes" excuse getting a legal footing. http://www.scallywag.org/ - wonder how this effects the Gary Glitter case? >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious C|NET scoops with IE bug story Yoz broke in October - http://www.yoz.com/ie40/ ... LIVE AND KICKING gets "busty" computer-generated presenter... YAHOO! execs sell stock... Marc Andreessen sells stock... Space Station "may be delayed", admits NASA... POLYDOR takes down www.ianbrown.co.uk message board: users, they say, not talking enough about Ian Brown... Pentagon hackers turn out not to be British after all... COMPUTER ACTIVE sells barely 20% of its 650,000 print run... BMG INTERACTIVE - publishers of Grand Theft Auto, You Don't Know Jack - bought out by fellow controv-mongers TAKE 2 - publishers of Lula The Sexy Empire, Postal... Marvel's X-FORCE go to Burning Man... "ISPs say Internet Demand Exceeds Technology", reveals INFORMATION WEEK... Gates "speaks with pronunced nasal drawl", uncovers REUTERS... STEVE BOXER claims that Sega's OUTRUN was made by Nintendo... REBECCA EISENBERG comes third in Net Diva poll, after Kim Polese and Pamela Anderson... NASA astronaut takes Pilot on Mir; forgets hotsync cable... you get a $10 discount off GRAND THEFT AUTO in Australia if you have a parking violation... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Can't make it to Hannover, Germany for CeBIT, the "the world's biggest IT event" [19/03/98 - 25/03/98]? Put off by ZDNet's descriptions of "heavy rain", "sleet or snow" and the "four-storey" Siemens Nixdorf stand, which apparently requires its own elevators? Console your Euro-techno yearnings with the news that, on 06/04/98, the BBC will be recording a special German edition of TOP OF THE POPS, and are currently looking for audience members, aged 17-25, to be both "extrovert" and "German speaking" - undermining the common belief that the two might be mutually exclusive. http://www.messe.de/ch98/index_e.html - then next week, it's "CeBIT Home"! http://www.bbc.co.uk/tickets/tvtvc.shtml#totpgerman - Beethoven? Kraftwerk? Nena? Culture Beat? FALCO? Meanwhile, friendly neighbours of Germany, the French, are holding their FETE DE L'INTERNET [20/3/98 - 21/3/98]. The festival will include over 500 events, none of which travels well via Babelfish, and is aimed at encouraging the tardy French republic to throw off its Minitel chains and take to the Interactive Malls. The uniquely Gallic addition to the (digital) revolution is a "show trial" of the Net, held in a real Parisian Court. The Net is accused of murdering time, space and liberty, dividing society and spreading filth and English. "A young handcuffed actress dressed with specially designed 'cyber-clothes' will play the defendant's role," adds the NY Times, unnecessarily. http://www.cie.fr/proces/ - about time we had a reign of terror http://www.fete-internet.fr/ - ou sont les GIFs des personnes nues? >> TRACKING << grep nuts We admit that we haven't play-tested VOODOO EXTREME's recent battery of Golden Oldies, reinterpreted for the 3D accelerated lifestyle, because we're still typing this into a Hercules monochrome card - but we've had enough mails to suggest you check them out. If you too have a 3D accelerator, that is. The programs were written over a short time-frame by intense young people who, in a more civilized age, would have been burned at the stake for their Amiga demos. Reviews are mixed: humble NTK subscriber Canis Lupus requests you take a look at his Braben Virus- inspired work CHAGA, while outspoken cartoonist Charlie Brooker says that many of them are "frankly, rubbish. But what the hey." http://www.voodooextreme.com/ - this isn't going to help your popularity one bit, Brooker Continuing this week's "Not Tested On Animals" theme, NTK is proud to report that SIGNUM 1100 DX *appears* to be a beta software implementation of the Akai S1100 professional sampler, although neither we (nor proper musician and tipster Erich Wehmeyer) have the instructions or experience to get it working properly yet. Erich also alerts us to the imminent new version of TB303 soundalike REBIRTH (now with "seamless Cubase interface", apparently), which we'll tie in with our rumour that Rebirth distributors Steinberg may soon do a similar deal with neat little Netherlands drum machine HAMMERHEAD. http://www.signum.it/1100/1100.htm - and you may ask yourself, "How do I work this?" http://www.propellerheads.se - no, not the ones with Shirley Bassey http://inside.hku.nl/~bram/hammer/index.htm - give the drummer some >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista GAMEBOY digital camera vs www.reality.demon.co.uk/tyco.htm ... imminent FALCO alert: www.teletubby.co.uk ... "DAVE GREEN" bylines are tech journo equivalent of "Alan Smithee" films, we hear... Amiga PREBOX... DILBERT TV show "next season"... imaginative carbuncles at www.fat.co.uk ... ARM floats... http://www.404notfound.com ... TIMES INTERACTIVE present: http://found.cs.nyu.edu/dfox/monkey.htm ... SPOILER ALERT: http://www.rhk.dk/users/neelix/st9full.html ... Acclaim to do SOUTH PARK videogame - will it be as good as the www.enlightenment.org desktop?... LARA CROFT movie to be produced by DIE HARD team... more euphemisms for WANKER at www.pe.net/~scotta/digitalconcepts/wristpilot.htm ... WINDOWS DIANA... NETLINK techies leaving in droves... http://www.henson.com/workshop/muppeteer_workshop.htm ... >> GEEK MEDIA << why don't you turn in and do something less interesting? TV >> yeah, this first series eventually runs out of ideas and tonight's Trainspotting spoof is a bit predictable, but the long-overdue repeats of THE ADAM AND JOE SHOW (11.05pm, Fri, C4) are - predictably - bedsittingly brilliant... Courtney Pine improvises a "Jazz Turing Test" at the climax of TOMORROW'S WORLD MEGALAB (8pm, Fri, BBC1)... and, disappointingly, John Grisham thriller THE CLIENT (9.30pm, Fri, BBC1) isn't the Java-hearing courtroom drama we'd all hoped for... if those aren't cosmetic contact lenses, then they must be STARS IN THEIR EYES (7pm, Sat, ITV)... did Carrie "Leia" Fisher get into script-doctoring (eg, Speed) purely on the strength of the snappy dialogue in POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE (9pm, Sat, C4)?... after RUBY WAX MEETS (9.55pm, Sun, BBC1), there's been almost enough to do a whole Jerry Springer show on "We Interviewed Jerry And Thought We Were Being Original And Cool"... and sticking with the chat theme, THE ENTERTAINMENT BIZ (9pm, Sun, BBC2) stalks the real-life Larry Sanders - Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, and (one hopes) David Letterman... tragically, the UK won't be getting the MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000'S ACADEMY OF ROBOTS' CHOICE AWARDS SPECIAL on the Sci-Fi Channel on Oscar night (with commentary on scenes from Titanic, Good Will Hunting, Starship Troopers etc)... so we say skip tedious luvvie-fest THE PLAYER (12midnight, Mon, BBC1) for the warped notions about time travel espoused in FOR THE LOVE OF (11.5pm, Mon, C4)... plus, continuing 7 days devoted to nature's very own polar solvent, the maddest title of the BBC's whole Water Week has to be the 10-minute evolutionary psychologist musings in WET DREAMS (10.20pm, Thu, BBC2)... FILM >> some doubts about whether they really could extract a DNA sample (mitochondrial or otherwise) from a single eyelash, as they do in darkly arty futuristic thinker - and A, C, T, G anagram - GATTACA (imdb: sci-fi / thriller / drama / wheelchair / fraud / futuristic / mistaken-identity / swimming / paralysis / dance / vacuum-cleaner / blood / space-travel / cellular-biology / gene-manipulation / brothers / murder / police / detective). NTK forensic experts say: ah, but what if it had *attached root or sheath material*?... hours of fun for London cinemagoers (the rest of the UK must wait 2 weeks), spotting anachronisms from 1997 in the supposedly 1995-set Tarantino-by-numbers effort JACKIE BROWN (imdb: crime / comedy / heist / vulgarity / based-on-novel / gun / drama / betrayal). Goofs include a '97 calendar, the video game 688 Hunter/Killer, oh and lots of slightly old, tired actors wading through the usual Pulp Fiction-era dialogue... subtler timeshifts betray THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK (imdb: action / romance / drama / father-son / twins / swashbuckler / France / based-on-novel / royalty / prison / french-revolution) - the DiCaprio cash-in claims to be set in 1660, yet historical events suggest it's more like 1675. Also, we somehow doubt that The Three Musketeers use the word "tits" in the original novel.. FEEBDACK >> Our first real pledge for the anti-Microsoft Bill-a-thon! Following Monday's NTK Live Show (all-too unedited highlights at http://www.ntk.net/live/ ), MICHAEL FUCHS - of Stanford medNET - promises "we will not purchase a copy of FrontPage for each of our ten staff members. Additionally, we pledge not to upgrade our copies of Word, even as Internet Assistant for Word continues to develop the most rudimentary capabilities." That's the spirit, Michael; together we can beat that puny $30bn software giant!... are you blind?, queries JAY: apparently, Chieftain Tank Lasers aren't exclusive to Bull Electrical ["see" NTK 03/06/98], as the optic-friendly Army surplus store in Nottingham's Cattle Market sells them as "5 mile range, non-eye safe - would suit hobbyist." Begging the question, writes Jay: *what kind of hobbyist*?!... LEON BROCARD argues that our lame URLs so far haven't been "silly or long enough", backing the claim with a list of his top 50 - see http://www.ntk.net/longerthanthis/ - including that megasyllabic Welsh village, plus the oxford- and-cambridge-examinations-and-assessment-council close behind... DAVE MURPHY was equally unimpressed by www.therapyquestionmark.co.uk (for grunge-punk band Therapy?) - those darn RFCs, hey?... after our last magazine round-up [NTK 13/03/98], an, er, ANONYMOUS READER gleefully spills the beans on a focus group he attended for a new "digital imaging" mag, which he describes as looking "like a bad cross between .net and Amateur Photographer." It might be from Future, it might cost a fiver, and it might be called "Image". It's like Ain't It Cool News around here... finally, a couple of quick omissions/ corrections: JON PETERSON recks that Macromedia Fireworks is just a "re-hash" of Fauve Matisse, which came with the company when they bought Xres: sorry, Jon, we were struggling with the less ancient PC beta... and second, BEN MOOR points out that Tracey Ann Oberman, rather than Trevyn McDowell (as we claimed), is the Comedy Nation actress allegedly obsessed with science fiction (especially Dune). NTK apologises unreservedly for any distress caused... >> 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 "Linux enough for you?". ( http://www.eklektix.com/lwn/ ) 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@unfortu.net with 'unsubscribe ntknow'. Subscribe? Mail majordomo@unfortu.net with 'subscribe ntknow'. NTK now is helped by VIRGIN NET, VENUS INTERNET and UNFORTU.NET. They worry about us, but we don't worry about them. (K) 1998 Special Projects. Non-business copying is fine, but retain SMALL PRINT. Contact terry@spesh.com for commercial license details. Tips, news and gossip to tips@spesh.com.