Need To Know 1998-12-18

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"Software expands to fill the space available. If it didn't, it wouldn't be designed properly." - NATHAN MYHRVOLD explains Microsoft's design philosophy ...within 4 hours we estimate NT will have consumed much of Washington State: after 16 hours, the entire Western seaboard. It'll reach New York by 3am tomorrow morning... >> HARD NEWS << it barely moves Odd rumblings from inside the ISPA, as Yaman "cyber-rights, cyber-liberties, cyber-unreadable-homepage" Akdeniz's letter-writing campaign begins to get results. Yamiz asked ISPs what their policy was on the police inspection of e-mail. Did it require a warrant? Or (as anecdotal evidence to NTK implies) are the police able to gain access without legal restraint? For such a clean-cut question, ISP reactions have been most peculiar. The ISP's head Nicholas Lansman went quite schtum, refusing to answer the query, and - according to Network Week - advising his members to "ignore the letter". Hello, hello, hello - if you're so innocent, sunshine, what have you got to hide? Or do we have to get a warrant to find out what ISP privacy policies are? Meanwhile, the chairman of ISPA, in a curious show of bias towards pay-your-way ISPs, told the Register "you should ask yourself - are free Internet services (like Freespace) *really* free?". Well, yes, Nicholas, they are, unless you're a competing service provider, of course. Now could you answer our question? http://www.networkweek.com/news/2_912.html - proof that we just sit around http://www.theregister.co.uk/981214-000022.html - nicking our stories from other people You'd think STEVE MANN would be the last person to demand privacy for his fellow men. Was he not Mr Headcam, stalking the corridors of MIT with a noggin-mounted Webcam, encouraging thousands to log on for a chance of catching Negroponte in the urinal? Now Steve says that he's seen the future - and the coverage is *far too good*. To fight back against unnecessary surveillance, he's launched SHOOTUP DAY - 24 hours when everyone marches into shops and workplaces that use CCTVs, and monitor them back. Mann suggests recording on camera any law-breaking by the corporations (padlocked fire exits, work and safety breaches, criminal assault by humourless security personnel, etc). The first day of action is set for 24/12/98, so you'll have plenty of great crowd shots in the stores. Meanwhile, armchair privacy advocates can tune instead to TONY BENN's ITV documentary on the 27th, where he'll be filming NEW LABOUR'S backbencher-surveillance systems (geek content: pagers, faxes, Darkside Millbank wonks). Or perhaps you could use up your remaining Xmas film by taking nude photos of Boots developing staff? Up to you. http://wearcam.org/nad.htm - just a suggestion Thanks to everyone who chipped in to the STAND campaign over the last week. Given that it's an obscure technical issue that nobody understands, over two thousand volunteers adopting five hundred MPs in just one week isn't too shabby. Also, you may be interested to know that a week ago, the only way to get hold of the imminent crypto consultation document was to telephone Anne, a very nice lady at the DTI, and ask to be put on a list. No e-mail, we said? Oh, no. This is easier, they said. On Wednesday, Anne contacted us. I'm being telephoned by people from all over the world every two minutes, and I can't get any work done- Would you mind if I gave you an e-mail address to contact instead? You know, I think with a bit of training, they might just get it... mailto:sec@ciid.dti.gov.uk - oh, go on. If we push it, maybe they'll set up majordomo http://www.stand.org.uk/ - extrapolated to a general election, we'd have 30 million hits >> ANTI-NEWS << berating the obvious JUSTIN PETERSEN arrested but not at that CIA secret spy base after all... BAGHDAD WEBCAM a hoax... Title vs Body discontinuity doh at http://www.ntk.net/doh/home981218.jpeg ... Stale bread not freshened by re-heating, uncovers the UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA... MICROSOFT chooses BARNESANDNOBLE.COM as its official bookseller... LUCY ELLMAN goes completely INSANE in GUARDIAN online SECTION... IETF want to obsolete the ASCII standard... Australian exotic dancer changes his name to BILL GATES ... nominative doh: http://www.bogoff.com/ ... SONY sends out Xmas message to all Vaio owners: puts everyone on the cc: list... someone trademarks "LISTSERV" (R)... "Click on pop up" gets 5000 votes in TIME'S MAN OF THE YEAR contest... WALLPAPER does a Y2K survival issue... FREESERVE at 700,000 customers... http://www.ibm.com/IBM/year2000/ says 379 days to Y2K: http://www.hp.com/year2000/ says 378... Do you Yahoo Iraq? http://diversitycorp.com/placement.html ... >> EVENT QUEUE << goto's considered non-harmful Fancy a break from battling your way along confined shopping aisles this weekend? Or prefer to be prepared in case you're called up to spend the New Year digging tunnels in the desert? Either way, you've got to respect the timing of the UK LAN PARTY, whose all-day Quake II / Half Life big-prize play-off this Sunday 20/12/98 seems to be a cut-down version of their much-publicised 2-day "Quake-o-lympics", now postponed to Feb. Hostilities commence at The Playing Fields games cafe, London W1 (though we always thought that "The Killing Fields" would be a rather more resonant name for it), who have installed special "precision mousing surfaces" for the occasion. http://www.theplayingfields.co.uk/ - After all, the battle of Waterloo was won... http://www.lanparty.co.uk/ - ...on the "playing fields" of Eton >> TRACKING << making good use of the things that we find As Stuart Houghton writes in response to the LiteStep plug last week, coding Windows Explorer replacements seems to be the new drug wiping out young Windows programmers' lives. Cussedly, the best resource for these custom jobs http://floach.pimpin.net , is down right now, so we'll have to give you the next best thing, and save that for the New Year. WIN 98 LITE isn't a new shell - it just lets you keep the old, stable, Windows 95 one when upgrading to 98 and its unique open-a-whole-Web-browser-every-time-you-need-a-file approach. Not only do you free up to 32MB of hard drive, not only do folders load up in a fraction of the new, improved time, but you are single-handedly disproving Microsoft's court case whenever you boot. Objection - sustained! http://www.wam.umd.edu/~ssbrooks/98lite/ -<smallprint>only works *before* you upgrade, though<smallprint> >> MEMEPOOL << hasta la altavista boobeboop! http://www.lavalamp.demon.co.uk/bigtrak/bigtrak.htm ... optical switches ahoy!... clip art of the Lord: http://wwww.christart.com/... BT-CLICK doesn't work if you withhold caller ID (not that we tried or anything)... so that's where he went: http://www.joemcintyre.com/ ... avoid Heinlein and still keep your "friend": http://www.rinkworks.com/bookaminute/sff.shtml ... fork THE GIMP? fork *you*! ... DIGICASH to "open license arrangements" - about bloody time... URL of the Year: http://www.fandommenace.com/ ... but someone else gets "Best Trailer": http://www.comedycentral.com/southpark/sp_trailer/ ... time to buy up those Guy Fawkes stocks: http://www.fromorbit.com/drutter/Bombs.html ... "knicker bacon"? http://www.d-day2k.com/cgi-bin/swear.pl ... cut out the middle Grey with http://www.alienabductions.com/ ... >> GEEK MEDIA << may contain strongly-typed language TV>> the hour-long special of FRIENDS (9.30pm, Fri, C4) features extra pilot footage, out-takes, and a "previously unheard song from Phoebe", as if you needed any further encouragement (not to watch it)... could those be CGI dice rolling the soporific fate of Woody Harrelson, Demi Moore in response to Robert Redford's INDECENT PROPOSAL (9.30pm, Fri, BBC1)?... don't watch space-set Gremlins rip-off CRITTERS 4 (11.50pm, Fri, BBC1) with your Furby... and the same goes for Doris Wishman's famously dodgy single-handed '60s exploito-flick NUDE ON THE MOON (1.45pm, Fri, C4)... disappointingly, Isabel Allende's HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS (10.30pm, Sat, BBC2) is not, repeat *not*, a magical realist version of Ghostbusters... and TV creates more Titanic mysteries than it solves, like why is that submarine show called TITANIC LIVE (8pm, Sat, C4) when it actually happened in August, and it wasn't even live then?... is the title of TITANIC: BREAKING NEW GROUND, on the same night (11.45pm, Sat, ITV), supposed to be ironic, or what?... and, now that Ad & Joe have already had a pop, which out of the ones done by Harry Enfield or French And Saunders will be the *worst Titanic spoof of all time*, making slow death by hypothermia/ drowning seem positively delightful by comparison?... somehow, neither disturbing child-abuse classic WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (5.45pm, Sun, BBC2) nor lame Robin Williams remake TOYS (8pm, Sun, C4) are as cynical as Bill Murray's sarcastic feelgooder SCROOGED (11.35pm, Sun, BBC1)... Greg Proops (arguably the least worst thing about that Space Cadets quiz show), Servalan, and 3 Dr Who "companions" join CLIVE JAMES ON TV (10pm, Mon, ITV) to make cheap gags about cheap sci-fi... Sandra Bullock watches her future career slip downhill at quite an impressive SPEED (9.30pm, Tue, BBC1)... and THIS BLOKE WALKS INTO A BAR (11.05pm, Tue, C4) sees Bob Mortimer and Rowland Rivron explain how alcohol helps their performances - by getting audiences drunk enough to laugh at them... a porn star, a fundamentalist, a UFO nut - surely there's a casting agency specialising in recycling guests for LOUIS THEROUX'S WEIRD CHRISTMAS (10.15pm, Wed, BBC2)... and C5 reaches the logical conclusion of its liking for low budgets and pseudo-serious smut, with a Christmas Russ Meyer season starting with FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! (12.30am, Christmas Eve, C5)... FILM>> after the anti-climactic mid-week Mask Of Zorro showings, no further info about which films to walk out of after the STAR WARS TRAILER - and no longer bearing the "Phantom Menace" subtitle, we note... groovy Antz-style cast and many unnecessary songs pad out animated Ten Commandments remake PRINCE OF EGYPT (imdb: biblical / kids-and-family) (what about "based-on-novel"? - Ed.). MPAA rated it PG "for intense depiction of thematic elements", which means the very young may not appreciate the regular slaughterings of the first-born... slightly more potential in widespread weekend previews of ENEMY OF THE STATE (imdb: conspiracy / political / surveillance / chase / fugitive), but not even Will Smith, Gene Hackman or Jerry Bruckheimer can completely get away with this by-the-numbers NSA actioner. And that tagline "It's Not Paranoia if They're Really After You" - surely "out to get you" is the proper folk-wisdom punchline?... ERROR OF FACT OR JUDGEMENT IN LINE 20. COMPILATION FAILED>> A hastily-arranged bombing run of Iraq could not detract from the fuck up last week, with Danny confusing 2.4Kbps with 2400 baud in the ISDN piece, the luser. Of cause, baud means "symbols per second", so we *could* plead that that these days the byte is the - no? Bugger... in related spazmulery, we misspelt http://www.europa.com/~dogman/resume/ - and we're assured "weke" signifies "week" in your Earth language... we said Lufthansa, Feargal O'Farrell says LOO-nassa: let's call the DANCING AT LUGHNASA off... and finally, FUZZY GERDES added to Jay Gooby's earlier Wok Wok observations (what *is* it with transatlantic noodle consumers and their excellently onomatopoeic names?) by sending photographic evidence *proving* that American have little takeaway boxes for their "Asian" food. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/super/fuz/images/chinesetakeout.jpg So now prove it's not a video-grab from Seinfeld... >> 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 "our only hope!" http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/17/russia.lewinsky.ap/ 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@lists.ntk.net with 'unsubscribe ntknow'. Subscribe? Mail majordomo@lists.ntk.net with 'subscribe ntknow'. NTK now is helped by THE ILLUMINATI 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.