|
Home Subscriptions Netsurfer Science E-Zine Netsurfer Education E-Zine Netsurfer Books E-Zine |
| The IRC Credit Card Trading Underground |
| Allman Brothers Band Fans Beat Ticket Hackers |
| Tribute to Stax Records |
| Have Film Degree, Will Travel |
| Edit Your Own Psycho Shower Scene |
| Paper as Inspiration |
| Netsurfer Recommendations |
| Fabulous Free Dictionary/Thesaurus |
| The Skeptic's Annotated Bible |
| Molecular RNA Computer Reaches Milestone |
| Faces of Lung Cancer |
| Robot Snakes! |
| Drive-Through Food Facts |
| The International Obfuscated C Code Contest |
| Mozilla Browser Enters Alpha Release |
| Confusing Newbies |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
|
Make Your Money Work Smarter! How would you like to drive more traffic to your online business without spending more money on advertising? Join the largest small business network online and get one free ad for every two banners you display for other members. Visit http://www.smartageimpressions.com/default.asp?pin=A4F94W2 to sign up for SmartClicks today. And watch your savings stack up! |
BREAKING SURF
Yahoo Names Netsurfer Digest as One of 100 Best Sites for 2000
We're pleased to note that Yahoo! Internet Life (YIL) magazine has again named us to its annual 100 Best Sites compilation. This year we show up as the Best Place to Track New Sites. We also made their list in 1997 and 1998 in similar categories. This year, they sent us a really nice framed picture of the magazine page with our listing on it. Clearly an organization with excellent taste. Thanks guys!Best Sites: http://www.zdnet.com/yil/content/mag/0001/100best.html
YIL: http://www.zdnet.com/yil/
Will China Celebrate New Year with Manned Space Flight?
That's the implication of a BBC article that cites a couple of sources who indicate a manned launch may be imminent. True, China successfully tested an unmanned craft last November, but most Western experts don't think the modified Soviet Soyuz design ready for passengers. Ordinarily, we wouldn't report such a vaporous tendril of information, but we'll cop out by making this an excuse to bring you a couple of Chinese New Year's sites: A Yahoo greeting card page and Happy Year of the Dragon, the 4698th year in the Chinese calendar.BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_627000/627313.stm
New Year: http://www.brokersys.com/~kcyong/cny.html
Yahoo: http://greetings.yahoo.com/browse/Holidays/Chinese_New_Year__Lunar_New_Year_/
AltaVista Launches Affiliate Program
The search company is willing to pay you three cents for each clickthrough on the search boxes they make available for your Web site. There are several search boxes, allowing your visitors to search the entire Web, news feeds, multimedia, stock quotes, and discussions. There's even a piece of HTML which will allow users to translate foreign language Web pages through AltaVista's Babel Fish service. Seems like a no brainer, so we'll probably sign up.http://doc.altavista.com/affiliate/
DoubleClick's Sue-table Behavior
The relationship that an online business aims to foster with its clientele depends on knowing the customer. But the customer is usually comfortable with being known only up to a point - invasions of privacy are right out. So far, online companies seem to cross that line more often than they should. As we reported last issue, DoubleClick is the latest corporation to hypothetically breach that trust, which earned it a legal challenge for nefarious information collection. As reported by CNNfn, Californian Hariett Judnick's lawsuit claims DoubleClick combines its Web tracking data with its newly acquired customer purchasing profiles to reach conclusions that violate personal privacy. Meanwhile, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) has launched an e-mail campaign against DoubleClick and its customers. Slashdot has further info and commentary, including a link to a USA Today article which DoubleClick wanted Slashdot to remove and a link to a page that tells you how to turn off DoubleClick's info tap.CNNfn: http://cnnfn.com/2000/01/28/emerging_markets/wires/doubleclick_wg/
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/yro/00/01/28/0917229.shtml
CDT: http://www.cdt.org/
E-mail campaign: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1539478.html
DVD Encryption Crack: Interview with Jon Johansen
The 16-year-old Norwegian hacker who was raided for first posting the DVD encryption crack answered questions posed by Linux World magazine. He discusses how he became involved with DVD, his reaction to the police raid on his house, and the under-reported fact that he is not the author of DeCSS, the cracking program in question. The interview clarifies much of the history of what is becoming a seminal battle for control of intellectual property. There's also a sidebar interview with Jon's father, Per Johansen. In other developments, the judge in the US DVD lawsuit (New York branch) has released a legal memorandum explaining why he granted an injunction against the dissemination of DeCSS. Alarmingly, he finds that source code is not constitutionally protected speech. The document is legally dense, but fairly understandable.Interview: http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-2000-01/lw-01-dvd-interview.html
Memorandum: http://cryptome.org/dvd-mpaa-3-mo.htm
Complex Web Environment Gives Birth to Complex Security Problem
When complex systems fail, they tend to do so in complex ways. These days, admins and coders have locked down most independent Web servers and browsers fairly well against run-of-the-mill security problems. But in combination, you get some unexpected interactions. One such difficult problem caused CERT to issue this security advisory, aimed primarily at Web designers. Web servers can be tricked into sending malicious code to browsers through some clever manipulation of forms and other user-submitted elements. The details are fairly technical, but understandable by anybody who programs CGI Web pages for a living. Unfortunately, as with many complex problems, you'll find no simple solutions although CERT does offer a document which tells you how to mitigate the problem.Advisory: http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2000-02.html
Mitigate: http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/malicious_code_mitigation.html
IRC Artificial Intelligence Bot Contest
The challenge: create an artificial intelligence chat bot, hook it up to an IRC channel, and let your creation yack with bots submitted by others. The bots will be judged on their "humanness" and the winners will receive as yet unspecified prizes. You can use any language and any method of hooking up your bot to IRC. As with most such online calls for creative action, the details are hazy but the premise is cool. Anybody can play.http://www.dotcomma.org/projects/aibots/
What, we ask, is the longest contested trophy in international sports? Here are two hints and that's all you're going to get: It starts with "America's" and it ends in "Cup". If you can't crew, this site is the next best thing, as high-tech boats and crack crews fight for sailing supremacy in the America's Cup (did you guess it?). We certainly like how this place covers the topic and the tack it takes, with photos, audio and video clips, maps, fascinating commentary, historical info, and anything and everything to do with this prestigious and expensive sporting event. Currently, Italy and the USA are fighting razor-close races in the finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup, the winner of which gets to challenge defending America's Cup champion New Zealand. You can almost smell the brine and hear the creak of rigging.
http://www.americascup.org/
SFMOMA isn't some futuristic lady - well, maybe she is, but more accurately it's the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In conjunction with the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS), the Museum is offering the Webby prize worth $50,000 for artwork intended mainly to be experienced online. The winner(s) will be shown in SFMOMA's new online gallery called "e.space", set to open mid-February. Check out the rules, and start stoking up them there creative juices and working on that eyeball fodder. Wonder if we can enter these arty words as an entry, or better yet the whole artistic NSD shebang? Hmm, Arthur?
SFMOMA: http://www.sfmoma.org/INDEX.HTM
IADAS: http://www.iadas.net/events/
ABBA Spurns $1 Billion for Reunion
Yep, that's billion with a capital B. Apparently, an American-British consortium was prepared to give the '70s Swedish band that much for a 100-concert reunion tour. They turned it down. For some reason, this strikes us as newsworthy.ABBALINK: http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/abba/701/
ABBAnatic: http://www.sirius.com/~funnyguy/abbanaticfolder/abbanatic.html
ONLINE CULTURE
The IRC Credit Card Trading Underground
MSNBC just published an article about the stolen credit card online market. The article mentions how credit card thieves routinely use anonymous IRC channels to trade the credit card numbers. The article even provides sanitized IRC message excerpts illustrating the chat and the kind of deals that get made. In return for card numbers, traders want things such as hacked computer accounts and maildrop addresses for receiving goods orderd with stolen cards. There's also some discussion of the problems faced by law enforcement and the card companies in combating this trade. Surprisingly, the article notes that online credit card fraud rates are only slightly higher then physical fraud rates. Good glimpse into underground Net culture.http://www.msnbc.com/news/365426.asp?cp1=1
Allman Brothers Band Fans Beat Ticket Hackers
One of the neat things about the communication revolution is that it allows groups which used to be only tenuously connected to come together cohesively. Allman Brothers Band fans who keep in touch through e-mail make up one such community. The band repays fan loyalty by allowing fans to buy concert tickets before they go on sale to the general public. The band sends the fan mailing list an e-mail message with codes that can be used to buy tickets online at TicketMaster. Perhaps not surprisingly, hackers managed to infiltrate the system and bought up large blocks of tickets for a recent concert with the presumable intention of scalping them. Once the fans detected this problem, they checked the mailing list against the ticket sales and worked with TicketMaster to cancel the suspicious purchases. Such is the power of communication. Wired has the story.http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,33820,00.html
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
The brilliant artistic and commercial success of Stax Records came barreling out of a garage in South Memphis in 1959, and hit the wall, bankrupt, fewer than 20 years later. This unmistakable hybrid R&B sound came from Booker T and the MGs, Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, the Bar Kays, William Bell, Rufus and Carla Thomas, and hundreds more. A modest but heartfelt Web tribute lets you browse the old album covers, check the latest re-releases in the Fantasy Records-owned catalogue, and keep up with some fabulous rare finds that have cropped up in the collecting community. This site is a must for serious collectors and a simple pleasure for fans of sweet soul music.http://perso.wanadoo.fr/stax.site/
Want a career in film? Check out CinemaNow - with a fast connection, since this broadband baby relies on Macromedia mouseover callouts to describe its mission and help you navigate its streams. This ambitious site may be an early mover in the cinema-on-demand market ("Cinema 24/7") foreseen by some pundits. Aligned with Trimark Pictures, CinemaNow aims to be "a community-driven virtual studio." Initially, it is soliciting films, scripts, and (from actors) headshots and resumes that will form the foundation of its virtual studio. CinemaNow does offer some movies to watch as well as a film trivia game. You'll find attitude here; the employment page is called "Slave Recruitment Center," and the trivia game is an abbreviation of Freaks Of Cinema Knowledge. From what we've seen so far, we expect a strong response to the call for submissions.
http://www.cinemanow.com/
Edit Your Own Psycho Shower Scene
Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" has been widely imitated since it was first released in 1960, in part because it would seem to be so easy to replicate Hitchcock's style. But as Gus Van Sant's recent rather curious frame-by-frame reshooting of the original demonstrated, it is not so easy to improve upon a master. That finding of fact, however, has not discouraged those who still insist they could do better if only they were offered the opportunity. Well, now they have a chance to strut their stuff. Using Flash 4 (free for downloading), would-be directors can cut their own version of Psycho's shower scene, using actual scenes from the film. Give it your best shot.http://www.saulbass.co.uk/psychostudio/
The still-developing, gossipy, esoteric Crumpled Paper shows signs of excellence. The site is about as organized as - well, as a crumpled piece of paper. It meanders, it slouches on the corner of a desk having coffee, it chats around the water fountain. Offering an attractive interface with a marvelous ambiance, this site tells you to relax, kick your shoes off, and talk awhile. The site doesn't expect you to take anything too seriously either, as it tells you, "this site is best viewed a few pixels short of a full screen!"
http://crumpledpapers.com/
BOOKS & E-ZINES
|
Items our staff likes and you might too. Click on the image or title to order at a hefty discount from our affiliates Amazon.com and Beyond.com, and send a few pennies our way as well.
|
Net Slaves
Frost on My Moustache: The Arctic Exploits of a Lord and a Loafer
Slan
Scrabble 2 for Win95/98Fabulous Free Dictionary/Thesaurus
Wordsmyth is more of a lounge for language lovers than a dictionary/thesaurus. The basics are better than any other we've used; simple searches give spelling, pronunciation, meaning, and synonyms - but also lists of words that come close to the one you entered, in case you don't know the spelling. Advanced searches let you find a word you don't know using meaning as the search criterion; you can even get a list of words that rhyme with a syllable you enter. But the fascinating ways that words come to be used is really what makes this site special. Writers, teachers and crossword puzzle enthusiasts may end up wandering the various feature pages for hours.http://www.wordsmyth.net/
There's an age when outrageously clever cynicism about our received religion is the height of sophistication. If that is your demographic - or if you never grew out of it - this site is for you. It's a compendium of every dubious and contradictory verse in the Bible. If you don't have any in mind, it provides a short list of those it considers the most absurd. The site suffers from using the King James version of the Bible, which is no longer the favored translation for sense and accuracy, and thus trips over obsolete turns of phrase. It also gets a little too PC-ishly sniffy about the status of women and other uncomfortable features of the real past the text describes.
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/
SURFING SCIENCE
Molecular RNA Computer Reaches Milestone
Most of our readers probably have heard of DNA computing by now, a process by which scientists encode a problem in strings of DNA molecules and let natural chemical reactions evolve a solution. Princeton scientists have taken the procedure up another rung, using RNA to solve a chess problem with 43 correct outcomes out of a possible 1024 choices. That's a new record, and an important milestone on the way to solving highly complex combinatorial problems. By chance, the experiment also produced one incorrect solution, which turns out to be a good thing because it helped the scientists understand the limits of this technique as they scale it up. Dust off your high school biology and read the details in this article.http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20000201S0007
Breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer get a lot of press, but lung cancer kills more people than all three combined. Faces of Lung Cancer is a part of a national lung cancer awareness campaign to improve diagnosis and increase research funding. Victims of lung cancer describe their own battle against the disease, "increasingly a woman's disease." Their first-person accounts will likely affect readers more than mere statistics. The Get the Facts section provides an overview of the disease, including pages on Myths about Lung Cancer and Signs & Symptoms. Support materials here include an excellent page of links to relevant sites. The bottom line: quit smoking.
http://www.lungcancer.org/
What else can be said? What else need be said? Robots don't have to just roll on wheels and stalk on legs. They can also sidewind and slither. Check out the evolution of some wonderfully creepy snake robots from Dr. Gavin Miller, from the chubby crafted basswood S1 of 1992 to the current svelte vinyl-clad polycarbonate plastic S5. The MPEGs are big, but well worth viewing, particularly if you're at work. The site itself does not have much information about what's actually behind these sly devices, but the links page has a number of interesting destinations. Then again, there's really only one selling point: Robot Snakes!
http://www.snakerobots.com/
President Clinton recently chatted with AM TV host Katy Couric about what a fine thing fast food chains have been. Even if you agree with the most powerful man in the world that eating, like sex, is something to be done hastily at one's desk, try the fast food nutrition search to get the sobering truth about what you're actually putting in your mouth. The Nutri-Facts search engine covers any food - fast or slow - and will reveal its calorie, fat, carbohydrate, sodium, and other basic values from the USDA Nutrient Database. The news page has some great links to stories about research in nutrition, such as how the supplement creatine might affect the body, and what the Mayo Clinic has to say about the latest fad diet.
http://www.nutri-facts.com/main.asp
SOFTWARE
The International Obfuscated C Code Contest
Have you ever woken with your brain tangled in a Mobius pretzel, your mind endlessly skating along the razor edge of dementia? And we don't mean after talking to customer support. One glimpse of these eldritch scrolls will reduce even the most arrogant hacker to gibbering, drooling apoplexy. As for those who actually dabble in these black incantations - well, they are best suspended over pits of boiling pitch and bludgeoned with volumes of Java documentation. Yes, it's that time of year, the start of the annual Obfuscated C Code Contest, the home of ironic programming and "a safe forum for poor C code". You've got until March 31. That way lies madness. We warned you.http://www.ioccc.org/
Mozilla Browser Enters Alpha Release
The open-source Web browser project just hit Milestone 13, and they're calling this the alpha release. This means that the software is feature-complete and the serious bug hunt is underway. Theoretically, it's all smooth sailing from here to the final 1.0 release. Tons of information, source code and release notes here.http://www.mozilla.com/projects/seamonkey/release-notes/
CORRECTIONS
In NSD 5.38, we covered the Newbies Site, and in NSD 5.39, we related its new URL. Fascinated with all the free NSD publicity, George changed the URL again. He's just lucky we have a light issue.http://newbies.rvx.net/