Sophia Longwe
Abbreviations such as WSIS+20, IGF, IETF, DIEM, ICANN, PDP, ITU or W3C regularly appear in discussions about the Internet, yet often remain vague. This talk provides an update on the current state of Internet governance and explains why decisions made in United Nations processes have direct implications for technical standards, digital infrastructure, and power asymmetries.
Mikolai Gütschow, signum
Willkommen in der Zukunft: Beim LUG Camp in Wipperfürth und bei den Datenspuren in Dresden wurde digital bezahlt - mit GNU Taler als Event-Bezahlsystem. Noch einfacher als Bargeld, billiger als Kartenzahlung und ohne Eingriff in die Privatsphäre der Besucher*innen. Wir zeigen euch, wie auch ihr das bei eurer nächsten (Chaos-)Veranstaltung anbieten könnt!
Rike, Moritz Leiner
Der Hype um generative KI und die Gasindustrie bilden in Zeiten der Klimakrise eine bedrohliche Allianz für die Zukunft des Planeten.
David, LK Seiling
We explore what happens when Europe’s ambitious data access laws meet the messy realities of studying major digital platforms. Using YouTube as a central case, we show how the European Union’s efforts to promote transparency through the GDPR, the Digital Services Act (DSA), and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) are reshaping the possibilities and limits of independent platform research. At the heart of the discussion is a paradox: while these laws promise unprecedented access to the data that shape our digital lives, the information researchers and citizens actually receive is often incomplete, inconsistent, and difficult to interpret. In this talk, we take a close look at data donations from over a thousand Danish YouTube users, which at first glance did not reveal neat insights but sprawling file structures filled with cryptic data points. Still, if the work is put in, these digital traces offer glimpses of engagement and attention, and help us understand what users truly encountered or how the platform influenced their experiences. The talk situates this challenge within a broader European context, showing how data access mechanisms are set up in ways that strengthen existing power imbalances. Application processes for research data vary widely, requests are rejected or delayed without clear justification, and the datasets that do arrive frequently lack the granularity required for meaningful analysis. Yet the picture is not purely bleak. Citizens, researchers, and civil society already have multiple legal levers to demand greater transparency and accountability. The fundamental question is no longer whether democratic oversight is possible, but how we can use the tools at hand to make it real.
Patch, Sam. Beaumont (PANTH13R)
Stored memory in hardware has had a long history of being influenced by light, by design. For instance, as memory is represented by the series of transistors, and their physical state represents 1's and 0's, original EPROM memory could be erased via the utilization of UV light, in preparation for flashing new memory. Naturally, whilst useful, this has proven to be an avenue of opportunity to be leveraged by attackers, allowing them to selectively influence memory via a host of optical/light-based techniques. As chips became more advanced, the usage of opaque resin was used as a "temporary" measure to combat this flaw, by coating chips in a material that would reflect UV. Present day opinions are that laser (or light) based hardware attacks, are something that only nation state actors are capable of doing Currently, sophisticated hardware labs use expensive, high frequency IR beams to penetrate the resin. This project demonstrates that with a limited budget and hacker-and-maker mentality and by leveraging more inexpensive technology alternatives, we implement a tool that does laser fault injection, can detect hardware malware, detect supply chain chip replacements, and delve into the realm of laser logic state imaging.
Trikkitt
Keeping old projects working can be an uphill battle. This talk explores how the laser tag system Q-Zar (Quasar in the UK) has been kept alive since the company behind it failed in the 90s. The challenges encountered, the lessons learnt, and how those can be applied to our own future projects to maximise the project lifetime.