Kliment
Building electronics has never been easier, cheaper, or more accessible than the last few years. It's also becoming a precious skill in a world where commercially made electronics are the latest victim of enshittification and vibe coding. And yet, while removing technical and financial barriers to building things, we've not come as far as we should have in removing social barriers. The electronics and engineering industry and the cultures around them are hostile to newcomers and self-taught practitioners, for no good reason at all. I've been teaching advanced electronics manufacturing skills to absolute beginners for a decade now, and they've consistently succeeded at acquiring them. I'm here to tell you why it's not as hard as it seems, how to get into it, and why more people who think they can't should try.
Antonio Vázquez Blanco (Antón)
Despite how widely used the ESP32 is, its Bluetooth stack remains closed source. Let’s dive into the low-level workings of a proprietary Bluetooth peripheral. Whether you are interested in reverse engineering, Bluetooth security, or just enjoy poking at undocumented hardware, this talk may inspire you to dig deeper.
Marc-Uwe Kling, Linus Neumann
Marc-Uwe Kling liest neues vom Känguru vor.
Severin von Wnuck-Lipinski, Hajo Noerenberg
Almost everyone has a household appliance at home, whether it's a washing machine, dishwasher, or dryer. Despite their ubiquity, little is publicly documented about how these devices actually work or how their internal components communicate. This talk takes a closer look at proprietary bus systems, hidden diagnostic interfaces, and approaches to cloud-less integration of appliances from two well-known manufacturers into modern home automation systems.
LukasQ
In unserer „Unnecessarily Complicated Kitchen“ hacken wir die Gesetze der Kulinarik. Ich zeige live, wie Hitze, Chemie und Chaos zusammenwirken, wenn Moleküle tanzen, Dispersionen emulgieren und Geschmack zu Wissenschaft wird. Zwischen Pfanne und Physik entdecken wir, warum Kochen im Grunde angewandtes Debugging ist – und wie man Naturgesetze so würzt, dass sie schmecken.
Addison
Despite how it's often portrayed in blogs, scientific articles, or corporate test planning, fuzz testing isn't a magic bug printer; just saying "we fuzz our code" says nothing about how _effectively_ it was tested. Yet, how fuzzers and programs interact is deeply mythologised and poorly misunderstood, even by seasoned professionals. This talk analyses a number of recent works and case studies that reveal the relationship between fuzzers, their inputs, and programs to explain _how_ fuzzers work.
Elke Smith
Die Legalisierung des Online-Glücksspiels in Deutschland im Jahr 2021 und die zunehmende Normalisierung von Glücksspiel und Sportwetten in den Medien haben ein Umfeld geschaffen, in welchem Glücksspielprodukte leichter zugänglich und gesellschaftlich stärker akzeptiert sind als je zuvor. Diese weit verbreitete Exposition birgt erhebliche Risiken für vulnerable Personen, insbesondere da die Grenzen zwischen Spielen und Glücksspiel zunehmend verwischen. Seit einiger Zeit ist beispielsweise ein deutlicher Anstieg von Spielen zu beobachten, die Glücksspiel-ähnliche Items wie Loot-Boxen beinhalten. Komplexe Designmerkmale in elektronischen Glücksspielprodukten, z.B. Glücksspielautomaten und Online-Slots, sind gezielt darauf ausgerichtet, Individuen zu verlängerten Spielsitzungen zu motivieren, um den Umsatz zu maximieren. Während Glücksspiel für viele Menschen eine Form der Unterhaltung darstellt, kann das Spielverhalten bei manchen eskalieren und schwerwiegende Folgen für das Leben der Betroffenen haben. Dieser Vortrag wird Mechanismen in Glücksspielprodukten und Loot Boxen beleuchten und aufzeigen, weshalb diese Merkmale das Suchtpotenzial fördern können. Hierbei spielen Mechanismen des sogenannten Verstärkungslernens (engl. Reinforcement Learning) eine Rolle, die das menschliche Belohnungssystem aktivieren, also dopaminerge Bahnen, welche an der Vorhersage von Belohnungen beteiligt sind. Besonderes Augenmerk liegt auf dem Reinforcement-Learning, einem Framework zur Modellierung von Lernen durch belohnungsbasiertes Feedback, welches sowohl in der Psychologie zur Beschreibung menschlichen Lernens und Entscheidungsverhaltens als auch zur Optimierung von Machine-Learning-Algorithmen eingesetzt wird. Im Vortrag werden auch Ergebnisse aus eigener Forschung am Labor der Universität zu Köln vorgestellt. Ziel ist es, Mechanismen des Glücksspiels zu erklären, sowie das Bewusstsein für potenzielle Schäden für Individuen und die Gesellschaft zu schärfen und die Notwendigkeit von Regulation sowie verantwortungsbewussten Designpraktiken zu diskutieren.
Ingwer Andersen
Ihr macht eine Veranstaltung für viele Menschen? Dann haben viele Menschen auch viel Hunger. Jetzt wird euch gezeigt wie man für viele (mehr als 75) Menschen Essen zubereitet. Es braucht nur etwas Vorbereitung und Motivation!
Oliver Ettlin
With PTP 1588, AES67, and SMPTE 2110, we can transmit synchronous audio and video with sub-millisecond latency over the asynchronous medium Ethernet. But how do you make hundreds of devices agree on the exact same nanosecond on a medium that was never meant to care about time? Precision Time Protocol (IEEE 1588) tries to do just that. It's the invisible backbone of realtime media standards like AES67 and SMPTE 2110, proprietary technologies such as Dante, and even critical systems powering high-frequency trading, cellular networks, and electric grids.
Tony Wasserka
Presenting FEX, a translation layer to run x86 apps and games on ARM devices: Learn why x86 is such a pain to emulate, what tricks and techniques make your games fly with minimal translation overhead, and how we are seamless enough that you'll forget what CPU you're using in the first place!
Harald "LaF0rge" Welte
Like 39C3, the last CCC camp (2023) and congress (38C3) have seen volunteer-driven deployments of legacy ISDN and POTS networks using a mixture of actual legacy telephon tech and custom open source software. This talk explains how this is achieved, and why this work plays an important role in preserving parts of our digital communications heritage.
Michael Weiner
This project transforms a classic rotary phone into a mobile device. Previous talks have analyzed various aspects of analogue phone technology, such as rotary pulse detection or ringing voltage generation. Now this project helps you get rid of the cable: it equips the classic German FeTAp 611 with battery power and a flyback SMPS based ringing voltage generator - but still maintains the classical look and feel. The talk demonstrates the journey of bridging analog and digital worlds, explaining how careful design connects a vintage phone to today’s mobile environment - in a way that will make your grandparents happy.
Dennis Özcelik
Did you ever wonder where all the drugs, which you can get at a pharmacy, come from? Who makes them, and how? Well, there is no easy answer, because the process of drug discovery and development is a very complex, expensive, and challenging journey, riddled with many risks and failures. This holds true for all types of drugs, from a simple pill to an mRNA vaccine or a gene therapy. Today, scientists support this process with a variety of AI applications, cutting-edge technologies, automation, and a huge amount of data. But can the race for new medicines and cures succeed only through more technology, or do we need to rethink the entire process? Let’s take a look at how the drug discovery and development process has worked so far, and how this entire process is changing – for better or worse.
elfy
A 595€ wheelchair remote that sends a handful of Bluetooth commands. A 99.99€ app feature that does exactly what the 595€ hardware does. A speed upgrade from 6 to 8.5 km/h locked behind a 99.99€ paywall - because apparently catching the bus is a premium feature. Welcome to the wonderful world of DRM in assistive devices, where already expensive basic mobility costs extra and comes with in-app purchases! And because hackers gonna hack, this just could not be left alone.
MarKuster
Science advances by extending our senses beyond the limits of human perception, pushing the boundaries of what we can observe. In photon science, imaging detectors serve as the eyes of science, translating invisible processes into measurable and analysable data. Behind every image lies a deep understanding of how detectors see, respond and perform. At facilities like the European XFEL, the world's most powerful X-ray free-electron laser located in the Hamburg metropolitan area, imaging detectors capture ultrashort X-ray flashes at MHz frame rates and with high dynamic range. Without these advanced detectors, even the brightest X-ray laser beam would remain invisible. They help to reveal what would otherwise stay hidden, such as the structure of biomolecules, the behaviour of novel materials, and matter under extreme conditions. But how do we know they will perform as expected? And how do we design systems capable of “seeing” the invisible? I will take a closer look how imaging technology in large-scale facilities is simulated and designed to make the invisible visible. From predicting detector performance to evaluating image quality, we look at how performance simulation helps scientists and engineers understand the “eyes” of modern science.
lilly
Learn from our mistakes during the first iteration of Network Operations for Europe's largest furry convention, Eurofurence. Dieses Jahr hat ein kleines Team aus dem Chaos, Furries und Chaos-Furries ein neues Netzwerk-OC gegründet, um die Eurofurence mit gutem premium 👌 Internetz auszustatten. Wir erzählen von unseren Erfahrungen und den sozialen sowie technischen Herausforderungen.
Kauz
OpenAutoLab, an open source machine, that is capable of processing contemporary color and black-and-white films for analogue photography, is being presented here. It made its first public appearance at 37C3 and was already seen there in action, but had no organized talk or proper presentation. Now it is better documented, waits to be built by more people and to be further developed by the community. This talk is about motivation behind developing OpenAutoLab and about the technical decisions made during it. It is argued that any dedicated film photographer is able to get one built.
Beata Hubrig, Nuri Khadem-Al-Charieh
Zur Überraschung Vieler sind Juristen Wissenschaftler, die nach wissenschaftlichen Maßstäben arbeiten sollten und ihre Schriftsätze und Urteile auch nach stringenten wissenschaftlichen Kriterien gestalten und untereinander diskutieren sollten. Doch nur in einigen Rechtsgebieten funktioniert dies. Wie jede Wissenschaft ist auch die Rechtswissenschaft nur so gut wie das ihr zugrundeliegende Quellenmaterial – in diesem Fall sind das meist Urteile. Empirische Untersuchungen über diese Daten sind nur möglich, wenn sie der Forschung auch zur Verfügung stehen. Doch wissenschaftliche Arbeit im juristischen Feld ist aktuell nicht wirklich möglich, da die wenigsten Urteile veröffentlicht werden, da sich die Gerichte meist vor der dadurch anfallenden Arbeit scheuen. Wir betrachten, warum dies Grundsätze der Rechtsstaatlichkeit infrage stellt und warum Player aus der Wirtschaft mehr über deutsche Rechtsprechung wissen, als unsere Gerichte – und wie sie das zu Geld machen.
Deanna
Neben dem Congress gibt es noch viele andere Chaos-Events, die über das ganze Jahr verteilt stattfinden. Das Easterhegg, die GPN und die MRMCD kennen vermutlich die meisten Chaos-Wesen. Aber was ist eigentlich mit den ganzen kleineren Veranstaltungen?
giulioz
Have you ever wondered how the chips and algorithms that made all those electronic music hits work? Us too! At The Usual Suspects we create open source emulations of famous music hardware, synthesizers and effect units. After releasing some emulations of devices around the Motorola 563xx DSP chip, we made further steps into reverse engineering custom silicon chips to achieve what no one has done before: a real low-level emulation of the JP-8000. This famous synthesizer featured a special "SuperSaw" oscillator algorithm, which defined an entire generation of electronic and trance music. The main obstacle was emulating the 4 custom DSP chips the device used, which ran software written with a completely undocumented instruction set. In this talk I will go through the story of how we overcame that obstacle, using a mixture of automated silicon reverse engineering, probing the chip with an Arduino, statistical analysis of the opcodes and fuzzing. Finally, I will talk about how we made the emulator run in real-time using JIT, and what we found by looking at the SuperSaw code.