25C3 on Twitter

In 1970, The Beatles published a song about microblogging on their swan song album “Let It Be” that described Twitter as “Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup, they slither wildly as they slip away across the universe” (the song was later covered by Slovenian avant-garde music group Laibach). This year, information on the 25th Chaos Communication Congress can be found flowing out endlessly on Twitter.

Some hackers have embraced the 140-characters-or-less posting service, while others remain completely mystified when it comes to the usefulness of this application. Others take a position somewhat in the middle: It’s not clear what it is and if it’s of some use, but it’s there for you to explore.

If you use Twitter, you may want to check out the 25C3 account, which offers information on the event and also relays the RSS feed of the official 25C3 blog.

If you’re a security blogger or use Twitter to write about security, there’s a meetup: Check out security4all (also on Twitter) for the details.

But the most useful service of all is transBot. It’s a lovely little stream from a robot hiding somewhere in Vienna who will post English-to-German translations every 12 hours. Subscribe to it if you want to learn useful phrases for your stay at 25C3 that range from the necessary conversations about Club-Mate to the romantic (“I’m looking for a second citizenship. Would you marry me?“) to emergency phrases to memorize (“Sir, I am not involved in the robot uprising! I am not a robot enemy combatant!“)