Call for Participation: 32nd Chaos Communication Congress

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32C3 — 32nd Chaos Communication Congress

December 27th through 30th 2015, CCH, Hamburg, Germany

The Event

The Chaos Communication Congress is the annual symposium and hacker party of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC). During four days between Christmas and New Years Eve, thousands of hackers, technology freaks, artists and utopians get together in Hamburg to communicate, learn from each others, and party together. We focus on topics such as information technology, digital security, making and breaking, and we engage in creative, sceptical discourse on the interaction between technology and society.

We’d love to see your submission for these tracks:

  • Failosophy
  • Art & Culture
  • Ethics, Society & Politics
  • Hardware & Making
  • Security
  • Science

Apart from the official conference program, the Chaos Communication Congress also offers space for community assemblies, developer and project meetings, art installations, lightning talks and numerous workshops.

Tracks

Failosophy

LOLWTF was yesterday. Today we learn from failures – both our own and those of others.

Failures are frowned upon and we don’t talk much about them. We’d rather cover something up, than to speak about it and share it. Many developers – regardless of whether their software is open-source or proprietary – don’t talk about their failures. This needs to change. Open-source developers who work on projects that affect everybody are usually ridiculed and criticized whenever security vulnerabilities are published. This doesn’t just hurt the community, but also the backers of the projects.

Software errors are unavoidable. This track is dedicated to those who have experience with failures, so that others can learn from their mistakes and experiences. Please speak about your shipwrecked projects and about your failures – you will be the bravest participants the event.

Art & Culture

One can create art and beauty with any technology, including computers. This track awaits submissions that address, from an artistic perspective, the societal changes and contradictions caused by computers, the internet, robots and general digitalization.

We’re open to lectures that include art installations, performances, concerts, readings, etc., that involve past, contemporary or upcoming technologies.

Ethics, Society & Politics

We’re looking forward to submissions which (without citing Deleuze) address present and future societal, ethical and political questions that arise from the technologization and digitalization of all aspects of life. What will the future bring? Which commercial and political interests are in the way of a utopia worth living?

Any activistic, fantastical, solidary and commerce-free ideas and concepts are welcome here.

Hardware & Making

This track is all about developing and creatively using things that allow the digital to make a physical impression. Reverse engineers, microcontroller developers and quantum physicists are all very welcome. Decapped smart cards and system-on-chips, sanded-down PCBs and reverse-engineered firmware should feel right at home, next to the cocktail-mixing 3D-printer and the hidden nuclear reactor you are secretly operating in your basement. The focus is on all kinds of hardware design, the expansion and liberation of proprietary system, getting your hands dirty – and of course rocket!

Security

For this track we would like to request submissions that show how hardware and software can be made either more secure or less secure. If you want to share your discoveries with thousands of fellow security enthusiasts, if you have developed new solutions to previously unsolved problems or if you have found new problems which we knew nothing about, then this is the right track for you. But remember: If you break it, you fix it.

Science

We have science to thank for our blinking computers, but not just that – nearly all progress in society and technology is facilitated by science in one way or another. This track features talks that look into progress from a scientific point of view and evaluate what has been achieved by science, whether it happened in research institutions, in universities, or in your backyard.

Besides topics in the social sciences, such as the history of secret services, research of alternative coexistence or economies, we are also interested in pressing questions of humanity’s growing need for energy, drug-resistant pathogens or access to drinking water. Furthermore, the big questions are also relevant: Are we alone in the universe? How does life work? How do I detect an infinite loop?

Submission guidelines

For talks

Please send us a description of your suggested talk that is as complete as possible. The description is of particular importance for the selection, so please ensure that it is as clear as possible. Quality comes before quantity. Due to the non-commercial nature of the event, presentations which aim to market or promote commercial products or entities will not be entertained.

As it is likely that there will be multiple submissions on the same topic, please show us exactly why your talk should be part of the conference. Remember that the teams are diversely staffed, and not every reviewer knows every submitter and their background. Please write something about yourself, your environment and your motivation. It does not matter if the talk has been held at another conference somewhere on this planet, as long as it is up to date and relevant.

Longer slots are possible in principle. Please tell us the proposed length of your talk at the time of submission.

For lightning talks

In addition, there are 5 minute short talks (so-called Lightning Talks) for small ideas, projects, or rants. These will only be organised during the event. A formal submission upfront is not required, but they will be collected in a wiki again.

For projects, installations, workshops and other fun stuff

A formal submission not required. There will be a wiki again where requirements for space and other resources will be kept track of. Simply start considering already now what you would like to make, bring or show, and write it down once the wiki goes online. We are open to crazy and surprising stuff.

For Assemblies

Assemblies are places where communities around a certain interest can meet and represent the core of the congress. They are comparable to villages at the Chaos Communication Camp. The assemblies are organized in the public wiki.

Language

Although the Chaos Communication Congress is an international event and a lot of content is being presented in English, this year there will again be a translation team that will simultaneously translate most German talks into English. So if you are not completely comfortable with presenting in English, please present your lecture in German. Please also use the language of your presentation for its title, so as not to confuse any visitors.

Publication

Audio and video recordings of the lectures will be published online in various formats under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 DE) license. This license allows commercial use of excerpts by media institutions as part of their reporting. If you do not wish for material from your lecture to be published or streamed, please let us know in your submission.

Note: As German law (and therefore the license) might differ from the law of your country, please let us know if you should have any issues or questions regarding the exact implications. Unfortunately, we can’t guarantee a perfect translation.

Travel, costs & visa

The Chaos Communication Congress is a non-commercial event where neither the organisers nor the speakers are being paid. As a speaker you get free admission though. If necessary, we are able to provide limited support for travel costs and accommodation. If you need help applying for a visa, such as an official invitation to present to a German embassy, please let the content team know well in advance. Please be aware that the visa application procedure may take up to six weeks.

Dates & deadlines

  • September 30th, 2015 (23:59 UTC): Deadline for
  • November 16th, 2015: Notification of
  • December 27th – 30th, 2015: 32nd Chaos Communication Congress

Online submissions only

All submissions of lectures have to be entered into our conference planning system, which is located at the following URL: https://frab.cccv.de/cfp/32c3

Please follow the instructions there. If you have any questions regarding the submission, you are welcome to contact us via mail at 32c3-content(at)cccv.de.