30C3 on CCC Event Blog

Can’t be in Hamburg? Try Congress Everywhere!

Wed, 25 Dec 2013 11:31:55 +0000

TL;DR: Please set up a congress everywhere near you, invite your neighbors and take part in C.H.A.O.S.!

Remember when we met in Berlin at the bcc? The 25C3 was when we first stuck those pesky signs on the door that read “Sold out, we’re sorry”. The building was already incredibly packed and we couldn’t let anyone in anymore. This inspired the concept of “congress everywhere” which debuted at the 26C3. The theme of that congress was “Here be Dragons”, so the idea to expand the fun of the congress beyond the bcc was called “Dragons everywhere”.

But what was this notion of “congress everywhere”? It actually existed from the times the congress first had streams. Some people needed to go to work during daytime, others had family and couldn’t leave during the holiday, and some probably just preferred watching it all from the comfort of their living room. But facing another packed bcc in 2009, we formally encouraged people to open their homes and hackerspaces, and they did!

At 27C3 (“We come in Peace”) we called them “Peace Missions“, and there were more than 50 of those in 14 countries all over the world. The concept of the “Signal Angel” spontaneously emerged at the 27C3, allowing those watching the streams to act questions and interact with the audience remotely. At 28C3 (Behind Enemy Lines) we called them “No Nerd left behind” and there were over 60 publicly announced get-togethers in 15 different countries as far away as Chile, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

With the move to Hamburg and the much larger CCH for the 29C3 (Not my Department), space was no longer an issue. Everyone who wanted to attend could get a ticket, even at the door! Yet, remote participants from 34 places in 9 countries still met and continued the tradition of “Congress Everywhere“.

Despite the fact that we have enough space for everyone at the 30c3 and will be selling tickets at the door, we still encourage you to have your “Congress Everywhere” if you can’t make it to Hamburg. To get started, just add your Congress Everywhere to the wiki, along with some information regarding location, timeframe, a link or contact information for people interested in joining you.

Questions to the speakers can be forwarded by Signal Angels via IRC and Twitter. Also VPN access to the congress network will be available, so you don’t have to worry about your network.

In addition to the Signal Angels, see C.H.A.O.S. for another way to connect from anywhere to the 30C3!

Assemblies! Please arrive early for set up!

Mon, 23 Dec 2013 14:44:48 +0000

TL;DR: Please get to the CCH by 25th/26th with your assembly setup if possible

Beat the crowds and start building your assembly on the 25th! (Day -1). It makes loading so much easier for all of us and gives you time to make sure you have everything you need. Why get stuck in traffic around and inside the building? If you arrive early enough on the 25th, you may even be able to drive right into the unloading hall!

If you’re unloading a vehicle with equipment or other stuff you plan to use at the 30C3, put <a href=http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=53.563085&lon=9.985237&zoom=18&layers=M">Tiergartenstraße 2, 20355 Hamburg in your GPS.

Once you’ve arrived, have someone in your group head to the infodesk, who will let you know how to find your assembly. You can reach the infodesk via Eingang C, check there with the Angel or Security Guard inside for further instructions. Please use this entry only for loading and unloading.

Of course, please be sure to bring enough power strips and lamps for your assembly. Be extra neighborly and bring some for others to borrow as well!

This place is already waiting for you.

Radom

Mon, 23 Dec 2013 00:35:49 +0000

We of the “Chaoswelle“, the Amateur Radio operators of the Chaos Computer Club and our 30C3 assembly are bringing a very special piece of hardware: A Radome! We plan to place it on the roof of the CCH. But we won’t tell you what’s hidden underneath.

The radome is about 4 Meters (13 ft.) in diameter and was formerly used by the US to listen to “hostile neighboring countries”. Today, it belongs to the Stakenburg Observatory who is graciously loaning it to us for the 30C3.

Get your Lightning Talk on!

Sun, 22 Dec 2013 04:34:53 +0000

Did you think that the thrill of sharing your ideas in front of a huge audience at a C3 was something you’d never do? Was your talk one of the hundreds that got rejected? Did you come up with an awesome hack today that you need to share? Well, you’re in luck because the Lightning Talks are back for the 30c3!

Taking place at 12:45 on Days 2, 3 and 4, these fast paced sessions are perfect for pitching new software or hardware projects, exploits, creative pranks or strange ideas you need to get out to a global audience. Even if you don’t have an awesome idea or project to share, a Lightning Talk is perfect for pitching your self organized session, assembly, or even a longer talk you’ll give at the speakers corner.

There’s even a special 180 second express round on Day 4 for those of you who don’t need fancy slides or a full five minutes to share your ideas.

Registration is now open for the Lightning Talk sessions at the 30c3. Act fast to reserve your slot. Day 2 is full and ~~Day 3 is almost full~~. (Update: Day 3 is full, there are only spots left on Day 4)

The Lightning Talks filled up on Day 1 last congress and at the current pace of submissions, they will likely fill up before the 30C3 begins!

PS: Natürlich könnt ihr euren Lightning Talk auch in Deutsch halten!

Capture the Flag

Fri, 20 Dec 2013 02:02:17 +0000

Dear Congress Visitors!

You’re tired of running around the Congress on the Schnitzeljagd (sounds like it’s fun!) or didn’t get a place? You’re like knocking your head on problems? Then we might offer something interesting for you!

Grab a few friends and join our capture the flag competition. These so called CTFs are hacking competitions in which participants solve various challenges – all based around gaining access to remote machines by exploiting vulnerable binaries, solving mathematical problems and completing various other tasks. This CTF will be run in “Jeopardy” style, i.e. challenges can be solved independently and are divided into categories. Each solved challenge gains your team points based on its difficulty. You will be able to track your and other team’s progress on a publicly visible scoreboard.

The CTF will start on day 1 (December 27th) at 20:00 CET (that’s 19:00 UTC) and lasts for 48 hours. The registration will be open before and during the competition, so anyone can join in late. In line with the usual motto Congress Everywhere, teams are able to participate remotely. Even if you never played in a CTF before, don’t hesitate to take part!

If you still have any questions, you can meet the CTF organizers at their Assembly.

Good luck and have fun!

Experience the Congress at its best – join the angels!

Wed, 18 Dec 2013 12:54:45 +0000

Angels are the voluntary auxiliary carbon compounds making the whole congress possible. They run everything: introduction of speakers, audio/video streams and recordings, data, electricity and phone networks, bars, and even emergency services.

What makes being an angel so special, you may wonder. Let us answer this with a question: Are you able to run an event with thousands of visitors, creative minds, eager to discuss, explore and most of all: create?

Join the angels and find out! Doing so, you will join a community as old as the Congress itself. Since the very first Congress in 1984, everything is done by volunteers called ‘Angels’. In return, the angels get some quiet space in the famous ‘Heaven’ including food and drink supply, and the good feeling of helping out and being part of the Congress experience.

To become an angel, all you have to do is to register in the engelsystem where you can sign up for your favourite shifts, times and tasks. Many of the tasks do not need any knowledge besides showing up on time but are nonetheless vital for the Congress. Other tasks may need an introduction with which you will be provided in time at the 30C3. Please read the angel wiki page for basic information.

If you do not yet know, how to start, you can also visit the heaven and ask, how you could help. There you can also receive information about shortages and important tasks.

So if you have two or more hours to spare, sign up for a shift! We will be waiting for you in Heaven!

If you don’t want to participate in making the congress work, at least take your time and thank at least 3 angels every day to show your gratitude. :)

“Hackerschnitzeljagd” – a scavenger hunt for hackers

Tue, 17 Dec 2013 12:54:57 +0000

For the 30C3 we have designed a scavenger hunt for hackers and geeks. You will be challenged with puzzles and tasks including writing code, printing 3D objects, solving riddles and much, much more… The hunt will take place on the second day of the congress (28th of December) from 2pm to around 8pm and is made for about 10 teams competing with each other. A team should consist of 3 to 6 members. All you need is a computer, a twitter and email account and a blog of your choice (soup, tumblr, etc.) for documentation purposes.

If you like challenging riddles and games, write to info (at) turnonthatobject.de to get you invitation token. All additional information will then be provided by email. Also please check https://turnonthatobject.de/ and follow @play_toto on twitter for updates.

How to get power at 30C3 – bring ALL your multi-outlet power strips!

Mon, 16 Dec 2013 14:24:01 +0000

German summary: Unbedingt Mehrfachsteckdosen mitbringen! Außerdem: Cat5-Kabel, Lampen für Eure Assembly, Telefone, Werkzeug, etc…

Distributing power on 30C3 requires a lot of planning and effort, and of course a truckload of equipment. This year the setup consists of 5 kilometers (km) of CEE compliant three-phase and 8km of 230V/16A power cabling, resulting in a total of 13km of cables needed to distribute power at the venue. To connect all the cables there are also about 100 three-phase distributors needed, 25 of them being “big” ones with 63 amperes. On top of this power backbone we will have about 800 multi-outlet power strips in place, resulting in approximately 3900 power sockets.

=> So please bring your multi-outlet power strips!

That is very important as the sockets have to supply a lot of equipment on site, and there will be fewer outlets available than needed in busy most areas. So please bring a power strip to connect to the sockets provided on-site so you can share power with other users. If everybody starts charging their devices directly from that single free power outlet, there will not be any sockets left for other users. Also don’t forget to bring CAT5 cables for your laptops please, as there will be none provided!

Especially if you plan to connect several devices, or to set up an assembly you and your group should bring plenty of power strips with you. While you’re at it, please feel free to bring lamps (especially colored ones) and anything else that helps making your assembly a nice place worthwhile. Also you might want to bring your DECT phone or your old GSM mobile with an old SIM card, your soldering station and other devices and tools that might come in handy. If you are uncertain about what to bring or not to bring to the congress, please have at look our “How To Survive” page in the wiki.

For all travellers from abroad, please keep in mind that the German power sockets might be different from the ones you use to have. So don’f forget to bring your adapters.

Kids and Congress: Call for Participation!

Thu, 28 Nov 2013 00:36:54 +0000

You have children and attend 30C3?

This year we plan to have a big area of the Congress as a Kidspace, to give children of three years of age and up the chance to age-appropriately participate in the Congress. We have enough space in two big foyers to allow for a quiet space on one hand, and a more playful area on the other. The quiet one allows for relaxing with your children and to refuel with a power-nap. The playful area invites to play around, build caves, listen to radioplays on the Audiobox and have hands-on experience in child-appropriate electronics- or tinkerworkshops. And of course there is going to be Lego again ;) Children up to 12 get a special badge, allowing them to hack e. g. the Audiobox.

To make this happen, we need your help! While a lot is already ongoing, we still need volunteers. Perhaps you want to carry out a workshop? Or you are interested in appearing on the reading-stage? Maybe you can procure materials, or help with setup or teardown?

If you also think kids belong on the Congress and want to help making it happen, please register with the Kidspace Assembly and contact us.

As we plan for separate badges with special features for the children, it is helping a lot to know how many children and of which ages will be attending the Congress, to ensure they can participate in all activities. If you plan to bring your child(ren) to the Congress, please write an email to fightling at elektropost.org and let us know, how many children of which ages you are bringing with you to make sure they can get a badge to interact with the installations in the Kidspace.

Picture: maltman23

Chaospatinnen – Mentoring for people visiting the Congress for the first time #30C3

Mon, 25 Nov 2013 17:48:15 +0000

To all those interested in participating at the Congress for the first time

You are interested in technology, computers or net politics? However, you doubt whether you would fit into the Chaos Communication Congress, since you are neither a programmer nor an experienced hacker? But yet, you would love to learn about hacking, soldering, encryption, lockpicking or robots?

Then you are more than welcome at the Chaos Communication Congress! We are convinced that this is just the right place for you and would like to encourage you to attend 30C3. Therefore we founded the Chaos Mentors. Feel free to contact us – we will welcome you on your first day and take you on a guided tour across the Congress area. Your mentor will assist you in finding workshops and talks that match your interests. You will also have the chance to meet other people who are visiting the Congress for the first time once a day in the Mentor Meeting. There we can chat about cool things we saw and interesting talks we want to visit.

During the congress, and beforehand, you can contact us in case you have any questions, concerns or needs. Write us an email at chaospatinnen (at) lists.ccc.de and tell us something about you and what your fields of interests are, so that one of our mentors can contact you directly.

We would like to encourage women and girls that are attending the Chaos Communication Congress for the first time, but of course we are open to everyone.

We are looking forward to you!

Yours,
the Chaos Mentors

Link to the project:
https://events.ccc.de/congress/2013/wiki/Projects:Chaospatinnen

Get your assembly ready until Sunday, 1st of December!

Sun, 24 Nov 2013 14:26:51 +0000

An assembly is your place at 30C3, the /home of a group of people belonging together, hackers who like to work and hang out. At bcc we had such groups around projects, but last year we invented the concept of assemblies as an experiment, that worked out great!

(Picture of assembly: maltman23)

You find background on the idea of assemblies in last years blogpost on this topic. In sum it is like the villages in the camp: Bring your toys and tools, show your projects and work on them, and just have fun – and let others participate in what you’re doing! Write a nice wikipage on your assembly, give information about your group, the reason why you belong together and which projects you are working on. Very important are the information about self-organized-sessions you plan to provide at your assembly or in one of the workshop rooms, as those show how you want to be part of the idea to bring people together to share knowledge and develop new ideas. The “Free Text” field in the assembly form will be the body of the page, you can use normal wiki syntax there, write text, add pictures, provide links and so on.

(Picture of things that you want to bring: wizard23)

Assemblies are also very much invited to decorate their spot on the Congress, as long as everything you bring does not block exit paths and is not inflammable. Please specify those in the field “things we bring” or contact the orga directly if you are not sure. Also please specify what kind of location you would like to sit in: Please have a look at the newly invented field “specification”. The more information you give us on your preferred seating, the better we can look for a suitable place for you. The building will be used in a different way this year, so often an entry like “same place as last year” won’t work, but you can always add what you liked/disliked from last years spot, as any information helps.

(Picture of decorated assembly: wizard23)

Keep in mind that the size of the building is not infinite – so please just apply for as many seats as you really need (this is usually not more than 1/3 of the number of people wanting to attend). Please make sure that you get your entry submitted until next Sunday (December 1st), as we need to start to plan the seating then.

Looking forward to have you there!

(Picture: saschaludwig)

Take the train to the Congress

Wed, 20 Nov 2013 14:28:51 +0000

Symbolbild à la Bahn: Hacker auf dem Weg zum Congress

As in previous years, the German railway company (Deutsche Bahn) is offering a special ticket for your travel to the Congress. But opposed to the last years, the cheapest fare has been changed from 89,00 to 99,00 Euro – there is no more discount for booking the ticket online.

All further information regarding this special offer and how to book it can be found in the Wiki.

Furthermore, an extensive list of hotels and other accommodations can also be found in the wiki: Some hotels like the Generator Hostel and the A&O-Hostel even offer a special rate for stays during the congress.

Tickets available for preorder

Mon, 18 Nov 2013 13:23:54 +0000

Last year Congress moved to Hamburg and it was great to have enough space for all of you! To ensure that this will be the case for 30C3 again, we booked some more space this year. Therefore we kindly ask you to choose one of our supporter tickets, as 30C3 will cost us much more than standard tickets priced at 80 EUR will pay. Supporter tickets are available for 100, 120 and 140 EUR.

In addition business tickets for 350, 550 and 750 EUR are on offer if you or your company want to make a larger contribution to congress, supporting congress and all the volunteers driving it. Please note that this is the only ticket type that comes with an invoice including a name and an address.

For 29C3 the experiment worked: a lot of you paid more money for their ticket voluntarily. This year congress kind of depends on you doing likewise. So, if you can afford to pay more than 80 Euros, please do! This allows us to keep a low price for those who cannot afford it.

For those of you who can’t even afford 80 EUR, please use the Friends application in the ticket shop or get in touch with 30c3-friends@cccv.de and tell us a bit about yourself, what you’re doing and how much you could pay. Be sure, we’ll find a solution.

Now you can order your ticket for 30C3. Please register and login at https://tickets.events.ccc.de.

On the acceptance and rejections in the 30c3 Society, Politics & Ethics track

Fri, 15 Nov 2013 19:56:52 +0000

Within the next hours, everyone who submitted a talk or lecture (not: lightning talk or workshop) should receive their notice of acceptance or non-acceptance. Some of you will be disappointed, because talks that you considered important did not make it into the program. We would like to share with you how decisions were made and by which priorities, so everyone can have a better understanding of how the final Society, Politics & Ethics program came into existence.

First, we would like to give you some background on the content team process. In previous years, there was one global content team for all tracks. This year, we had five “track teams”, each responsible for one track. The track teams consisted of subject matter experts who reviewed the submissions thoroughly. We did this in order to (a) reduce the work load on each content team member and (b) to increase the time for reviewing each submission.

Before we started, the total number of available congress slots was split up between the tracks. The resulting distribution of slots aimed at creating a proper balance between tech/science subjects, IT security questions and politics/society topics, as well as art & beauty and making/crafting. The CCC congress has always lived from its very wide area of subjects and topics, so distributing the available talk slots among different tracks is a good way to get the right mix.

The Society, Politics & Ethics track was assigned 29 hours out of 120 hours total lecture time. This does not include lightning talks, workshops, CCC related talks or evening shows. We received a total of more than 300 submissions to the congress – more than 120 of which were aiming at a slot in the Society, Politics & Ethics track. Many submissions asked for slots even longer than one hour.

With regards to contents, this track’s goal is to reflect on last year’s important discussions and events in order to bring forward the debate in our community and in society in general and to – and this is just as important – have a number of talks that just widen the horizon and introduce you to fields you haven’t heard or thought about much so far. The overarching goal was of course to help forming connections between different communities in the fight for digital freedoms and to learn from each other’s successes and mistakes.

So, we needed to make some hard decisions.

The track team, after reviewing all submissions, came up with some rules to ensure general fairness between submissions:

Maximum slot length is one hour.
A number of talks has to be condensed to thirty minutes, so we can cover more topics.
No panels – unless we have contrarian, extra-ordinary, kick-ass panel members.
No lectures whose sole purpose is the introduction of a specific project (we humbly ask you to do this in a workshop or lightning talk).
Strong international/European focus, no predominantly US-centric talks.

As a first step, we identified this year’s general topics of interest and clustered submissions into 12 resulting sections. Within each section, submissions were then rank-ordered. Judgements were made strictly based on the talk submission’s contents. As we have emphasized on numerous occasions before the submission deadline: Submitting a weak, hastily written or convoluted description or one that does not convey what you really want to talk about, immensely reduces your chance of acceptance.

After the first round of thorough reviewing and within-section ranking, we ended up with about twice as many talks as we could fit into the available time. This means: For every submission we accepted, we had to drop at least one other submission that we had also agreed to accept. As you can tell, this was when the really tough decisions had to be made.

At this point, there were two types of conflicts:

(a) the intra-subject conflict: When there were two submissions dealing with the same (or very similar) topics, we had to opt for only one of them, in order to not discriminate other, just as important subjects. This is when we introduced speaker performance as a criterion. We looked at videos of previous talks, read through the rankings collected at previous CCC-events and asked around to hear about audience experiences with the speaker in question at other conferences.

(b) the inter-subject conflict: Even after (roughly) enforcing the one-slot-per-topic directive we had laid upon us, there was still not enough time. The only solution was to shorten submissions down to thirty minutes of length, and – ultimately – dropping them. So we sat down and made these uncomfortable decisions based on which talk might interest the bigger audience, has the higher relevance in the current situation.

In the end, only 35 submissions made it into the final program.

If your submission was accepted, please keep in mind that two other submissions had to be rejected to make space for you, one of which was originally considered indispensable by the track team. We trust that you will not disappoint our faith in you.

If your talk – or one that you feel strongly about – has not made it into the final 30C3 Society, Politics & Ethics track, don’t despair. You all were up against some very serious competition. We could have filled about twice as much time as we had and would still not have weak talks in the program. The other track teams faced similar problems, just that they had (except for the Security & Hacking track) a far less dramatic submissions to available slots ratio.

To those of you who did not make it into the final round, there is one consolation: Judged by the number of rejected obviously-unrejectable submissions, we’re sure to have compiled a kick-ass program. :)

More information at 30c3? Here: https://events.ccc.de/congress/2013/wiki/Main_Page.

Wiki Signup enabled: You can start contributing now!

Sat, 19 Oct 2013 21:22:07 +0000

The rocket is about to start and you can start preparing your congress. Add your assemblies, hacktivities and projects, contribute with most recent information on travel and accommodation – we are looking forward to have you!

Again the wiki is stuffed with semantic connection in between the sites, so please use the forms to make those connections happen!