33C3 on CCC Event Blog

Open, Shared and Reserved Tables OR How to find your place at 33C3

Mon, 26 Dec 2016 18:26:58 +0000

As explained in our previous post, placing all Assemblies and suiting everybody’s needs is next to impossible. This year we’re changing the concept a bit: Out of all applications, we selected the ones providing the most benefits to all visitors and reserved a fixed space for them. All the other ones can choose their place themselves.

That means, in addition to the Reserved Tables and the Shared Tables that you know from the previous years, we also have so called Open Tables. For the Shared Tables the same rules as last years apply: These aren’t intended to be occupied permanently by any Assembly. The Shared Tables are for people without an Assembly and for workshops organized by the surrounding Assemblies. The Open Tables can be used to stay longer and set up a home base. You can leave your stuff there, but if there are free seats people can join you, as it always used to be with the Assemblies. Don’t hog the whole table if there are free seats! There will be enough Open Tables for all registered Assemblies. The congress is a place where people share with each other, not just ideas and skills, but also the space.

How to find your place at 33C3:

If a space was reserved for you please call the DECT number ASSM (2776) to get information on where your Assembly is placed.
If you haven’t got a reserved space and want to occupy an Open Table, please have a look around yourself to find a good spot. Once settled down, please update your location in the wiki accordingly. Feel free to also enter your location into https://c3nav.de/.
If you have any other issues e.g. not finding a suitable Open Table please call ASSM (2776) on DECT, too.

We work to make it work for you!

Mon, 26 Dec 2016 11:07:16 +0000

If you say that you want to make the 33c3 also work for visitors with disabilities then this might be your chance.

As a part of the subtitles team, you would help to transcribe talks live. If you like to type fast you are welcome to join us, if you don’t know how fast you can type, check your skills here 10fastfingers.com.

Please register as an subtitle angel in the engelsystem first and join as a subtitle angel. All introduction meetings will be announced in the 33c3 wiki. We are looking forward to having you as angel!

Our goal this year is to cover hall 1 and 2 with a 100% live subtitles. You will be able to see them in both halls on the screens close to the stage or on live.c3subtitles.de. Furthermore subtitles will be available at media.ccc.de itself. If you intend to watch the stream via VLC or any other player then unfortunately there won’t be any subtitles available.

We also want to try to connect people who are capable of a sign language and who might benefit from an interpreter. Please get in touch with us if you:

need ASL, BSL or a DGS interpreter
have mastered a sign language
are a CODA

You can find the contact information in our Wiki wiki.c3subtitles.de.

Speakers: please support the translations, send us your slides!

Fri, 23 Dec 2016 13:06:01 +0000

If you’ll be giving a talk at 33C3 in Hamburg, you should know that your talk will be simultaneously translated from English to German (or vice versa) by our team of volunteers. The only exception is talks where we feel that a translation is likely not to do it justice, like plays or performances.

For the quality of the translations it helps a lot if we can prepare a glossary for each talk. It would be awesome if you could send us any material that may help us do that, such as presentation slides or a manuscript. We’ll will not share these outside our team of volunteers.

If you have any material that you can give us, please send it to us at speakers(at)c3lingo.org or use our very handy upload form at https://speakers.c3lingo.org/. You can also give us your materials in person at congress if you prefer – just let us know.

GSM and Phone Infrastructure

Thu, 22 Dec 2016 12:14:44 +0000

Good news: There will be GSM at 33c3! Bad news: There are no SIM Cards available! At the past events we spread thousands. Please bring your SIM Card(s) and share your SIM Cards.

To (hopefully) prevent so much questions during the very short setup time, here is our plan ™:

23.11. – Extension registration in GURU for 33c3 is open.
23.12. – Starting GSM setup.
24.12. – Setup the Eventphone PBX, hang up DECT antennas.
25.12. – 11:00 a.m. Start issuing preregistered orga DECT phones, rollout wired devices, registration of new orga DECT phones if (inter)network is working.
26.12. – 11:00 a.m. Start GSM extension registration in GURU, start DECT registration for visitors.
27.12. – 09:00 a.m. GSM, DECT, SIP, EPVPN & wired phone services are up and running.

Translations at 33C3

Wed, 21 Dec 2016 22:19:48 +0000

Listen to the simultaneous interpretations of all German-language talks with a DECT phone. Read more details below or short information in the Wiki.

It always happens: there’s that one brilliant talk by a team of hackers who built a wooden self-driving car with COBOL-based firmware on a Raspberry Pi. You’re about to head all the way out to Hall G, you only re-check the schedule to make sure that it really is there – damn, what’s that? It turns out the talk is in German and now you won’t be able to understand a word of it. “If only I had a babelfish,” you think to yourself as you redirect your steps to the bar where you’ll be drowning your sorrows in Mate.

Although we’re still unable to offer you your personal babelfish, we have a solution that’s almost as good: just like in previous years, our team of translation angels will be on hand to whisper simultaneous interpretations of all German-language talks at 33C3 into your ear, starting right on day one. To listen to the translations, all you need is a DECT phone, so remember to bring your own or borrow one from a friend. The phone numbers are specific to each room and will be announced before each talk.

Translations will also be available as an audio track on the finished recordings of the talks as well as (usually) the live stream. (The stream lags too far behind real time to make it practical for listening to the interpretation whilst you’re seated in the audience, so do take a DECT phone or some German classes.)

But there’s one more thing: This year, we will have the infrastructure to translate several of the talks in Halls 1 and 2 into a third language – French. This is something of an experiment, so details will be announced spontaneously. Be sure to follow @c3lingo on Twitter to be the first to hear about them.

Like all angels, the translation angel team is entirely volunteer-based. If you’re good at English and another language and think you might enjoy interpreting some of the talks, don’t be afraid to join them!

Welcome to HHackertours – your provider of sightseeing tours for technical enthusiasts!

Sun, 18 Dec 2016 20:21:22 +0000

Visiting the 33C3 and wondering what the city has to offer? Try one of our tours! Our goal is to show Hamburg to the visitors of the 33C3 like no other tour guide would. We have selected tours showing the behind the scenes of our most fascinating technology related sites.

Save a seat for a tour on our webpage and follow us on Twitter to get updates about new tours, changes and important updates. We also have a page in the congress wiki to help you find our assembly.

Here’s a list of our tours (English and German):

**Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY)
**

DESY – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 via flickr/Kay_B

If you’ve ever wanted to stand next to a particle accelerator, DESY is the place for you. One of Europe’s leading accelerator research centers, our tour will give you an idea of how particle physics and a host of other sciences are advancing with the help of scientists from all around the world. No special physics background necessary!

Miniatur Wunderland Backstage

Miniatur Wunderland – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 via flickr/Norman Z

Get an in-depth view of the internal wiring, decoders, computers etc. Explore the details of the ‚intelligent‘ car system and the process behind it. During the tour one of the guides will give you details on concepts, model building, construction and technology. You are encouraged to take photographs any time! Included in the price is a day-pass for the whole exhibition.

Container-Terminal (soon online)

Container Terminal Altenwerder – CC BY 2.0 via flickr/Alexander Svensson

The harbour tour “eye to eye with giants” takes you directly onto the container terminals of the second largest harbour in Europe. You will visit CTA (Container Terminal Altenwerder), with semi-automated container bridges and fully-automated transfer and storage of containers. The on-site container transport is done by fully-automated container transport vehicles. The only drawback is, you have to stay inside the tour bus.

St. Pauli Museum and Kiez Tour

Picture by St. Pauli Museum

Hamburg is famous for it’s amusement quarter around the Reeperbahn, commonly referred to as the “Kiez”. It is a colourful mix of clubbing and red light district, with a lot of history. Why not get that history told on a guided walk around the area and warm yourself up at the museum afterwards? Typical drinks for Hamburg included.

St. Pauli Museum and Bone Crypt

Picture by St. Pauli Museum

Would you have guessed that Hamburg has a bone crypt? Even most people living here don’t know about it, but it’s right in the middle of our amusement district St. Pauli, underneath a baroque church. Have a chill go down your spine while looking at those bones and learn about the only bone crypt in northern Germany, which was opened to the public just last year.

Don’t forget your (DECT) phone

Mon, 12 Dec 2016 23:15:29 +0000

“Works for us” is not enough.
“Works for you” is our aspiration.

We will provide to you the best phone infrastructure of all chaos events, combined with the shortest setup time ever. So do not forget to bring your DECT phone with you (and the right charger, maybe even a headset if you have one). In addition to many other features and easter eggs, the stages’ audio and simultaneous translations will be available via telephone. Heck, we might even bring hall H’s soundtrack right to where you are.

If you want to find out if your device is compatible with the POC-PBX, have a look on the DECT Phone Compatibility List in the Eventphone Wiki or send us a tweet (@eventphone). Extensions can be registered in the Generic User Registration Utility (Guru).

33C3 – Call for Angels!

Sun, 04 Dec 2016 16:03:10 +0000

Join the Angels for the best Congress experience

Our Camp and our Chaos Communication Congress would not be possible without the great work of our volunteers, called Angels. Your engagement as an Angel is the perfect opportunity to become a part of Congress and make it even more amazing for everyone involved. Apart from that, volunteering is a great chance to meet new people.

What makes being an Angel so special, you may wonder? Let us answer this with another 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, later called ‘Angels’. In return, the Angels get some quiet space in the famous ‘Heaven’ including food and drink supply, a Hackcenter exclusively for Angels, and the good feeling of helping out and being part of the Congress experience. If you love crafting and do some construction work we would love if you show up for buildup.

We want to plan the right amount of food and drinks for our build up Angels. Therefore it would be great if you signup right now under engelsystem.de and tell us when you arrive. We will use this to inform you of important dates and the setup schedule. In the near future you can also sign up for your favourite shifts, tasks, and times in the Engelsystem.

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 Congress. Please read the Angel wiki page for basic information. If you are not sure about the whole Angel-stuff or have any questions, just show up in Heaven and ask. Heaven will also announce tasks to be done and short notice tasks. For all new angels out there, there will be special introduction meetings for you the first few days of Congress, in addition to the daily general angel meetings.

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 three Angels every day to show your gratitude. :)

Call for Interpreters: Translate 33C3!

Wed, 23 Nov 2016 22:36:57 +0000

If you are multilingual and fluent in German and English, please consider joining the translation team.

We interpret ALL THE talks in the four main halls live. German talks are interpreted into English, and vice versa. Our work is transmitted via the internal phone network, streamed to the Internet, and recordings are published on CCC sites and YouTube. Also, this year we are expanding: for the two large halls (Saal 1 & 2) we have a second translations channel that will be broadcast in the same way.

That is a lot of stuff to translate, and for that we need YOU. At Saal 1 & 2, you have the chance to contribute in an even more special way if you can interpret into another interesting language (from English or German). The first language we would like to add so far is French, but if your interest is elsewhere just let us know – especially if you can bring a few interpreters for the same target language along.

Don’t be shy. If you are uncertain whether you’re good enough, chances are that you’ll do just fine. If we believe you might be struggling, we will talk it over, no harm done.

Simply send an email to “translate-subscribe(at)lists.ccc.de” and write a quick intro to the mailing list after you’ve completed subscribing. Also sign up as a translation angel at the Engelsystem a few days before 33C3.

So please, take this chance and help us bring C3 to an even wider international audience.

For more information, you can contact us on Twitter at @c3lingo and #c3t, or via mail to translate(at)lists.ccc.de (after subscribing).

See (and possibly hear) you at 33C3!

Hello, this is 33C3 „works for me“

Tue, 22 Nov 2016 22:30:19 +0000

Design Specifications

33C3: „works for me“

works for me
A commonly used phrase by software developers to indicate that the bug reported by a user is not repeatable on their machine, and will therefore receive no more attention. Usually connotes a dismissive approach, where anything that is not visible immediately to the developer is „someone else’s problem“ and is therefore not worth fixing.

Like no other, the year 2016 pointed out how well „works for me“ works for us.
It does not. Mutual hate, envy, insensibility and exclusion have driven us apart.

Feeling isolated and threatened, we turn further against each other, take less care of each other and worry even more about ourselves. And yet, we are never alone: Excessive surveillance is now politically normalized, if not for all then at least for those who are different, intractable, foreign.

Let’s break this vicious circle.
Let’s get together and live our utopia.
Let’s strive for something that works for all of us.

And let’s fight those, who will not let us!

Welcome to the party! :-)

PS: You can also make the Design work for you…

Enter your Self-Organized Sessions and Lightning Talks!

Mon, 21 Nov 2016 23:29:38 +0000

The Call-For-Participation to submit a talk for the main halls is long over – but congress wouldn’t be congress if there weren’t many more options to get on a stage to tell a crowd of curious listeners what you have to say!

Two of those options are waiting for your entries:

Lightning Talks:

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 Assembly, your workshop or even a longer talk you’ll give as a Self-Organized Session.

Did you think that the thrill of sharing your ideas in front of a huge audience at a C3 was something you’d never experience? Do you work on a cool project and want to get the word out? Was your talk one of the hundreds that got rejected? Did you come up with an awesome hack that you need to share? Go ahead and enter your Lightning Talk now!

Self-Organized Session:

Self-Organized Sessions used to be called “workshops”, but we changed the name to include everything – even if it’s not hands-on or about making things – as long as it’s done by you for all of us!

It doesn’t matter whether you want to give an introduction to your favorite programming language or want to make new friends with similar interests, if you want to screen a movie or if you want to organize a follow-up from a presentation on the big stages: All you have to do is use the wiki to create a Self-Organized Session and choose a free space and time to get going!

As usual both options come with the first-come-first-serve principle, please check the calendar carefully to see what rooms and slots are still available.

The wiki works for you!

Sat, 12 Nov 2016 10:54:19 +0000

The Chaos Communication Congress lives off your participation and engagement. It is an event for the community by the community. In the long and colorful tradition of utter chaos, we foster decentralization and self-organization. In an attempt to offer some orientation and coordination, we keep a wiki.

The wiki works for you (and everyone else, we hope!) to find information about congress, but its main purpose is enabling you to contribute and make congress work for everyone.

The 33c3 Wiki is now online, you can enter Assemblies and share useful information.
(Registration for self-organized sessions will open in some time)

If you just want to have a look around for now, the FAQ page is a good entry point.
Also, the startpage lists and links to lots of relevant info.

We are trying to organize each C3-Conference as decentralized as possible, so this is one of the multiple bits where everyone can participate and contribute. Please go ahead, it’s a wiki!

Please note that the deadline for submitting your Assembly is (as usual) the 1st of December at 23:59 CET.

Assemblies – get prepared to contribute and share!

Thu, 10 Nov 2016 22:20:34 +0000

Before we open the registration for Assemblies in the wiki, we want to let you know about some conceptual changes: Since 29C3 we’ve tried our very best to leave no Assembly behind and reserved space for (nearly) every group that applied. You all know the result: Each Assembly got less and less space each year for doing the things they’ve planned to do – even if that was just to hang out together. This year this is going to change. We will not allocate space for each individual Assembly, but rather allocate enough space for the ones actively adding value to our community on site – be it for 33C3 itself, or because of meeting and hacking together on site to create more helpful tools and knowledge to inure to the benefit of everyone!

What is an Assembly all about? When we invented them in 2012 for 29C3 (as an experiment!) we wrote: “Bring your toys, work on projects, have fun and let others participate in what you’re doing!” We also stated that the possibility to participate is central for everything at your C3-conference and that we want you to share your knowledge. All of this still applies, and this year we want you to focus even more on the participation and sharing aspect, as well as on the contribution to something useful for everyone. So we kindly ask you to highlight this more in your application for a reserved space, too.

You already learned about the ticket situation from the past blogposts: We are again running out of space. As the building is static, all of us need to adjust ourselves dynamically. That means we will only provide reserved space to some of the Assemblies applying, and leave it to you to share the rest of the space. By organizing yourselves in clusters you can help to decentralize further. Similarly for all the gear you’re bringing each year: It is amazing to see what one can do with all those tools, but if you need your soldering iron just twice during Congress – why not go down to the Hardware Hacking Area for doing so – and save space for everyone to spread and share? Instead of packing everything – think about what is unique or characteristic for your assembly. This makes your travel to 33C3 easier and everyone else will be able to understand what is important to you much faster.

The Assembly team will allocate resources in a similar manner as the Content team: There we also have the curated talks in the halls, and lots of space for the self-organized-sessions. Please take your application for a reserved space as serious as you would an application to talk on one of the stages! We want to see more extraordinary things, we want to have a diverse and mixed collection of passionate people doing exciting stuff. Showing off tools is nice, but sharing what and how everyone can hack and develop with them is even more exciting! Of course not every Assembly needs to show off and share their work – we welcome quiet Assemblies that meet to work together on their projects just as much!

To conclude: 42 3D-printers aren’t the answer to everything – but if you happen to have a thing that can beam us up, do not leave it at home!

Call for Participation: 33rd Chaos Communication Congress

Thu, 01 Sep 2016 00:38:59 +0000

33C3 – 33rd Chaos Communication Congress
December 27. through 30. 2016, CCH, Hamburg

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 other, and party together. We focus on topics such as information technology, digital security, making and breaking. We engage in creative, sceptical discourse on the interaction between technology and society.

32C3 at CCH.

We’d love to see your submission for one or more of these tracks:

Art & Culture,
Ethics, Society & Politics,
Hardware & Making,
Security and
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 workshops.

Tracks

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 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 an utopia worth living, and how can they be overcome?
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, micro-controller 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 reactors 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 rockets!

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.

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 research 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.

Talks should be either 45 minutes long plus 15 minutes for questions and answers or 20 minute long plus 10 minutes for questions and answers. Longer slots are possible in principle. Please tell us the proposed length of your talk at the time of submission.

For lightning talks

Got something interesting to say but don’t want to submit a full talk? Consider doing a lightning talk instead. You will have five minutes to present your idea, project, or to do a rant. The lightning talks will only be organised during the event. A formal submission is not required.

For projects, installations, workshops and other fun stuff

A formal submission is not required. There will be a wiki page to keep track of requirements for space and other resources. 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, talk, exchange ideas and be inspired. Assemblies play a huge part in creating the special „congress atmosphere“. 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 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 comfortable with presenting in English, don’t hesitate to present your lecture in German. If your talk will be held in English, your submission should also be in English.

Publication

Audio and video recordings of the lectures will be published in various formats under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) 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 the 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, 2016 (23:59 UTC): Deadline for submissions
November 13th, 2016: Notification of acceptance
December 27th – 30th, 2016: Chaos Communication Congress

Online submissions only

Please submit your lecture to our conference planning system at https://frab.cccv.de/cfp/33c3.

Simply follow the instructions there. If you have any questions regarding the submission, you are welcome to contact us via mail at 33c3-content(at)cccv.de.

Picture: CC-BY-NC 2.0, Sascha Ludwig.