Here Be Dragons: The 26th Chaos Communication Congress, Part 1

Although most people enjoy the days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve with their families, hackers, geeks, security enthusiasts, and privacy activists meet in Berlin for the world’s oldest and Europe’s biggest annual Hacker Conference. Now in its 26th year (I was a 13-year-old kid, trying to figure out what to with a Sharp 1211, when it started), the schedule is quite heavy with political topics, not surprising after a year full of very controversial laws and initiatives. There is so much content that some of the really good tech sessions have been reduced to four-minute “lightning” talks! Check Xonox’s talk on sniffing AES encryption via the CPU cache for a great example.

If you’re not here already, don’t bother to come: The conference is sold out completely. Day tickets will be available at 8 a.m. but it will take only minutes for those to disappear, so instead you might follow the live streams. Actually many people at the con follow them because the rooms are full, sometimes 15 minutes before the talk starts! Like Defcon at the original Alexis Park location, CCC has outgrown its home at the Berlin Conference Center and needs a new location.

For a first conference highlight: Fabian “fabs” Yamaguchi’s talk about various network-related design errors is a must-see. Collin Mulliner’s and FX’s talks are two I wouldn’t want to miss.

Ok, I’m heading over to the event. You enjoy your holiday!