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Hackers Gather in Finland, Netherlands, and Vegas
tRSS points out this CNN article about the ongoing "What the Hack" gathering in the Netherlands which starts out "There are hundreds of tents on the hot and soggy campground, but this isn't your ordinary summertime outing, considering that it includes workshops with such titles as 'Politics of Psychedelic Research' or 'Fun and Mayhem with RFID.'" Read on for news from this weekend's other major hacker gatherings, namely (drumroll, please) The Gathering and DefCon.
From Las Vegas, giucmo writes "The Hacker Jeopardy crew are sending images and video live from DefCon to a moblog at textamerica.com Last night they captured the lights going out in a tent full of hackers. Tonight is the main event." And sysrec writes "I've been to an even number of defcon's greater than 3 and wanted to share some personal insights from the largest hacker con in the world." (Largest, I guess, is in the eye of the beholder.)
Jumping back to Europe, Late writes "The Assembly 2005 demoparty, possibly the largest in the world, is taking place in Helsinki, Finland. As I write this the best compos are still to come and you can view them and a lot more live via the AssemblyTV streams (we use VideoLAN.org's VLC media player). If you do miss the compos, the entries will be available for download from our mirrors and as video clips from the AssemblyTV media gallery."
Jumping back to Europe, Late writes "The Assembly 2005 demoparty, possibly the largest in the world, is taking place in Helsinki, Finland. As I write this the best compos are still to come and you can view them and a lot more live via the AssemblyTV streams (we use VideoLAN.org's VLC media player). If you do miss the compos, the entries will be available for download from our mirrors and as video clips from the AssemblyTV media gallery."
Polished shoes? They aren't polished after a walk thru the mud here in Holland I tell you. It's better to walk barefoot since it's easier to wash your feets instead of your shoes.
:D
Also, we have a new hardwood floor in our tent and don't want to get muddy shoes on it
Whatthehack wiki has details about the various events.
If you read the FAQ from the main site
The Netherlands
Is not in any US state. Neither is it the capital of Denmark: it is a small monarchy, roughly 200 x 300 kilometers at the longest and widest, 16 million inhabitants. Western industrialized country, high standard of living, expensive, lousy food anywhere but on our campsite, but you can drink the tap water. No major injections needed to travel there, no visa requirements for inhabitants of other western industrialized countries but immigration officials can be fairly nasty towards pretty much anyone else.
Showers and toilets
Please be assured there will be enough of both. Due to popular demand (and because the location allows for it this time) many toilets will be of the water-flushing kind.
Assembly today is shit. Just another lan party for kids today, it was cool back in 99 and before when it was real demoscene event.
Now it's just overcommercial and focused on langames, some even complain why they make everyone turn off their monitors and stop playing because of the compos on main screen.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
I have traveled to Japan, and the people there REALLY embrace high tech. It's not that they want a cellphone, just everybody wants the latest and greatest all the time. The US doesn't have this demand. We are happy with mediocrity.
Our bestbuy, compusa, circuit city don't remotely compare to the Japanese counterparts. They sell stereos, phones and gadgets that I would dream of seeing in the US.
Some news from the WTH campsite:
you can follow *everything* at in video by rehash. There is some great talks you can follow there, all withouth wearing socks soaked from walking from tent to tent on the wet fields....
Yes there is a police presence This is especially interesting considering the events surounding the previous event, hacking at large. Back then media reports claimed that the dutch national itelligence service proclaimed that all the visiters were "staatsgevaarlijke anarchisten" (anarchists that are a danger to the state). Which is fun. Ofcourse what is less fun is that the dutch system for collecting internet traffic from ISP`s and sending it to law enforment agencies was just in place. One of the problems that still needed to be ironed out of this system was that the port of the amsterdam internet exchange used by the law enforment agencies was know. Internet providers peer with the police to get intercepted traffic to them as cheaply as possible while still being real-time. Not only was the port know, but the traffic graph for it was also public.... and it showed a *huge* spike during HAL. People who want to speculate on the police presence have all oppertunity to do so here. Fact is that when entering the campsite you pass two huge police trailers, there is a photo of them at the "lawfull interception workshop" wiki entry. since this wiki fooled associated press I feel fine about admitting it fooled me. You got to admit it would make a great oppertunity to ask for an explanation of that spike.("lawfull interception" is newspeak for goverment/law enforcement interception, not "legal under article 8 of the european human rights law".)
The reason the police might have a physical pressence now could be explained by the permit story of this year. Once local politicians realised the permit they promised read: "what the hack hacker conference" they suddenly backed out citing "public order" concerns. During the the introdution talks it was mentiond that the field kept clear for trauma helicopters is also in the planning to group the riot police if that is needed. (We are in the middle of nowhere, forests, fields with cows an horses as far as the eye can see. What would we destroy even if we werent a bunch of nerds without a single bit of muscle mass?) Another quote from the police side of things: police officer to openBSD kernel hacker who just explained what he does: "But could you break into a computer?" cute ;-) Also the fact that the police wear the pink wrists bands is concidental, or so we are told.
Yes there was psychadelic research politics talk. It was great fun. It mostly talked about the US research into medicinal use of drugs that are considered recreational and the politics that suround it. Ofcourse associated press forgot to mention the talks about oild depletion and honest research into what the real energy options are. Or the many, many other great talks.. Every dutch privacy, police powers and digital rights watchdog is here and has one or more talks. Meeting these people face to face is cool. There was also a talk on the working condiction of the people who produce our hardware....
The chaos computer club has brought some blinkenlights where you you play pong on using the dect phone network used for the event. There are dome tents that look cool, pinball machines from all over the country, lockpickers, a local campsite wide radio station....
Expect a *huge* contribution to tor network to come from the netherlands shortly.
Now I have to get back to my tent, I need to turn in in time to be awake for the "lobbying at national and european level" lecture tomorow morning... This politics stuff is very importand for us anachist types.