Chaos to Reign Again in Berlin

[InfoSec News <isn () C4I ORG>]

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,40841,00.html

by Steve Kettmann
2:00 a.m. Dec. 27, 2000 PST

BERLIN -- The annual three-day Chaos Communications Congress,
organized each December since 1984 by Germany's influential hacking
collective, the Chaos Computer Club, has tended to be a lively affair
mostly followed by fellow hackers and computer nuts.

That could change this year now that CCC leader Andy Mueller-Maguhn,
already something of a celebrity in Germany, has gained a higher
international profile. He stunned many around the world by winning
election as European representative to ICANN this year, and now has a
wide forum for expressing his philosophy on technology issues.

All of this gives added weight and interest to anything that happens
when the annual CCC Congress opens Wednesday in the heart of Berlin.

As always, there will be a hack center where computers fill every
available square inch. But just as important as the actual hacking
will be the workshops and speakers who will help foster new versions
on the CCC ideal of creatively exploring "technology, society and
utopia."

"The 'discordian' style of the congress will show up in the discussion
panels with the outside world, where this year intellectual property
seems to be worth putting in the middle," Mueller-Maguhn said. "So
Thursday evening we have a huge podium with people from the music
industry for a discussion under the title 'Freedom of Bits and
Financing of Artist.'"

That is all part of a growing emphasis on integrating computers and
the hacking mentality with the wider culture. Much has been made in
the United States about how Europe needs to "catch up" to the
American-style Internet revolution. But in many ways European computer
"visionaries" have been ahead of their American counterparts.

The Web was invented in Europe, after all, 10 years ago by Tim
Berners-Lee, and people such as Mueller-Maguhn have long argued that
the U.S.-led commercialization of the Web was both a bad idea and a
phase that would run its course. Veteran German technology journalist
Ben Schwan thinks the vindication of this view ought to give this
year's congress added spark.

"There will be a lot of Internet security-related talks and
workshops," Schwan said. "But what I'm actually interested in is their
take on the dot-com downturn. Andy Mueller-Maguhn always said he
thought it would be crazy to commercialize the Internet, and now, he's
-- just in a wicked way, but still -- right."

Americans tend to think of hackers as mere mischief-makers. For
example, the idea that hacking a credit-card database with weak
security could be done for idealistic reasons -- to alert the company
and others to the weak security -- eludes many. But increasingly, at
least in the European context, hacking means thinking, which is what
gives the CCC meeting its high energy level.

The conference will deal with issues that extend well beyond the
technical aspects of hacking.

"Our Art and Beauty area is influencing the way we make the congress,
because a lot of artists have become more and more networked and
interested in understanding and discussing technology," Mueller-Maguhn
said.

At times in the past, the CCC has been criticized for being too male
and too insular. Just last year, a controversy broke out when the
small number of women taking part in the congress found their only
hack center overrun by men.

"Some of them said they didn't think a women's room was necessary,"
Nina Corda, a key organizer of the women's room, said at the time.
"They said, 'Just because you're a woman doesn't mean you get special
treatment.' We are marginalized in the CCC. Just take a look around."

Those concerns were heard. Women may have only accounted for 10
percent of the total attendance at last year's congress, but the CCC
hopes to build on that number, and to avoid past mistakes of making
women participants feel unwelcome.

So the website announcing this year's congress talks up the hack
center this way: "(T)here will be again a room with a fresher air, a
somehow different atmosphere and especially with more women."

ISN is hosted by SecurityFocus.com
---
To unsubscribe email LISTSERV () SecurityFocus com with a message body of
"SIGNOFF ISN".