I did visit the CCC Congress this year for the first time and I really enjoyed my stay there. The Congress is a great platform for Hackers, Nerds, Geeks, Programmers, Linux enthusiasts and people who are interested to play with electronic stuff and do creative things with their computers. It’s also a platform for IT-Security and privacy protection related Topics with great speakers. And yes, I couldn’t see any people with business suites and ties! Very sympathic 🙂
The people were very friendly there and I did join the table of the CCC delegation Zürich between the speechings. It’s always better to know some people than stay completely alone. The CCC did build an own GSM and Dect Network for mobile Communication. A high speed Internet connection over Ethernet and Wireless was also available during the whole conference.
Day 1 – Surveillance and Manipulation
The conference did start with a speech of Jacob Applebaum who talked about Government surveillance. A good summary of his speech can be found on a friends blog who was also at the conference. I did directly attend the next speech of Kai Biermann and Martin Haase. They talked about how the medias manipulates our awareness. I’ve learned lot’s of new terms and definitions like Framing, Detransitivierung and the Guttenberg-Passiv. I’ve realized that language can be a powerful tool to manipulate if you’re familiar with some techniques and this happens daily in our medias.
After a break I walked around trough the floors of the congress. In the picture below you can see a miniature model of a blinkenlight installation.
…and some electronic Gadgets
The people on that picture try to open locks without keys! This activity is known as lockpicking! I’ve tried this out for the first time at the Hashdays Security Conference and I’ve tried it again. I took a beginner lock and I had about 30minutes to open it 🙂
The next speech was about the surveillance system Indect. If you haven’t heard about it click on the short video clip below. The question is what are they doing? Do they plan to install a surveillance state in the EU? One thing is absolutely clear, that they don’t do researches just for fun and one time this system will become reality!
Later I joined the presentation about Cisco Phone Hacking. It was a very impressive presentation but technically on a high level and therefore for me hard to follow!
Day 2 – RFID
Day 2 was my RFID Day! I walked around the conference building and discovered a table with people who did analyze and hack RFID Cards. They had immediately my attention with a closer look what they’re doing! They did realize my interest and asked me if I have some cards with me.
Of course I had questions! I joined their table and got a little introduction which tools they’re using and how to use them. I tried to install the tools on my Notebook, but I realized that this isn’t so easy, because you have to compile this tools from source!
They didn’t sell any RFID Readers on the conference, but I ordered one over the Internet. Who knows, maybe I’m interested and motivated to learn more about this topic! 😉
On the picture below you can see a self-build Device to Destroy every RFID Chip! If you destroy a Card you can no longer be tracked, but the card will also be useless…
Later I joined a speech of the Group digitalcourage. They did speak about some manufacturers who integrate RFID Chips in the clothing. In most of the cases the chips will not be deactivated if you buy a clothing and the chip is still active!
Day 3 and 4 – Some Impressions
I did also visit the CACert Community. Now I can sign my Mails with a digital Certificate and I’ve the possibility to generate SSL Certificates! 🙂
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