35c3

Here is a very much unfinished list of talks I watched. Later I will supplant this with some text explaining them.

Watched

Tech, Science and Art

• The Ghost in the Machine
• Are machines feminine?
• Feminist Perspectives
• All Creatures Welcome
• The Critical Making Movement
• Inside the Fake Science Factories
• The good, the strange and the ugly in 2018 art &tech

Hackerkram

• Du kannst alles hacken – du darfst dich nur nicht erwischen lassen.
• Security Nightmares 0x13

Politics

• The Precariat: A Disruptive Class for Disruptive Times.
• Polizeigesetze

Foundations

• Die EU und ihre Institutionen
• Hackerethik - eine Einführung
• Introduction to Deep Learning

🔗 Consciousness Isn’t a Mystery. It’s Matter.

All they have to do is grasp the fundamental respect in which we don’t know the intrinsic nature of physical stuff in spite of all that physics tells us. In particular, we don’t know anything about the physical that gives us good reason to think that consciousness can’t be wholly physical.

via nytimes.com

34c3

Most of all 34c3 was a call to action. This is not surprising considering the motto TUWAT (do something), which is in reference to the 1981 tuwat.txt newspaper advert, which is what sparked the initial formation of CCC. TUWAT means doing something, really anything, to help. Teaching, speaking out, hacking, learning, being proactive.

The community has now internalized that surveillance, the effects of modern capitalism and shock politics have had a devastating effect on our network and society. The internet was not able to withstand the bad influences and is being used as an instrument for control and manipulation of the masses.

In contrast we now have all the technologies we need to realize our utopian ideals. The rise of cryptocurrencies, for the first time in history of mankind allows us to create scalable nation state independent measures of value. Distributed applications will allow us to replace the legacy protocols and central server architectures prone to the kinds of attacks and censorship we observe today.

Looking at the political landscape, it is simply no longer enough to be silent and keep hacking away at our jobs, we need to organize and let our voice be heard.

Here is a list of my favourite talks from the conference I have seen so far. I will add more to this list soon, but also check out the entire list here, there are many more good ones.

Entertainment

Eröffnung: tuwat 🇩🇪 (🇬🇧/🇫🇷)
34C3 Abschluss 🇩🇪 (🇬🇧/🇫🇷)

The opening and closing events of 34c3 are a must-see to understand the culture of the community and what the purpose of the gathering is. The closing was highly inspiring and really stuck with me.

Dude, you broke the Future! 🇬🇧 (🇩🇪/🇫🇷)

Charles Stross talks about futurism and the ridicoulousness of trying to predict the future in our day and age. He talks about corporations as AI’s, help up by humans as their computational engine. Fascinating, entertaining, and thought provoking.

The Internet in Cuba: A Story of Community Resilience 🇬🇧 (🇩🇪)

Fascinating account of DIY communication infrastructures in Cuba I have not seen mentioned anywhere before. Extremely interesting and might serve as a blueprint for mesh networks once net neutrality falters or the Zombie apocalypse comes.

Jahresrückblick des CCC 2017 🇩🇪 (🇬🇧)

For people interested in CCC, the yearly review.

(German) Society

Social Bots, Fake News und Filterblasen 🇩🇪 (🇬🇧/🇫🇷)

Michael Kreil, open data activist, data scientist and data journalist, debunks the myth of Social Bots by actually looking at data and presents a scientific rebuttal against media hype. Very skilled presentation and argument, very entertaining and highly recommended.

Tiger, Drucker und ein Mahnmal 🇩🇪 (🇬🇧)

Fantastic talk by the Zentrum für Politische Schönheit (ZPS, centre for political beauty), detailing their various political art projects and actions in Germany and Turkey. Extremely entertaining and witty, very smart and thought provoking. CCC at it’s best.

Trügerische Sicherheit 🇩🇪 (🇬🇧)

Chilling account about shock politics and how the government convices us we need to give up our rights by Peter Schaar, Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, and how it doesnt make us feel any safer.

Die Lauschprogramme der Geheimdienste 🇩🇪 (🇬🇧)

Hans-Christian Ströbele, part of the parliamentery committee investigating the German Bundesnachrichtendienst, talks about his experiences.

Ein Festival der Demokratie 🇩🇪 (🇬🇧)

Inside look into an independent TV station that was run by a group called FC/MC and the CCC during the G20 summit in Hamburg. They look into aspects of freedom of speech, how they organized everything and technical aspects of running a makeshift decentralized TV station from St. Pauli football stadium.

Technology / Science

The divine Computer Science 🇩🇪 (🇬🇧)

Philosophical rundown on why we should all chill out for a bit and computation might not be the end-all answer to AI and all of our problems. Extremely thought provoking, absolute must-see for philosophy nerds.

Antipatterns und Missverständnisse in der Softwareentwicklung 🇩🇪 (🇬🇧)

It’s Fefe! Simply a must-see for all software devs.

Security Nightmares 0x12 🇩🇪 (🇬🇧)

An institution at CCC, this year almost not funny anymore.