Chaos Computer Club – The full rigor of civil society

“Be yourself” and “Move” – these were just two of the messages on the display in front of the entrance to the Hamburg congress center, punctuated by variations of psychedelic floral patterns. What seemed like an invitation to hyper-individualism and the pursuit of freedom followed a different logic inside the building: around 14,000 computer enthusiasts and hobbyists, hackers and critical thinkers made the interior of a labyrinth their place over the past four days.

Fairydust, the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) rocket, shimmered in the foyer. On the gallery above the escalator, visitors were greeted with political messages: “All Creatures are Welcome” was written there against a rainbow-colored background. Next to an Amnesty International banner hung a flag with the inscription “The full rigor of civil society” – in yellow Sütterlin script on a pink background.

A hack often begins with a minimal shift – a subtle irritation that causes nothing to be as it seems. No deer roars here, nor any loyal-stupid-German dogma. The color combination on the netzpolitik.org flag is borrowed from the cover of the Sex Pistols album “Never mind the Bollocks” and therefore inspires all kinds of forms of protest. That of the online magazine is primarily directed against the federal government’s “crackdown” on asylum issues and its symbolic law-and-order policy.

Anna Biselli and Chris Köver, Editors at netzpolitik.orgpresented on Saturday a chronology of the “turning point” made up of press articles: for them, 2024 was the year in which the “Progress Coalition” dismantled itself with impressive zeal – not without stripping away essential basic rights in the process.

With the aim of a supposedly voluntary return to their country of origin, refugees were deprived of social benefits. Biometric databases, fed with image files from the Internet, were also created. With the nationwide introduction of the payment card decided by the Prime Minister’s Conference, access to everyday things for refugees will be severely restricted, as they can only withdraw 50 euros in cash. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees uses “forensic methods” and is allowed to confiscate smartphones via legal notice. The state radically restricts the civil liberties of refugees. The editors of netzpolitik.org are therefore calling on people in solidarity to take over vouchers purchased by refugees with the card and to give them the corresponding amount in cash.

While human actions are increasingly criminalized, state hacking increasingly appears to be a legal matter – this paradox preceded this year’s congress on the topic of “Illegal Instructions”. Sigil – short for “Signal Illegal Instruction” – is a system-inherent feedback that always occurs when users of Unix-like operating systems execute an invalid or unauthorized machine instruction. The associated term comes from the world of programming – and at the same time goes far beyond that.

This was also the opinion of Florian Hantke and Dennis-Kenji Kipker, who analyzed the latest reforms in German computer criminal law in their presentation. The original design dates from 1986 – a time when the Internet did not yet exist and floppy disks were still high-tech. Since the end of October this year, a new draft law has been introduced that will no longer generally criminalize the ethically motivated detection of security gaps – whitehat hacking. According to the speakers’ criticism, knowledge of significant gaps in systems is not yet part of the general intellect – so far nothing obliges resourceful hackers to publish their exclusive knowledge.

Under the pressure of the prevailing conditions, human- and machine-readable instructions are apparently always illegalized when they question the status quo. However, when dominant corporations gain access to privacy via social media, this does not seem to be the case. Meredith Whittaker, President of the Signal Foundation and champion of digital civil rights in the age of surveillance, called for more privacy protection on the Internet in her lecture “Feelings are Facts: Love, Privacy and the Politics of Intellectual Shame.” This right is always violated when corporations begin to define relationships and exploit social relationships to do so. With the emergence of the first anti-social networks, the friendship service has become a matchmaking business with billions in profits. The associated distribution of power is treacherous. Disclosed data becomes an instrument of social control.

“Show me the key to your heart” would therefore no longer be a romantic request, but the cryptographic imperative of the hour, because: Only those who can withdraw the transformative power of desire from capitalization can preserve a resource through which this world can be seen as another becomes conceivable. Love and desire also have a code: Whittaker recommends homomorphic encryption, which allows you to handle encrypted data without having to decrypt it first. The result of the calculations is also encrypted and can only be decrypted after decryption by the authorized key owner.

Thanks to DECT telephony, there were also opportunities for blind dates throughout the entire area of ​​the Hamburg congress center. Sending and receiving via the many channels of the various assemblies that were open in parallel was once again friction-free this year – from the radio association of the “Chaoswelle” to the silent post.

An escape vehicle was available on the ground floor of the congress center for anyone who wanted to flee again after the past few days. This bus with the name “Adenauer SRP+” is not another binary unit system, but a vehicle that was previously owned by the police. The Center for Political Beauty bought it at auction and plans to tour the country with it soon. “Be yourself” and “Move”, regardless of all illegal instructions. What Konrad Adenauer achieved in the case of the Socialist Reich Party (ban in 1952) is what the Center for Political Beauty hopes to achieve at the upcoming AfD party conference in Riesa. At least that’s the plan.