Chaos Computer Club - archive feed

During the pandemic, trains got weird for a while. We weren’t quite sure whether it was safe to travel collectively, and the impacts of that difficult time continue to shape our railway network to this day. Meanwhile, many of us were exploring our own, hyperlocal neighbourhoods on foot with obsessive levels of depth that we never otherwise would have got around to. (Was I the only one who highlighted every street I walked in a London A-Z to see if I could get complete coverage?!) In 2021, I did a design-based MA all about railways, railway infrastructure, and what it means to travel and live communally. To do this, I walked all the way from London to Brighton (in sections), following the railway line as closely as possible. This is a talk about what I saw and what I thought about, and will hopefully be enjoyed by fans of trains, hiking, community and travel. (And anyone else who fancies a sit down, I’ll try and make it interesting, I promise) Licensed to the public under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ about this event: https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2024/69-london-to-brighton-by-train-and-on-foot

Offline RFID systems rely on data stored within the key to control access and configuration. But what if a key lies? What if we can make the system trust those lies? Well then we can do some real spooky things… This is the story of how a strange repeating data pattern turned into a skeleton key that can open an entire range of RFID access control products in seconds. It’s a scrappy but scary hack that spawned from something we noticed whilst trying to duplicate an access card onto a subdermal RFID implant. This covers the discovery of the flaw, how we investigated it, and how significant the flaws ended up being. about this event: https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2024/80-digital-skeleton-keys-we-ve-got-a-bone-to-pick

For two weeks every summer, half a million people attend the oldest and most prestigious Tennis Tournament, with another billion people following from afar. Underneath the pristine courts of Wimbledon, a massive technology operation underpins almost every aspect of the event, from the grass growing, to the scores appearing on screens around the world. This talk will cover the many interesting ways that technology supports this huge live event as well as a behind the scenes peek of the IBM operation in the broadcast centre. IBM has been the Official Information Technology Partner with Wimbledon since 1990. Presenter works for IBM as part of the Wimbledon team Licensed to the public under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ about this event: https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2024/234-the-tech-behind-the-tennis

Gas boilers, almost all homes in the UK have them, but they are dreadful! +90% of the ones I've seen are badly spec'ed and horribly configured, so they burn way too much gas. Then Martin Lewis keeps telling us to "lower the flow temperature" but it's never really explained how to, or what this does to save gas (and money). Well have I got a Slide Deck for you!! As with any serious problem, it needs hard data. So I wired my Raspberry Pi home server to my central heating controls, wrote a bunch of code, and spent last winter collecting data from my boiler, a dozen temperature sensors, some humidity sensors and the Octopus Energy API. I have pretty graphs to show what happens all around my home, how altering the flow temperature works, how altering set points work, why my house was too cold, then too hot, and used way too much gas. I'll explain the (simple) physics and how to tweak your system for best performance too. But ultimately, we all have to stop burning gas and move to heat pumps, a solution not understood by many and requiring something of a mind shift from the way gas central heating has always worked. I'll explain how heat pumps work and what you can do to prepare for their arrival in your home. The future is bright, and it's heading rapidly in this direction. about this event: https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2024/161-gas-boilers-suck-hack-yours-today-save-money-save-the-planet

I’m an archivist. Every day I deal with the records that people chose to save, or forgot to destroy. Archival material ranges from the sublime (Royal wills, lost love letters, newspapers announcing the Titanic’s demise) to the ridiculous (broken chips of wax from old seals, IOUs from unknown persons, too much human hair). A key role of an archivist is to decide what to save and what to destroy. But this is the past. Today most records are no longer on paper but sent in the form of bytes and I’ve started to wonder what the point of my job really is? We have free access to near-unlimited email inboxes, all our photos are backed up to the cloud to access from anywhere, and instant messaging is synced between our devices. Why bother deciding what to keep for posterity? Just save everything, let computers do the hard work, and all will be well. This approach unsettled me so much that I set off to explore what it would really mean if we “saved everything”: how this would affect our world, communities, and ourselves as humans. In this talk, I will share this journey and my thoughts with you, and try to persuade you that my job is not in fact pointless. about this event: https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2024/253-are-archivists-pointless-when-the-cloud-can-just-save

What does a computer programmer do if they can’t type code? Speak it, of course! Like many programmers and heavy computer users, I suffer from chronic hand pain aggravated by computer keyboard use (often called repetitive strain injury, or RSI). After having mild symptoms for years, in 2019 my hand pain worsened from irritating to unignorable. Eventually I got desperate enough to try to learn to code by voice. To my surprise, it worked. Speech recognition technology has advanced dramatically in the past decade, but most people’s ideas about voice-driven UI are based on highly limited voice assistants like Siri or Alexa, powerful but imprecise tools like LLMs, or special-purpose dictation tools. What does a voice interface for precise control by expert users look like? A small but growing community of programmers, many affected by RSI, have been developing tools that explore this question. I use one such tool, called Talon, to control my computer, write and edit computer code, and even to write my dissertation. In this talk, I will live-demo how I edit code by voice, as well as tackling the following questions: 1. What is voice-coding like? What unique challenges does it present? 2. How do voice control systems like Talon work under the hood? 3. Could voice coding ever be *better* than typing? 4. What can we learn from all this about designing voice interfaces for expert users? Licensed to the public under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ about this event: https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2024/217-writing-computer-code-by-voice

Files and directories feel like the Sun and Earth: they are the eternal foundations, and pretending they don't exist can only make make things worse. Except files were invented by humans! What if we left our zone of comfort and explored the possibilities? We live in the world of hierarchical file systems. We juggle named files, named directories, and symbolic links daily. It has been this way since the days of DOS, and it remains this way now. It's just the way it is. Or is it? Phone operating systems try to hide the underlying file system from the user. Yuck! Or actually, do we really want to manage our files manually? Is it really that fun to decide if the train ticket to FOSDEM goes under the "2023" or "invoices" directory, and in which order? Or do we just want to find the cursed thing when we need it? Documents have not always been bound to files, and they aren't, and they don't have to be. Put away the Stockholm syndrome, and I'll tell you about semantic desktop, WinFS, alternate streams, [photo managers](https://www.digikam.org/), [Perkeep](https://perkeep.org/), [IPFS](https://ipfs.tech/), and my own plan to ascend. about this event: https://cfp.gulas.ch/gpn22/talk/ZRKD3G/

Writing schematics via code isn’t a new idea. But with new open-source projects like Atopile, this workflow suddenly makes a lot more sense. Let’s take a look at why one would even write schematics in code instead of using the established visual way in software like KiCad or Altium, the advantages (from git integration, reusing components & modules, AI support, and more), previous software projects in that field, the current development state and how you can try out this new workflow yourself. Ideally, you already have experience in PCB design, but also PCB design newbies can learn a lot in this talk and learn some tricks for their first circuit board design. about this event: https://cfp.gulas.ch/gpn22/talk/RUW3HF/

Das ZKM | Hertzlab ist als künstlerische Forschungs & Entwicklungsabteilung des Zentrums für Kunst und Medien Karlsruhe die zukunftsgewandte Abteilung. In sechs Themengebieten beschäftigen wir uns mit der Frage, was in 100 Jahren ist, wie wir da hinkommen und wie wir das eigentlich hinkriegen, dass das eine lebenswerte Zukunft für alle ist. Wir geben einen Überblick über aktuelle Projekte des ZKM | Hertzlabs und laden euch ein, mit uns über die Zukunft zu spekulieren. about this event: https://cfp.gulas.ch/gpn22/talk/HWVJLD/

Controlling websites with an Arduino is like magic. Suddenly little bits of hardware can control all kinds of games and interfaces on screens. And building a UI for your electronics becomes trivial too. This is a talk for anyone who’s ever tinkered with hardware or web design, and wants to join the physical to the digital. During this talk I will explain the basic techniques of keyboard emulation and using the Javascript Web Serial and Web Bluetooth APIs. To make it fun, and introduce some peril, I will demo all of the techniques live: controlling the Google Chrome Dino game by jumping up and down on stage, making a musical instrument from stretchy rubber and allowing audience members to connect to a set of handbells from their phones. Along the way will be plenty of tips on what to buy and what to avoid, I’ll demystify some of the complexity around Bluetooth and USB, and share several ideas for how to use this to cause mischief amongst friends, colleagues and enemies. I have done this before, but only once. Fingers crossed. Licensed to the public under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ about this event: https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2024/173-connecting-arduinos-to-websites

This is the story of Reading Hydro, how a group of volunteers built and are now operating a hydro generation plant on the Thames in Reading. From raising the £1.2M to the parts build by volunteers, and how they are now operating the plant. Licensed to the public under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ about this event: https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2024/242-how-volunteers-built

Single Sign-On (SSO) is sold as a way to • centralize managing your organization’s users, • make life easier for your colleagues, and • enforce consistent security standards. But SSO protocols are just ways for an identity provider to share information about an authenticated identity with another service. Me having a way to tell my vendor “yeah, that’s Bob” doesn’t tell me what the vendor does with this information, or if the vendor always asks me who’s coming in the door. A bad SSO implementation can make you think you’re safer, while hiding all the new and fun things that have gone wrong. To get the most out of implementing SSO, I need to know what I’m trying to accomplish and what steps I need to follow to get there. To illustrate why SSO needs to be set up carefully, for each of the things you need to do right, I’ll give you some fun examples of creative ways you and your vendor can do this wrong. We all learn from failure, right??? I’m sharing this info because this year I got deeply involved in the SSO setup for several vendors at work. It turns out that I’m good at asking weird questions, and it’s an extremely valuable thing to do. If you know how things should be, then you know where they could be broken, and you can ask your vendors (and your colleagues!) “weird questions” before an adversary does. about this event: https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2024/233-omg-wtf-sso

I was trained as a tax lawyer and data scientist as a profession but I always wanted to build. I attended the my first EMF and was hugely inspired by the participants and presenters I met. The following year, with the support of an EU innovation grant, I embarked on a 6-month product design course, culminating in an interactive children's book inspired by the Art of War. This unique book blends storytelling with 3D paper origami, touch sensors, cloud-based audio features, making ancient wisdom fun and engaging for young minds. In my talk, I'll share the challenges and triumphs of this unexpected adventure, from design principles to prototyping hurdles, offering valuable insights for aspiring makers and seasoned professionals alike. Licensed to the public under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ about this event: https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2024/186-from-tax-law-to-tangible-dreams-an-accidental-makers-journey

A talk looking at Off-Grid Renewable Energy technology and off-grid living. This presentation is based on 20 years of off-grid living experience and showcases case studies from an off-grid eco-village from 2000 to 2018. The talk aims to share some of the knowledge gained and look into the possibilities for future renewable off-grid living opportunities and how new technologies might be used to improve convenience and efficiency. Topics covered will include the practical basics of harvesting, storing and using renewable energy as efficiently as possible, new ideas and practical examples, micro-hydro, solar, wind-power, batteries, electrics and wiring, efficiency, smart-micro-grids, renewables and more...... Licensed to the public under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ about this event: https://www.emfcamp.org/schedule/2024/159-ogre-tech-and-off-grid-living

​​Debuggers are indispensable tools for all Python developers, empowering them to conquer bugs and unravel complex systems. But have you ever wondered how they work? Curious about the implementation of features like conditional breakpoints and single stepping? Join me for a talk in which we create our own debugger with conditional breakpoints, single stepping, and a Python-based debugging shell and learn a lot about debuggers along the way. about this event: https://cfp.gulas.ch/gpn22/talk/DH3EHM/

Wie baut man eigentlich ein Hochvakuumsystem ohne dabei bankrott zu gehen und was kann man damit so machen? In diesem Talk werde ich über meine 4-jährige Reise durch Hochvakuumsysteme berichten. Hochvakuumsysteme sind die fundamentale Basis für einige große Bereiche der Physik wie etwa Elektronenmikroskopie, Massenspektronometrie und Dünnfilmbeschichtung. Ich bin von diesem Thema seit meinem ersten Praktikum mit 15 Jahren fasziniert. Nach Gesprächen mit einigen interessierten Wesen ist mir nun bewusst, dass dies oft als zu komplex und teuer betrachtet wird. Ich werde meine Erfahrungen und angewandte Hacks und Trick präsentieren um so vielleicht ein paar mehr Motivierte zu finden die dann möglicherweise auch Lust haben etwas in dem Bereich zu hacken. about this event: https://cfp.gulas.ch/gpn22/talk/BBLCDU/

Wer in der Chaos Community unterwegs ist, trifft unweigerlich auf Nix. Doch ist es das von vielen geprädigte Allheilmittel für IT Sorgen? Wann ist es wirklich Sinnvoll? Mensch könnte den Eindruck haben, dass in den letzten Jahren NixOS in der Chaos Community zum neuen ArchLinux wurde. Egal in welchen Hackspace man geht, findet man eine Gruppe an NixOS affinen Haecksen und Hackern die am liebsten jeden Linux Rechner auf der Welt zu der besten Distribution ever - NixOS - migrieren wollen. Wir nehmen euch mit in eine Kritische Auseinandersetzung dieser Technologie, deren Glorifizierung, und das Fandom was um NixOS und Nix-related Tooling erstanden ist. Dabei wollen wir auf die Vorteile und positiven Erfahrungen eingehen, die Menschen mit NixOS haben können, und welche Probleme durch eine fundamental andere Herangehensweise an Linux Packetierung und Systemkonfiguration gelöst werden können (Reproduzierbarkeit von Builds, Deterministik in System Konfiguration, die Leichtigkeit mit der sich Entwicklungsumgebungen zwischen verschiedenen Teams teilen lassen, ...) Alledings wollen wir die Probleme nicht unter den Teppich kehren und auch aufzeigen, warum NixOS kein Wunderheilmittel ist und warum es auch gute Gründe geben kann dem neuen Technik Dogma nicht zu folgen (schlechte Dokumentation, eine sehr steile Lernkurve an denen viele Scheitern, einen deutlich höheren Zeitaufwand, durch den Menschen die nicht die Zeit haben sich in ihrer Freizeit in ein neues System einzuarbeiten ausgegrenzt werden, ...). Das Ziel dieses Vortrages ist es eine nuancierte Sicht auf NixOS und Nix tooling zu geben: Gründe warum es eine spannende Technologie ist, aber auch Gründe warum diese nicht Universell anwendbar ist, und nicht als solche von Nix-fans verkauft werden sollte. about this event: https://cfp.gulas.ch/gpn22/talk/ZLDSBA/

This artist talk presents two mobile-device art applications developed for use with bicycles in the summer of 2021: SpeedPitch is a simple augmented sonic reality experiment that alters music playback speed based on your actual GPS ground speed. The faster you go, the higher the pitch and sudden stops lead to dragging audio samples. Natural motion leads to unnatural sound. ShadowPlay is an exploration of the architecture and light in outdoor spaces through sound. Using a bicycle-mounted smartphone as a brightness sensor and a bluetooth speaker, the mottled patterns of light and shadow become the musical score as one rides along city streets. SpeedPitch was developed through the support of BBK Karlsruhe and ShadowPlay was supported through the UNESCO City of Media Arts Karlsruhe as well as through the City of Karlsruhe. about this event: https://cfp.gulas.ch/gpn22/talk/TEUCHV/

Not sure what to do with your discarded, never working, inkjet printers? Rosa Schuurmans and Riviera Taylor combine the sound of printers with the craft of live coding. Together they hack discarded printers and connect them to live coding environments on computers to generate analogue sounds from digital messages. Printer Jam welcomes familiar, mechanical quirks and the inherent noise of printers. Who knew a printhead could make a banging kick drum? During the performance we'll dive into the inner workings of the project, which is built upon FLOSS technologies such as Tidal Cycles, Open Sound Control and the Arduino ecosystem. Through combining these technologies, Printer Jam foregrounds the surprisingly accessible and flexible OSC specification. Which patterns create the most "interesting" sounds? What OSC messages can you send to create those snappy percussive elements? Or, will everything result in just another printer jam....? * No ink was spilled during the performance. about this event: https://cfp.gulas.ch/gpn22/talk/BZXLLE/

Seit zehn Jahren stellt das Projekt OpenRailwayMap eine thematische Karte bereit, die Informationen über die Eisenbahninfrastruktur aus der OpenStreetMap-Datenbank darstellt. Wie werden diese Informationen von Freiwilligen erfasst? Welche Informationen können in OpenStreetMap erfasst werden? Wie kann man beitragen? Auch andere Nutzungsmöglichkeiten, z.B. Routing und Geocoding, der Daten werden im Vortrag angerissen. Seit zehn Jahren stellt das Projekt OpenRailwayMap eine thematische Karte bereit, die Informationen über die Eisenbahninfrastruktur aus der OpenStreetMap-Datenbank darstellt. Es schließt damit eine Lücke, die Eisenbahn-Infrastrukturunternehmen offen lassen. Dabei sind ihre Mitarbeitenden selbst auch Nutzer der OpenRailwayMap, wie die Zugriffszahlen belegen. Der Vortragende zeigt, wie er und andere Freiwillige diese Informationen für OpenStreetMap erfassen. Sei es die Mitfahrt im Zug mit Notizbuch und GPS-Empfänger, das Fotografieren oder Filmen aus fahrenden Zügen oder die Erfassung vom Bahnsteig und parallelen Wegen. Auch andere Nutzungsmöglichkeiten der Daten, z.B. Routing auf Bahngleisen, und Geocoding (Suche nach Betriebsstellen oder auf Basis von Streckennummer und Streckenkilometer), werden im Vortrag angerissen. about this event: https://cfp.gulas.ch/gpn22/talk/FNXD3T/

Der klassische Sicherheitsansatz ist im Zeitalter von Plattform-Engineering und Cloud-Geschwindigkeit nicht mehr haltbar. Mit der Beschleunigung der Software-Entwicklung und -bereitstellung muss die IT-Sicherheit nicht mehr als Hindernis, sondern als Katalysator für die digitale Transformation gesehen werden. Das Ziel der IT-Sicherheit ist nicht nur die Gewährleistung eines sicheren Laufzeitschutzes, sondern auch die Unterstützung der Teams bei der Definition und Erreichung von Sicherheitszielen. Daher benötigen wir einen kontinuierlichen IT-Sicherheitsansatz, der sich darauf konzentriert, den richtigen Stakeholdern zum richtigen Zeitpunkt das richtige Feedback zu geben. Wir werden uns ansehen, wie moderne Sicherheitsteams einen kontinuierlichen Sicherheitsansatz umsetzen, in die Entwicklung integrieren und bessere Ergebnisse als mit traditionellen Methoden erzielen. Die Teilnehmer werden diesen Vortrag mit einem besseren Verständnis verlassen: Wie hat sich Platform Engineering auf die traditionellen Sicherheitsrollen ausgewirkt? Wie können Unternehmen mit organisatorischen Konflikten umgehen? Wie moderne Sicherheitsteams einen kontinuierlichen Sicherheitsansatz umsetzen. about this event: https://cfp.gulas.ch/gpn22/talk/8Q9P3D/

Tastaturen...das periphere Eingabegerät, dass uns die Möglichkeit gibt, eins zu werden mit unseren Systemen, Werkzeugen, und uns ermöglicht, das zu tuen was wir lieben. Es gibt Tastaturen wie Sand am Meer. Viele sind wunderbar und viele sind Schrott, Mechanical Keyboard sind keine Randerscheinung mehr. Trackballs, Ergonomische Mäuse, Stühle und höhen verstellbare Schreibtische... Und doch beherrscht QWERTZ/QWERTY die Welt!? wtf? Warum? Es geht nicht nur um Alternative Layouts... wir schauen uns alles mal an. Bist du bereit in das nächste rabbit hole zu fallen oder hast gemerkt, dass du beim tippen Schmerzen hast? Dann lass uns reden. Ich bin ink, Teil des Click! Clack! Hack! Podcasts und habe echt nur äußerst begrenzt Bock auf Standardtastaturen. about this event: https://cfp.gulas.ch/gpn22/talk/FA8Z3F/

Ich zeige euch super spaßige Methoden, wie ihr mit dem puren Lambda-Kalkül programmieren könnt!! **(Nahezu) keine Vorkenntnisse erforderlich!** Programmierung mit funktionalen Sprachen wie Haskell ist inzwischen weit verbreitet. Nahezu alle funktionalen Programmiersprachen basieren auf einer erweiterten Form des Lambda-Kalküls. Wenn man nun sämtliche Erweiterungen wie Schleifen, Listen, Zahlen, Text, Typen, Klassen usw. entfernt, bleibt nur noch das pure, aber dennoch Turing-vollständige, Lambda-Kalkül. In diesem Vortrag zeige ich, wie man trotzdem sämtliche Probleme elegant lösen kann. Dafür erkläre ich (auch visuell!) verschiedene Arten, Daten- und Kontrollstrukturen rein funktional darzustellen. Außerdem zeige ich, wie man Fraktale und andere tolle Bilder mit simplen Ausdrücken generieren kann. Ist wirklich faszinierend!! about this event: https://cfp.gulas.ch/gpn22/talk/BDJB8E/

2023 wurde das Bundestagswahlrecht wieder einmal stark reformiert – doch was bedeuten die komplexen Änderungen eigentlich in der Praxis? Wer gewinnt Mandate? Wer verliert alles? Dieser Vortrag sucht die Antworten mit einer Analyse offener Wahldaten – und liefert überraschende Erkenntnisse. Die Wahlen zum Deutschen Bundestag sind komplex: Erststimmen, Zweitstimmen, Überhang- und Ausgleichsmandate, Direktkandidaten und Landeslisten. Und dann ändert sich auch noch ständig, wie aus den Stimmen die Verteilung der Mandate im Bundestag bestimmt werden: 2011, 2013, 2021 und nun zuletzt letztes Jahr (2023). Ein verfassungskonformes Wahlrecht für den Bundestag zu verabschieden scheint gar nicht so einfach zu sein. In diesem Vortrag werden wir uns auf eine Reise durch das deutsche Bundestagswahlrecht begeben und verschiedenen Fragen begegnen: Was haben sterbende Nazis mit dem Wahlrecht zu tun? Was verändert sich bei der nächsten Wahl? Und sind harmlos wirkende Wahlrechtsreformen die deutsche Form des Gerrymanderings? about this event: https://cfp.gulas.ch/gpn22/talk/39KWPM/