So the Amsterdam hackers have proven to be both wily and elusive. In email correspondence, they said that they’d be at their squatted hacklab anytime from 6 pm to midnight tonight. I went on the later end because I figured things would be more active (and because it takes a fairly complicated series of busses, trains and trams to get from where I’m staying in Utrecht to their place in A-dam), so I arrived around 10:15. After much fruitless ringing of bells and knocking of doors, another guy who lives at the squat arrived home and informed me that those I sought had all gone to this digital art gallery/exhibition, and gave me a flyer for the place.
I took another tram ride and tracked down the art gallery…just as they were closing up! A helpful art patron informed me that I’d missed the SLUG hackers by “just maybe 10 minutes,” and that he thought they were going back to their place. So I went back there, again. Right now, I’m sitting on the stoop in front of their building (I already tried the bell again), borrowing an open wireless connection to post this (thank you, essid J.C.). I’m going to give this 10 more minutes and then get out of here.
But after chasing these people all over Amsterdam for an hour and a half, I do have to ask, are they hackers…or ninjas?
UPDATE: I took the train back to Utrecht, but managed to miss the last bus out to my couchsurfing host’s place by 5 minutes (my timing is effing terrible), so I wound up staying in a crappy hostel and paying 21 euro for the privilege. I guess it beats sleeping at the train station. Oh, and all my clothes are at my host’s place. Hooray sleeping in your clothes. Anyway, yesterday sucked.
Did you happen to hear about the attack on the Large Hadron Collider’s website by a group of hackers called the Greek Security Team? Really interesting, except they posted a juvenile rant about how lame other hackers are and how 733t they are instead of using the hack (which obviously requires SOME technical expertise) to make a political statement of some kind about how building a gigantic tube to send protons around in circles is a colossal waste of money, or how all physicists smell bad and look funny, or something of equivalent interest. Translation I found online of the Greek writing proved to be much more insipid.
Too bad you never made your rendevous with these hackers you were supposed to meet, that would have been pretty fascinating. I would expect to have these crazy setups like Neo in the Matrix, with their computers hooked up to the Department of Defense mainframe or something. Good luck with all your travels, eh?
Also, you managed to tap into Jesus Christ’s wireless network? Good for you! I’m sure that was a quasi-religious experience of some sort.