Without a Traceroute

I’ve arrived in Berlin at the 25th Chaos Computing Congress (25C3). I’ve only been here a couple hours, but so far it’s been really cool.

Things I’ve seen:

1. A little toy RC flying saucer with blinking LEDs and a tendency to crash into (or “attack”) passersby.
2. A guy with a multimeter working on repairing a cold-war era phone that looks like it could be the nuclear hotline.
3. A pretty cool rig using a wiimote to spot points where green laser beams are broken. Imagine a harp with laser beams instead of strings.

There’s a strict no-photos-without-permission policy at the Congress, so I haven’t been taking a lot of photos so far. If I see some cool stuff tomorrow, and people are ok with pictures, I’ll try to post some.

I’m really tired right now, I stayed up late putting off packing, and I didn’t sleep much on the train. They’ve got a gym/flophouse thing where you can crash for €5, so I’ve been waiting for that to open.

Also I’ve been encrypting and tunneling like crazy. I normally err on the side of convenience when it comes to security. I figure I don’t deal with any data that’s really top secret or anything, so, for instance, I don’t encrypt my drives because I figure it’s far more likely that I’ll wind up locking myself out of my data than that I’ll foil a thief. However, the 25C3 website includes a “How to Survive” primer that really put the fear of God in me with regard to security.
Sample reassuring passages:

“Of course there is no reason to get paranoid, even though security and paranoia go hand in hand a bit. But be careful: Just because you’re paranoid, this doesn’t mean that nobody will break into your box or is after you. ” [Translation: don't be paranoid. Well, do be paranoid. Actually, being paranoid won't save you anyway.]

“Another thing worth mentioning: Even when all consoles are locked and the passwords theoretically unguessable, most recent notebooks and desktops are equipped with Firewire, which can be quite a lot of fun as well: http://www.ccc.de/congress/2004/fahrplan/event/14.de.html (German only) And who knows, maybe somewhere in the RAM there’s a clear text copy of the necessary password…? ” [Do everything right and you can still get pwn3d.]

“NO Social hacking (don’t trust anyone)” [And have fun!]