Toorcon Day 1

[12am] We hit the opening keynote by Cory Doctorow. He had some interesting things to say about patterns in eula agreements and the restriction of rights to enforce business models.

[Simple Nomad] followed up with his talk called ‘State of the Enemy State’ – his observations regarding government security, just how advanced real time encryption cracking probably is and predictions on some forthcoming laws and how they’ll affect the security industry. The most interesting one: encryption key escrow was enacted a couple weeks ago by Blair in the UK, and it’ll probably come to the US next.

The talk on the apple airport security flaw was canceled, so it was replaced by ‘lightning talks’. Think open mic night on the floor of a security conference. Johnny Cache opened it up with some observations about why the talk was canceled. He had to skirt around the issue to keep from getting in trouble, but he was definitely pissed.

There were a few others, but I’ll leave it there for now.

Onward To Toorcon


I’m waiting for my ride on the first leg of my trip to Toorcon. I’ll be there along with Eliot and Fabienne. Dan Kaminsky will be there presenting, so we’ll be having a major HAD get together. My local (tiny) airport actualy has wireless, tables and power readily available. Security will love me – I’ve got my usual tools (soldering iron, wire strippers, meter, etc) in my checked bag. (This is amusing – the security guy is doing laps through the metal detector to dial it in.)

[UPDATE: Eliot] Toorcon is my favorite conference. Have a look at some of the neat stuff we saw last year.

Toorcon – Closing

Toorcon was a really a wonderful experience. I met lots of readers and other interesting people in a very social environment. It’s really cheap and I would encourage you too attend next year.

I’ve posted the few photos I have to Flickr. While you are over there you might as well join the Hack-A-Day photo pool. Quinn’s photos are much better than mine; I didn’t have to haul around a Canon EOS D30 though. Pictures of me: one, two. The guys from EVDO-Coverage also have a photostream. They provided EVDO to hackers in need at the conference and will probably be sending me some fun hardware to play with.

I’ll be updating the posts with slides as soon as they get posted.

Once again: I’d like to thank the organizers, speakers, and Hack-A-Day readers for making the conference such a fun time. I hope to see everyone again at REcon, Shmoocon, and Toorcon next year.

That’s it for Toorcon coverage. Back to business as usual tomorrow.

Hacker Camps Are Back. To Get You In The Mood, Here’s A Story From 1997

The past couple of years of the COVID pandemic have been rough in some unexpected ways, and it’s clear that our world will never be quite the same as it was beforehand. In our community, the hackerspaces are open again, and while the pandemic hasn’t gone away this year shows the promise of hosting the first major hacker camps to be held since 2019. We’re sure a number of you will be making your way to them. To give a taste of what is to come we’ve got a rare glimpse into hacker camps past.

The Netherlands events are held every four years outside pandemic disruptions, and we’re going back as far as 1997 for HIP, or Hacking In Progress, where [Christine Karman] kept a daily diary of the event. 25 years later it’s both a familiar account of a hacker camp and an interesting glimpse into a time when for much of the wider population an Internet connection was still a novelty. Continue reading “Hacker Camps Are Back. To Get You In The Mood, Here’s A Story From 1997”

The First Hacker Camp To Show Up On Google Maps

Our summer gatherings at hacker camps are fleeting and ephemeral, anticipated for months but over far too quickly. Afterwards we have only our memories, and perhaps the occasional Hackaday write-up. We think BornHack 2020 in Denmark was the only hacker camp that wasn’t forced to go online-only by the pandemic last year, and now as far as we know it has also become the only one ever that has left its mark for the wider world by being captured for posterity by Google Earth.

Visible in the forest is the sparsely populated and socially distanced main field of what was a considerably smaller camp than normal, as well as in separate clearings the speakers tent and the loud field. Perhaps it doesn’t help as much in explaining to outsiders what a hacker camp is as might a picture of one of the larger ones, but it does at least serve as a visible reminder that we weren’t quite snuffed out last year.

It’s a moment of nostalgia to see BornHack 2020 on Google Maps for those of us who were there, but perhaps the point of all this is to take a moment to consider the likely prospects for similar events in 2021 given the pandemic. Both the British EMF Camp and American Toorcamp had to cancel their events last year and should return in 2022, there’s no word as yet about 2021 from the Serbian BalCCon or the Italian IHC,  our latest update on Luxembourg’s HaxoGreen is that it’s still slated to go ahead with its move to 2021, and currently both BornHack and the Dutch MCH are expecting to run as normal this summer.

In the grip of a savage third wave of the pandemic where this is being written, it’s by no means a foregone conclusion that 2020’s cancellations may not repeat themselves. International borders remain difficult to cross without exacting quarantine requirements. If you make it to a camp this year you may be one of the lucky few, and in the increasingly likely event that we don’t, we’ll be suitably envious. Don’t loose hope, we shall all meet again… eventually.

If you fancy a closer look at BornHack 2020, have a read of our write-up.