[user764743]

I'll never get people who say that there is too much politics at a god damn hacker conference like the CCC, considering The Chaos Computer Club was founded in 1981 specifically to be a political watchdog.

more so especially since the very act of "hacking" is a political statement because it involves redistributing power over information.

Code is law, remember?

That would be like complaining about "too much law" at a constitutional convention.

[yc-kraln]

Especially as congress has, for as long as I remember, been about the superset of infosec, society, art, etc. IMHO it's more along the lines of complaining about any ride that isn't a roller coaster at a theme park--no one is forcing you to go on any rides, other people clearly enjoy them, they're not taking anything away from your roller coaster, and having them increases the diversity of the crowd in an ultimately positive-for-everyone way.

Some people just like to complain that they have to take a shower and can't harass women like they used to like they could when congress was at the BCC and that kind of nonsense didn't immediately get you thrown out like today.

[holowoodman]

Congress has become a radical leftist politics playground. That is the real problem.

> Some people just like to complain that they have to take a shower and can't harass women like they used to like they could when congress was at the BCC and that kind of nonsense didn't immediately get you thrown out like today.

You could never do that. A few years ago, some activists tried to make a fuzz with stuff like creeper cards, intervention teams and codes of conduct. But those were never needed in the first place, almost nothing ever happened at CCC that would have warranted those things. But "those white male hackers are certainly sexist raping pigs" is a firmly entrenched stereotype in certain circles.

The one thing you cannot ever do is go to CCC and express any idea that isn't very far left. That is a very certain way to get thrown out. Your talk won't ever be on the Fahrplan if the topic isn't "hooray, more refugees", "hooray, more EU dictatorship" or "hooray, down with everything right of Rosa Luxemburg".

[moltopoco]

It seems that no modern comment section is complete without the complaint "too much politics", then followed by "but everything is political". Some talks do not even try to draw a line from politics to computers, and I think that is what people feel unhappy about.

https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2025/fahrplan/event/...

https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2025/fahrplan/event/...

https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2025/fahrplan/event/...

[VierScar]

The first two talks are in the "Ethics, Society & Politics" category, and the third in the "Art & Beauty" category. Why would they need to be about computing?

It's a big organisation, and politics is wrapped up in what they do, along with the post-WWII Antifaschism culture in Germany.

Even if it weren't the case, I don't get why attack them for helping stand up for democracy, something in dire need of advocacy these days

[rapnie]

Unrelated to this conference I've often heard the "everything is political" argument, and mostly with a passive-aggressive "or else.." (you're up for a political fight) undertone. I once enquired on very mundane things in life, and yes "those too are political act". Well, if everything is bleakly political in that sense, we may make it universal, just call it Newspeak.

[Fnoord]

Having any hacker conference in the USA is a political choice, because it deters any non-US citizen from entry. The bars to enter the USA are high, including the coercion to hand over your accounts from social media.

[jna_sh]

I’m not sure you think otherwise, and are just calling on the US as an example since the HN crowd is heavily US skewed, but just for the avoidance of doubt, this is a German event.

[GuB-42]

The US is a large, well connected country with a lot of hackers, for all definitions of "hacker", it is even the country that created the term.

And it is not that inaccessible to non-US citizens. Sure, the current administration is not very welcoming, but it is easier than, say, Russia (where a lot of hackers also live) if you want to attract an international audience.

Anyways, it is the CCC, and they are doing it in Germany, of course, because they are German.

[randomNumber7]

Maybe it's that people disagree with the politics, but also don't see a room for discussion.

[immibis]

In my experience, you are right - that is what most complaints of "too political" really mean.

[aleph_minus_one]

I get your arguments. In my opinion the core of the problem is that a lot of the "political" taks are about political topics that are outside the core of the kind of politics (?) that are related to hacking. These talks are what people are complaining about as "too much politics".

[user764743]

That's fine but technology doesn't exist in a vacuum, you can't talk about (for example) facial recognition technology without mentioning the social groups it affects the most or is used against. Same for plenty of others topics directly or indirectly related to hacking and computers.

If you look at the history of the CCC, they also don't see a line between technical freedom and social freedom, because you can't have a free internet in an unfree society.

The 'outside' topics you mention are often just the hackers' way of applying their methodology to the world beyond the screen. Society is a larger system with its own bugs and exploits that inevitably affect the computers you use and the code that run them, and hackers like to apply their methodology to analyze that to understand the consequences.

Moreover, if you actually want meritocracy, you have to address the social barriers that keep people out of the room, and you can't do that without addressing the outside world.

[GuB-42]

For many hackers, it is just a game, a technical puzzle. The interesting part is overcoming the obstacles, the information or bounty money they get in the end is just the reward, its nature doesn't matter much. Even when there is no reward, people do it because it is fun.

Like with lockpicking, many pickers work with the cylinder in a vise, and the lock is just a mechanical puzzle. That the lock can be attached to something one would want to secure is just a distant thought.

[Fnoord]

Politics is a game too. With far less fun rules, unfortunately.

[BoingBoomTschak]

The vagueness and sheer breadth of the word "politics" is doing the heavy lifting in your argument there.

[Sol-]

The shape of the politics changed, though. From civil rights, questioning authority and cypherpunk, which inherently has a libertarian bent, there's now much more identity politics and social justice / grievance culture with only tenuous connections to tech.

For a hacker conference, they also are pretty Luddite against new technologies like AI. It's a very conservative degrowth movement nowadays, all in all.

[aleph_minus_one]

> For a hacker conference, they also are pretty Luddite against new technologies like AI.

Hacking was always against centralization and central control (and towards decentralization) - which is why any lecture celebrating the bigtech AI companies would strongly be against the whole culture.

While for various reasons AI is a controversial topic, I would say that if someone gave a great talk about how to decentrally train some AI model efficiently as some volunteer computing project, this would be perfectly fitting for the C3.

Addendum: There is an AI talk (as pointed out by wunderwuzzi23 at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46390959): https://events.ccc.de/congress/2025/hub/event/detail/agentic...

[eqvinox]

> For a hacker conference, they also are pretty Luddite against new technologies like AI.

No, just this one, because it steals from almost everyone and gives to the few. Even if it seems to be somewhat failing at monetization for now, control is in the hands of a very few.

[flawn]

I am happy they are careful with new technologies, especially one like AI, and also set the right impulses. Enough non-political reasons to have that stance, especially taking in societal implications and how technology affects everyone and not just stakeholders and techbros. In a time when tech in the US is just accelerating by the top-down agenda of figures like Andreesen, Thiel & Co., that is very much needed imo.