Chaos Communication Congress 2023

That hacking takes place in a world of darkened rooms may be a cliché with a grain of truth in it. However, our travel group consisting of Bianca, Johannes, and Maik was able to convince themselves that this is at least not true for the Congress Center Hamburg (CCH), the home of the Chaos Communication Congress since 2012. The lobby of the freshly renovated building is a large and bright space that welcomes participants with plenty of light and invites them to linger. Nevertheless, there were places where the mood and atmosphere of the unique universe of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) could spread. Our webits, in any case, felt comfortable and were looking forward to the first presentations.

The Chaos Communication Congress embodies an open culture and demands mutual respect from all participants. This is not only demonstrated by banners with slogans like "All creatures welcome." The diversity of topics alone shows that the congress aims to be more than just a nerd bubble. By offering activities for children and teenagers as well as FLINTA*-only workshops, it is practically demonstrated that everyone is welcome and safe spaces are provided.

The sense of community within the congress is clearly felt both during and after the scheduled program points. When the obligatory discussions following lectures and workshops extend beyond the schedule, some speakers simply continue them outside on the floor.

Artificial intelligence is on everyone's lips and of course also belongs on the agenda of a hacking congress. At the Chaos Communication Congress, functionality, security, and social aspects were mainly discussed. The first talk that our webits listened to in this area was given by Eva Wolfangel on Wednesday. She demonstrated how chatbots can not only reveal data protection gaps but also the unfair intentions of the companies behind them. Later in the day, Annika Rüll spoke about the difference between the learning of the human brain and that of AI. She also gave an outlook on how artificial intelligence, in her opinion, will develop in terms of the possibility of its own consciousness.

Rainer Mühlhoff shed light on the social aspects on Thursday. He called for stronger regulation to counteract social inequality. He supported his appeal with an insight into the working conditions of the people who contribute to the success of AI systems at the lowest level.

The thematic conclusion for our webits was the presentation by Johann Rehberger on Friday. He pointed out security vulnerabilities that can arise when using ChatGPT and advised not to blindly trust the output of Large Language Models (LLM), the neural networks behind the chatbots, but to always question them.

No event of the CCC without the topic of data security. Bianca, Johannes, and Maik have selected from the numerous interesting talks in this field on Wednesday. Operation Triangulation Belonging to, the testimonial of Georgy Kucherin, Leonid Bezvershenko, and Boris Larin. They talked about their discovery of previously undetected spyware capable of exploiting iPhones to spy on private data. The account of how they managed to combat it and close important security gaps was very enlightening and thought-provoking.

The following day, Linus Neumann and Kai Biermann also discussed cybercrime. They provided insights into the world of digital extortion gangs and pointed out that protection against them is not a secret, yet it is still not taken seriously enough by companies. Particularly interesting were the explanations on what the smartest course of action is in case of extortion.

In addition to all the theory, at the 37c3, practical aspects should not be neglected. Therefore, Bianca participated in the Foundation Workshop.Hands on, how does the Internet work? During the workshop, the practical application of the analysis software Wireshark was discussed in relation to IP addresses, Domain Name Systems, as well as sending and receiving data packets. Following the interactive workshop, the question and answer session continued outside the door on the carpet due to the advanced time. This session mainly addressed uncertainties regarding SSL encryption and the Tor browser in relation to the topic.

The topic of AI is now the subject of many discussions. It is beyond question that artificial intelligence will influence web development, among many other areas, as part of our daily work. In fact, the use of chatbots & Co. has long since arrived at webit!. Bianca, Johannes, and Maik brought the input from 37c3 home with them to provide positive and critical impulses for discussion.

IT security is one of our central topics, which is why it is particularly important for our teams to always stay up to date in this area and to also have an understanding of the peripheral areas of this field. With the learnings from the 37th Chaos Communication Congress, we are now definitely better prepared in this regard.