Chaos Computer Club
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 CCC Logo |
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| Origin | Berlin |
|---|---|
| Country | Germany |
| Years active | 1981–present |
| Category | Hacking |
| Founder(s) | Wau Holland |
| Product(s) | Datenschleuder Chaos Communication Congress Chaos Communication Camp Chaosradio Project Blinkenlights |
| Website(s) | CCC homepage |
The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is one of the biggest and most influential hacker organizations. The CCC is based in Germany and other German-speaking countries and currently has over 4,000 members.
The CCC describes itself as "a galactic community of life's beings, independent of age, sex, race or societal orientation, which strives across borders for freedom of information…." In general, the CCC stands up for more transparency in governments, freedom of information and a human right to communication. Supporting the principles of the hacker ethic, the club also fights for free access to computers and technological infrastructure for everybody.
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[edit] History
The CCC was founded in Berlin on September 12, 1981 at the Kommune 1's table in the rooms of the newspaper Die Tageszeitung by Wau Holland and others in anticipation of the prominent role that information technology would play in the way people live and communicate.
The CCC became world famous when they drew public attention to the insecurity of the German Bildschirmtext computer network by causing it to debit a bank in Hamburg DM 134,000 in favor of the club. The money was returned the next day in front of the press. Prior to the incident, the system provider had publicly failed to react to proof of the insecurity provided by the CCC, claiming to the public that their system was safe. Bildschirmtext was the biggest commercially available online system targeted at the general public in its region at that time, run and heavily advertised by the German telecommunications agency (Deutsche Bundespost) which also strived to keep up-to-date alternatives out of the market.
In 1989, the CCC was peripherally involved in the first cyberespionage case to make international headlines. A group of German hackers led by Karl Koch (who was loosely affiliated with the CCC) was arrested for breaking into US government and corporate computers and selling operating-system source code to the Soviet KGB.
Several of the CCC's early exploits are also documented in a paper[1], written by Digital Equipment Corporation's lead European Investigator of the CCC's activities in the 1980s and 1990s. These include the CCC protests against French nuclear tests and members of the CCC involved with the German Green Party.
The CCC is more widely known for its public demonstrations of security risks. In 1996, CCC members demonstrated an attack against Microsoft's ActiveX technology, changing personal data in a Quicken database from the outside. In April 1998, the CCC successfully demonstrated the cloning of a GSM customer card, breaking the COMP128 encryption algorithm, at that time used by many GSM SIMs.[2]
In 2001, the CCC celebrated its twentieth birthday with an interactive light installation dubbed Project Blinkenlights that turned the building Haus des Lehrers in Berlin into a giant computer screen. A follow up installation (dubbed "Arcade") at the Bibliothèque nationale de France was the world's biggest light installation ever.
In March 2008, the CCC acquired and published the fingerprints of German Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble. The magazine also included the fingerprint on a film that readers could use to fool fingerprint readers.[3] This was done to protest the use of biometric data in German identity devices such as e-passports. [4]
Later in October 2008, CCC's Project Blinkenlights went to Toronto, Canada with project Stereoscope. [5]
[edit] Events
The CCC hosts the annual Chaos Communication Congress, Europe's biggest hacker congress, with up to 4,500 participants. Every four years, the Chaos Communication Camp is the outdoor alternative for hackers worldwide.
The CCC currently preparing a new yearly conference called SIGINT that will be held in Cologne, Germany.
Members of the CCC also participate in various technological and political conferences around the planet.
[edit] Publications
The CCC publishes the quarterly magazine Datenschleuder ("data catapult"), and the CCC in Berlin also produces a monthly radio show called Chaosradio which picks up various technical and political topics in a two-hour talk radio show. The program is aired on a local radio station named Fritz. There is also a podcast spin-off named "Chaosradio Express," an international podcast called "Chaosradio International," and other radio programs offered by some regional Chaos Groups.
[edit] Members
Famous members are co-founder Wau Holland and Andy Müller-Maguhn, who was a member of the ICANN board of directors for Europe until 2002.
[edit] See also
- Metalab Vienna
- 2600: The Hacker Quarterly
- CULT OF THE DEAD COW
- Hack-Tic
- L0pht
- NYC Resistor
- Phrack
- 23
[edit] External links
- CCC homepage
- Project Blinkenlights homepage
- Chaosradio Homepage
- Hack In The Box (HITB)
- CONTINUITY 06
[edit] References
- ^ Anderson, Kent (2006), Hacktivism and Politically Motivated Computer Crime, http://www.aracnet.com/~kea/Papers/Politically%20Motivated%20Computer%20Crime.pdf, retrieved on 2008-05-14
- ^ CCC | CCC klont D2 Kundenkarte
- ^ CCC publishes fingerprints of Wolfgang Schäuble, the German Home Secretary, Heise Online, published 2008-03-31, accessed 2008-04-17
- ^ CCC publiziert die Fingerabdrücke von Wolfgang Schäuble [Update] - heise Security
- ^ http://blinkenlights.net/stereoscope
