38C3 – Call for Participation

➝  deutsch

The Event

The Chaos Communication Congress is the Chaos Computer Club’s (CCC) annual symposium and hacker party.

During four days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, thousands of hackers, technology freaks, artists, and utopians get together in Hamburg to communicate, learn from each other, and party together.

The Congress is the longest running German IT security conference, the biggest European hacker gathering and grew into one of the most important conferences on digital transformation. We focus on topics such as information technology, digital security, making, and breaking. We engage in creative, sceptical discourse on the interaction between technology and society.

Dates & deadlines

Reaching out

The 38C3 is a place where attendees yearn to be challenged on outdated ideas, conventional perception of reality and yesterday's approaches to tomorrow's problems. That's why we strongly encourage individuals of underrepresented groups, as well as people from the Global South to apply. We're looking forward to your contributions on just digital futures.

Tracks

38C3 lectures are organized by tracks, each track is curated by a team of experts in the respective field. Please choose one of the tracks below when submitting.

Art & Beauty

Art has the potential to hack how people see and understand the world, making language, images, sounds, bodies or bits do beautifully unexpected things. Even in it's proper context, art can insert illegal instructions undermining autocracy and repression. After all, it's only supposed to be beautiful, right? ;) The Art & Beauty track not only explores how computers, coding and networking expand the possibilities of art, but also as how the principles and practices of hacker culture can make artistic work more boundary-testing, more liberating, more welcoming for all creatures on this planet.

We look forward to presentations on impressive projects; demonstrations of artistic processes on the congress stage; lecture performances that expand the congress format; and theoretical reflections on the influence of new technologies on artistic practices and forms of expression.

Ethics, Society & Politics

The Ethics, Society & Politics track looks at the social, ethical, and political consequences of technology that affect our lives. We seek submissions that offer strategies to counter the shift to the right and the securitization discourse.

We can no longer trust that the law will always be there to protect us. A more diverse, creative, and disobedient Digital Rights activism is needed.

As surveillance creeps into all aspects of our lives and our infrastructures, we mustn't cede the political discourse to reactionary forces but take a proactive stance.

True to the motto 'Illegal Instructions—Now more than ever!”, we are looking for submissions that test activist strategies beyond position papers and open letters.

As hackers, we want to become active in solidarity—until the processor finally meets our requirements.

We want to explore the entire spectrum of collective disobedience, whether it's against excessive state surveillance, right-wing structures, or harmful tech hypes.

We are looking for contributions to a congress after which we will not fall into a hopeless blues, but that will make us smarter, more powerful, and ready to go. Legal, illegal, scheißegal—whatever its takes!

Hardware & Making

The track Hardware & Making is all about development and creative use of things that allow the digital to make an impression on the physical.

On one hand our focus is on the whole process from architecture, planning, creation and debugging of everything ranging from textiles, musical instruments, robots, integrated circuits, means of transportation for people and Club Mate, launching stuff into space, alternative energy supplies to medical tools, toys and smartphones — all things hands-on.

On the other hand we are interested in unintended use cases. So please tell us your stories about expansion or repair of technology and about liberation of proprietary systems—from decapped smart-card to the firmware of your coffee maker to a modified agricultural machine. The manufacturer calls your hack an “illegal instruction” although the unexpected convenient exception actually just facilitates fair use? We want to hear about it.

Of course we're also up for a surprise: Please submit all the things we can't imagine!

Science

Science thrives on taking untrodden paths. The most exiting results often originate from using unconventional methods of measurement, taking a close look at the inconspicuous, or questioning truths believed to be certain. At the same time, scientific findings can lead to novel perspectives that challenge the political mainstream, be it regarding urban planning, mobility, climate change, diversity or many other issues.

When science collides with social discourse, it is both exciting and worrying. And when research and its results are deemed “illegal”, i.e., are actively rejected, ignored, or taken out of context, scientific exchange across social boundaries becomes increasingly important. That's what the track Science is for. Whether you work at research institutions, universities, or in your garage: if you have new insights into exciting topics, can explain complex things like no other, or ask questions that no one else is asking – then you've come to the right place.

Security

The security track hosts content demonstrating the influence of IT security aspects on users and machines. We ask for technical submissions describing problems and solutions in both hardware and software.

If you want to share your discoveries with thousands of fellow security enthusiasts; if you have developed new solutions to previously unsolved problems; or if you have found new problems which we knew nothing about, we invite you to present.

This includes topics from mathematics, networks, operating systems, web technologies, memory (mis)management, cryptography, programming languages, hardware design and other fields.

Online submissions only

Please submit your talk to our conference planning system at https://cfp.cccv.de/38c3/cfp. Lectures are 40 or 60 minutes by default.

Simply follow the instructions there. If you plan to submit anything other than a lecture, want to present longer than 60 minutes, or just have any questions regarding the submission, you are welcome to contact us via mail at 38c3-content(at)cccv.de.

Submission guidelines

Please send us a description of your suggested talk that is as complete as possible. The description is the main criterium for acceptance or rejection, so please ensure that it is as clear and complete as possible. Quality comes before quantity. Due to the non-commercial nature of the event, presentations which aim to market or promote commercial products or entities will be rejected without consideration.

Since most participants find (or don’t find) a lecture by its title, it’s important to keep it precise, accessible and comprehensible. Our teams will keep a keen eye on title and subtitle and make suggestions to change them if necessary, so please avoid insider jokes and stereotypes. It would be a shame if we would have to reject an otherwise excellent submission because the title does not tell much about the actual content.

As it is likely that there will be multiple submissions on the same topic, please show us exactly why your talk should be part of the conference. Remember that the teams are diversely staffed, and not every reviewer knows every submitter and their background. Please write something about yourself, your research, and your motivation. It does not matter if the talk has been held at another conference somewhere on this planet, as long as it is up to date and relevant.

Talks should be either 30 minutes long plus 10 minutes for questions and answers or 45 minutes long plus 15 minutes for questions and answers. Longer slots are possible if absolutely necessary, but should be an exception. Please take our limited amount of presentation time into consideration, check how much time you really need to bring home your points and then tell us the proposed length of your talk.

Travel, costs & visa

The Chaos Communication Congress is a non-commercial event where neither the organisers nor the speakers are being paid. As an accepted speaker for a full talk, you get free admission, though. If necessary, we are able to provide limited support for travel costs. If you need help applying for a visa, such as an official invitation to present to the German embassy, please make sure to let the content team know well in advance. Please be aware that the visa application procedure may take up to six weeks.