36c3

These days, one year ago, I attended the 36th Chaos Communication Congress (36C3) in Leipzig, Germany. It was the first Congress I ever attended, and while I had some preconceptions, I did not expect it to be such an awesome conference. Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to attend a number conferences and workshops for IT practitioners and researchers - none of them come close to 36C3 for its compelling and fun talks, its creative vibes and its pervasive feeling of inclusivity. The Congress offers lectures and workshops on a wide variety of topics centered around information technology and its effects on society. There you can also attend a workshop on learning Chinese, or on how to prepare kefir; listen to a famous cryptographer discuss the latest advances in privacy preserving technologies; enjoy a robots battle; or simply chat with one of the other 16k+ fellows hackers / researchers / human beings.

Since it’s hard to capture in a few lines the Congress,¹ I will at least list below a few talks that I found interesting (among those that got recorded). Due to the ongoing pandemic, this year’s Congress has been virtual only. While it’s definitely not the same experience as the non-remote one, I’m sure there will be plenty of interesting videos to watch.

My favourite talks from 36C3:

• The dire Reality of the Climate Crisis
• Leaving Legacy Behind - about MirageOS
• Reducing Carbon in the Digital Realm
• Inside the Fake Like Factories - about Facebook’s like factories
• A Hacker’s Guide to Healthcare: How to Improve Lives with Data
• Boeing 737MAX: Automated Crashes
• The Large Hadron Collider Infrastructure Talk
• 5G & Net Neutrality
• The Ecosystem is Moving - Moxie Marlinspike on paradigms and architectures of messaging applications
• 36C3 Infrastructure Review - Congress’ volunteers talk about its IT infrastructure