What The Hack

international | sci-tech | event notice Thursday April 07, 2005 23:39 by Anne Sedee - What The Hack acde at xs4all dot nl

Call for presentations/workshops

"What The Hack?" (WTH) is a large hacker's festival been organized (http://www.whatthehack.org). The festival will be taking place between July 28th and 31th July, 2005 in a camp near Den Bosch, The Netherlands. Common themes are freedom of speech, government transparency, computer insecurity, privacy, open software, open standards & software patents and community networking. Another focus has to do with independent media and networking in crisis areas and so called developing countries.

"What The Hack?" (WTH) is a large hacker's festival been organized (http://www.whatthehack.org). WTH is part of a interesting series of events held every four years in The Netherlands. The events are known as a
great opportunity to meet others working on the same things. It started with "The Galactic Hacker Party", also known as the "International
Conference on the Alternative use of Technology, Amsterdam". Since then the festival moved outdoors, and the next three editions were held on a large field. The last edition was visited by nearly 3000 people. Hackers enjoy exploring the details and capabilities of tech-systems or engage
with technology on the basis of a do-it- yourself philosophy. Contrary to popular misconception hackers do not, by definition, break into systems.

The festival will be taking place between July 28th and 31th July, 2005 in a camp near Den Bosch, The Netherlands. Common themes are freedom of speech, government transparency, computer insecurity, privacy, open software, open standards & software patents and community networking.

Call for presentations and workshops

Another focus has to do with independent media and networking in crisis areas and so called developing countries, which goals and objectives are:

** Bringing together and building links between technical people of different backgrounds and countries. Involve young professionals from
Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa in this broad international event. Creating opportunities for hackers to think about
how they can help in the distribution of technology, support independent media and so on.

** Show projects on the forefront of creative network development and use of new media.

** Share practical knowledge, skills and experiences in wireless technology, open spectrum, open technologies and free software.

** Make use of the power of a large group of technical people. One idea is setting up a meshing experiment. Meshing is a way to self-organize wireless networks. Up till now, nobody really knows how well it scales
to lots of users. A massive mesh experiment using thousands of laptops on the camp can give some answers. If necessary, it's a challenge to try
to improve the Wifi protocol so that it will scale.

** Discuss global topics like Open Access/Content issues, freedom of speech or Internet Governance.

Anne Sedee
program committee "What The Hack"
reply to: acde@xs4all.nl