https://events.ccc.de/congress/2025/infos/index.html
The 39th Chaos Communication Congress (39C3) takes place in Hamburg on 27–30 Dec 2025, and is the 2025 edition of the annual four-day conference on technology, society and utopia organized by the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) and volunteers.
Congress offers lectures and workshops and various events on a multitude of topics including (but not limited to) information technology and generally a critical-creative attitude towards technology and the discussion about the effects of technological advances on society.
Starting in 1984, Congress has been organized by the community and appreciates all kinds of participation. You are encouraged to contribute by volunteering, setting up and hosting hands-on and self-organized events with the other components of your assembly or presenting your own projects to fellow hackers.
Find infos how to get in contact & chat with other participants and the organizing teams on our Communication page.
= More Information:
- Chaos Computer Club at Wikipedia
- Media
- 2025 Hub
Interesting talks, upcoming and previously recorded, available on their streams page --Ed.
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The videos from the 39C3 are all in place, and Cory Doctorow's fast-paced talk, A post-American, enshittification-resistant Internet, is among them.
That talk is worth special mention. Don't be put off by the gratuitous cursing or the CCC's misspelling of the name Internet. And because it's often easier, and always faster, to just read text than slog through a video, Cory has also posted a transcript of his presentation:
We won that skirmish, but friends, I have bad news, news that will not surprise you. Despite wins like that one, we have been losing the war on the general purpose computer for the past 25 years.
Which is why I've come to Hamburg today. Because, after decades of throwing myself against a locked door, the door that leads to a new, good internet, one that delivers both the technological self-determination of the old, good [I]nternet, and the ease of use of Web 2.0 that let our normie friends join the party, that door has been unlocked.
Today, it is open a crack. It's open a crack!
His presentation is good all the way through, even to the final Q & A.
Basically, the gist is that 1) the US dollar is no longer a (semi-)neutral platform and 2) the threat of withdrawing financial support has already been played and cannot be used for leverage any more. Countries are now forced to actively work around both points, which is inconvenient and expensive, but the result is that they have been liberated from similar future threats and thus in that way have regained a bit of independence as far as software laws go. That liberation is because economic retaliation has already occurred, nations can more or less safely undo the anti-circumvention laws forced down their throats by "free" trade "agreements". The first country to do so will be able to take a very big bite out of the trillions of dollars (or euros) which Apple and the others currently collect.
What other 39C3 presentations have soylentils found interesting in a positive way?
Previously:
(2025) The 39th Chaos Communication Congress (39C3) Taking Place Now in Hamburg Through 30 Dec 2025
(2025) 38th Chaos Communication Congress (38C3) Presentations Online
(2017) 34th Chaos Communication Congress (34C3) Presentations Online
Cory Doctorow Proposes How to Break Free From Digital Domination
So far, every country in the world has had one of two responses to the Trump tariffs. The first one is: "Give Trump everything he asks for (except Greenland) and hope he stops being mad at you." This has been an absolute failure. Give Trump an inch, he'll take a mile. He'll take fucking Greenland. Capitulation is a failure.
But so is the other tactic: retaliatory tariffs. That's what we've done in Canada (like all the best Americans, I'm Canadian). Our top move has been to levy tariffs on the stuff we import from America, making the things we buy more expensive. That's a weird way to punish America! It's like punching yourself in the face as hard as you can, and hoping the downstairs neighbor says "Ouch!"
And it's indiscriminate. Why whack some poor farmer from a state that begins and ends with a vowel with tariffs on his soybeans. That guy never did anything bad to Canada.
But there's a third possible response to tariffs, one that's just sitting there, begging to be tried: what about repealing anticircumvention law?
If you're a technologist or an investor based in a country that's repealed its anticircumvention law, you can go into business making disenshittificatory products that plug into America's defective tech exports, allowing the people who own and use those products to use them in ways that are good for them, even if those uses make the company's shareholders mad.
Simple premise, interesting ramifications - I wonder what the course corrections will look like...
(Score: 5, Informative) by canopic jug on Sunday December 28, @05:52PM (2 children)
In addition to the streaming page [media.ccc.de], mentioned above, more translated talks are being added to the archive [media.ccc.de]. The videos are available in two formats and two resolutions.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday December 29, @04:39AM (1 child)
Thanks for that, they weren't up yet the last time I checked. One note for people using the media.ccc site, they use a somewhat glitchy media player, if you're having problems with it wait until the content appears on YT in the CCC channel.
(Score: 4, Informative) by canopic jug on Monday December 29, @09:29AM
... they use a somewhat glitchy media player, if you're having problems with it wait until the content appears on YT in the CCC channel
Or just download the MP4 or WebM file from media.ccc.de and use your own media player, such as VLC. You'll have more playback options that way anyway.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 28, @05:58PM (2 children)
I enjoyed the talk on real time typography [media.ccc.de]. An interesting talk and I learned a few things.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Tuesday December 30, @02:58PM (1 child)
Cory Doctorow's fast-paced talk, A post-American, enshittification-resistant Internet [media.ccc.de], is worth special mention. Don't be put off by the gratuitous cursing or the CCC's misspelling of the name Internet.
Cory goes into much more background than the summary can cover, and his presentation is good all the way through, even to the final Q & A. Basically, 1) the US dollar is no longer a (semi-)neutral platform and 2) the card of withdrawing financial support has already been played and cannot be used as a threat any more. While countries are now forced to actively work around both points, which is inconvenient and expensive, they have been liberated from such threats and in that way have regained a bit of independence as far as software laws go.
That liberation is because economic retaliation has already occurred, nations can more or less safely undo the anti-circumvention laws forced down their throats by "free" trade "agreements". The first country to do so will be able to take a very big bite out of the trillions of dollars (or euros) which Apple and the others currently collect.
What other presentations have people here found interesting in a positive way?
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Friday January 02, @03:48AM
It's often easier, and always faster, to just read text than slog through a video. Cory Doctorow has posted a transcript of his 39C3 presentation, "A post-American, enshittification-resistant Internet" [pluralistic.net].
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday December 29, @05:50PM
I liked going to cons, its fun to meet people, the talks used to be interesting, HOPE is (was?) a good time. (HOPE is a USA centric national 2600 magazine thing)
The problem with cons in 2025 can be best seen in the traditional annual post on the mongolian basketweaving and chinese cartoon imageboard where some years back CCC let in too many political activists and the people who "do" left leaving the CCC with "the people who like to talk about the people who do" and the political activists doing their prayers to the faithful, and admittedly, some of the "never give up" crowd who still do interesting old days style talks. "Let me read this wikipedia article to you" is tiresome and Youtube video essays took over that market.
Cons are a pale shadow of their former self, which is too bad.