----- Forwarded message from Declan McCullagh <declan@???> -----
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 09:45:54 -0400
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@???>
Subject: [Politech] Netherlands' "What the Hack" confab may be killed by
local politico [fs]
To: politech@???
---
Declan,
Please anonymise before forwarding.
I wish the hacker community would be more open to these things, but there
are not, and people who might attend and are buying plane tickets should
know about this.
---------------------------------------------------
The 4-year dutch hacker festival, having a tradition of being harassed
by local
municipalities and the national computer crime unit, is threatened
again. This
time the municipaltiy fears
"grave fear that the organisation of this event will endanger law and
order as well as public safety"."
Ofcourse, in its 16 year existence, nothing has ever happened, and in
fact Frans
Kolkman, the head of the police force that actively tried to block the
last event,
called HAL2001 (
www.hal2001.org) admitted at the end of the event, that
everyone
behaved impaccable.
For more details, see:
http://www.whatthehack.org/news-embargo
---
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Municipality wants to ban famous hacker gathering
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 10:20:53 +0200
From: fenmail <fenmail@???>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan@???>
The organisers of 'What the Hack', the 2005 edition of a series of
famous Dutch outdoor hacker conferences, were told that their
conference will not receive the municipal permit needed for the event
to happen. 'What the Hack" is planned to take place on a large
event-campground in Liempde (The Netherlands), between the 28th and
31st of July 2005. About 3.000 participants from all over the world
are expected. 'What The Hack' is appealing the decision.
What The Hack is scheduled to take place near Boxtel, a village near
Den Bosch in the south of The Netherlands. The mayor of Boxtel, J.A.M.
van Homelen, cites "fear of disturbances of law and order and danger
to public safety". This is noteworthy because the previous editions of
the event saw no incidents of any kind ? neither at the event itself
nor on the Internet.
Organiser Rop Gonggrijp, co-founder of the first Dutch Internet
provider XS4ALL and former editor-in-chief of the 1980's hacker
magazine 'Hack-Tic' assumes the problem boils down to a
misunderstanding: "The mayor seems to have a bit of an awkward
perception of what we, the hackers, are going to be doing there. Yes,
we think it's important that bad computer security is exposed. But
computer break-ins are such a side issue for us. These are grown-up
hackers: The participants that do deal with computer security issues
have been working in the computer security industry for years."
During their 16-year tradition, the events have been turning points
for Internet culture. In 1989, the notion of 'computer networking for
the people' was introduced into Europe, laying the foundation for an
ideology which sprouted one of Europe's first ISPs: XS4ALL. 'De
Digitale Stad', the famous Amsterdam Digital City project, was
conceived at the 1993 edition of the event. In 1997, visitors at the
event used a legal loophole to distribute an exported copy of the PGP
encryption program, forcing the US government to change its policies
regarding the export of strong encryption algorithms. The events have
inspired a series of similar events in Germany, the USA and many other
countries.
What The Hack will feature lectures on the fight against software
patents in Europe, discussions on how to use wireless technologies to
get Internet into the hands of more people in developing countries,
presentations that demonstrate various problems regarding biometric
identification, news from the world of Open Source software and more.
Ongoing reports of this at :
http://www.whatthehack.org/news/index_html
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----- End forwarded message -----
