This year the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is celebrating their 30th anniversary. The CCC is an annual four-day hacking conference in Hamburg, Germany. Founded more than 30 years ago, the CCC is the largest and most important European hacking community.

It all began in 1981 with an unspectacular announcement in a Berlin newspaper for a meeting which turned out to be the birth of the CCC. Here is text of the original announcement:

Damit wir Komputerfrieks nicht länger unkoordiniert vor uns hinwursteln, tun wir wat und treffen uns am 12. 9. 81 in Berlin, Wattstr. (taz-Hauptgebäude) ab 11:00. Wir reden über internationale Netzwerke – Kommunikationsrecht – Datenrecht (Wem gehören meine Daten?) – Copyright – Informations- u. Lernsysteme – Datenbanken – Encryption – Komputerspiele – Programmiersprachen – processcontrol – Hardware und was auch immer. Tom Twiddlebit, Wau Wolf Ungenannt.

Loosely translated:

We, the computer freaks, do not want to work so uncoordinated anymore; That's why we meet at 09/12/1981 in Berlin, Wattstr. (taz-main building) at 11:00. We will talk about international networks -communications law - privacy law (Who owns my data?) - copyright - information and learning systems - databases - encryption - computer games - programming languages - process control - hardware and whatever. Tom Twiddlebit, Wau Wolf Ungenannt.

A few years later in 1984, the CCC held their first official meeting as the "Chaos Communications Congress" in Hamburg.

This year, 30 years later, the international hacker meeting, the Chaos Computer Congress, started on December 27, 2013 in Hamburg. For four days, hackers from all over the world will meet to join the rich program consisting of talks and lectures, workshops, offerings for young hackers, hacking and art projects, and various other events. The main topics will be the security of hardware and software as well as the surveillance systems built by the intelligence agencies and the countermeasures against them.

Many well-known people such as the founder of Tor, Roger Dingledine, will talk about the new challenges of our time according censorship and privacy on the internet, and Julian Assange will be broadcasting from the Ecuadorian council in London. "We have to invent the internet new" and "the power is in your hands" are the key messages of this year's meeting. About 8000 participants are expected.

For further information, see the following links:

Website of the CCC

Schedule and streams of the 30C3

Image Source: CCC