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Chaos Communication Camp 2023

August 15 to 19, 2023
Ziegeleipark Mildenberg 53.03131,13.30736

cccamp23

The Camp does have a pretty well-maintained website. Announcements are made on the blog, talks and workshops are listed in the schedule. There will also be streams and recordings. The Matrix space (what’s that?) #camp2023:events.ccc.de is being used for chat.

This year, there is no normal wiki. Instead, the Hub provides crowd-editable pages, a bulletin board and a list of villages. It is, however, still kind of a work in progress. Check out more information about the Hub, including a FAQ, on the official website.

Wiki pages

Wiki pages in the Hub can be created and edited by any user. However, the start page is (currently) read only, and there doesn’t seem to be a list of pages. Use the global edit history to get an idea of which pages already exist.

To create a new page, the recommended way right now is to manually go to the URL you want it to have (use https://events.ccc.de/camp/2023/hub/camp23/en/info/xyz/ as a template, and replace xyz by the name of your page) and then click on “create page”.

Self-organized sessions

The Hub is also the correct place for any self-organized sessions, i.e. talks/workshops/… that you’d like to organize yourself, without involvement of any of the official stages. You can create a new entry in the “backoffice” (using your Hub account).

On the Camp website, you can find very helpful information about what to bring and what to expect on the campsite. Especially if this is your first CCCamp, make sure to have a look at the FAQ.

Check the timeline for buildup and teardown dates, especially if you’re thinking about arriving early or leaving late. Please do not arrive early if you bring kids, the campsite will not be safe yet.

Make sure to have familiarized yourself with the event & community principles (basically the code of conduct for the Camp). help.ccc.de provides an overview of medical, safety, security, awareness and autistic services available at CCC events. There is a dedicated page about accessibility on the Camp (if you prefer German, most information is also in the accessibility blog post). Also check out the awareness team blog post, too.

CCCamp is a community event and requires a lot of volunteer work. If you’d like to help out (which is an awesome way to get to know people, by the way!) register at the Angel System, or read the blog post explaining how it all works.

The official hashtag for the event is #cccamp23 (that’s three c in total, not four). If you see something really cool or important that’s not mentioned here, let us know!

Tickets

Camp tickets are sold out. 🙁 Tickets which have been ordered, but not paid, are still being sold via the “waiting list” feature of the ticket shop. People who have already received a ticket but can’t go (or bought too many tickets) sell them on the Camp’s bulletin board, social media (via the #cccamp23 hashtag, or via Matrix.

Fight ticket scalping

If you buy a ticket from somebody else, don’t pay a higher price than they did.

Also, only buy from people you trust: As tickets are simply PDFs (with unique IDs), you won’t be able to tell if the seller sold the same PDF to multiple people. At least not until you arrive at the Camp.

Camper tickets

Apparently some people are confused about “camper tickets”. If you’d like to live in an RV, trailer, or camper van during the Camp, in the special area designed for them, you’ll need one of these. See Caravans for more information.

If you’d like to simply pitch a tent on the campsite, you do not need a camper ticket!

Important information

This is a summary of the things we found most important, or surprising, or different from previous Camps. We encourage you to read the official website for all of the information, not just our summary.

  • The Camp is in a rural area. The next supermarket, pharmacy and bank are all at least 9 km away (see Points of Interest). There will be quite a few food and drink booths on site, but many will close during the night.
  • Except for supermarkets and larger stores, you will probably have to pay in cash. This includes the Camp, everything there will be cash only. The closest ATMs are kilometers away, possibly not available 24/7, and might even become empty. Bring enough money! 💸
  • There are several large bodies of water surrounding the Camp. There will be mosquitoes. Also, it will probably be very sunny and warm, and the footpaths tend to become pretty dusty. Also, thunderstorms can happen. Be prepared.
  • The Ziegeleipark ground is notorious for being hard, and often challenging for tent pegs. Having some kind of hammer is recommended (but you can simply ask around to borrow one). Some people recommend screws instead (see this Matrix discussion). Please don’t use anything longer than 25 cm, though.
  • As is customary, there will be wired & wireless network (with 10GBASE-T to your tent or campervan, but no fiber this year) available. The recommended cable length is 50 m. However, please do not bring shielded (S/FTP or F/FTP) cables. They can cause ground loops1, which can damage cables & equipment, and are therefore not allowed to be used as your uplink to the Datenklo. If you already have a long shielded cable, adding a small unshielded extension to it (e.g. a plastic coupling and 30 cm of unshielded patch cable) can be used to make it safe. (Make sure to add that extension to the side pointing to the Datenklo, so that the angel plugging you in can see that it’s safe.)
  • The caravan area infrastructure is not fully decided yet, but there will not be any water or sewage connections available, and maybe not even power or network. Check the website for up to date information. If there will be power, it will be Schuko connectors, not CEE. Also, please arrive during the day, there will be no caravan check-in during the night.
  • Vehicles on the main campground will have to remain there for the duration of the event. Vehicles in the caravan area are free to leave and come back.
  • Please do not bring dogs or other pets (with the exception of service dogs of course) to the Camp.
  • Open fire is forbidden. BBQing is allowed, as long as you’re using gas or liquid fuel. No charcoal, no wood. You’ll be able to buy gas on site though.
  • As usual at CCC events, the Camp has a privacy-focused photo and video policy. Do not take pictures of people without their permission. If you are planning on publishing the pictures online, say so in advance. Since it is not possible to ask a whole crowd for permission in advance, you cannot, for example, take photos into the audience of a talk, or wide shots in public areas. Drones are forbidden too, by the way.

Getting there

The website has excellent information on how to get to the campsite. There’s also a very detailed blog post. Camp attendees will be able to enjoy a hourly bus shuttle (from 08:00 to 20:00, August 14 to 21) connecting the Camp to Gransee and Zehdenick, free of charge.

If you’d like to come by bike, bus, or train, but don’t want to carry all your stuff on you: You’ll be able to send everything to the campsite in advance, and back again afterwards. Check out the camp parcel service! 😍 This service is available from August 10 to 24, see their FAQ.

Also, there will be around 100 bikes available to borrow at the Camp, including cargo bikes (source). You can also expect a bike repair workshop.

Warning

Try not to arrive by car. If you have to, be aware that you will need to buy a 40 € parking ticket (again, cash only). You cannot park on the campsite itself (although you can unload & load – but only before and after the event).

If you’d like to park a trailer (e.g. with additional luggage or other stuff you brought) at the parking lot, it needs a separate parking ticket, too.

Projects worth mentioning

If we’re not mentioning your project here, that doesn’t mean it’s “unworthy” – we might simply not know about it. Tell us!

  • The flow3r badge is a programmable, hackable music instrument, name badge, communications device, or whatever you want it to be.
  • C3VOC.TV will provide video news shows for the Camp and also act like some kind of public-access television station.
  • If you bring kids to the Camp, be sure to check out the Family Village and have a look at the c3kidspace blog.
  • This year’s Camp will feature an experimental ISDN and POTS (analog phone) network, in addition to the usual DECT & SIP. Also, there will be a GSM network, this time with logos and ringtones for your old non-smart phones.
  • On Track 2023 is a demoparty, showcasing multimedia art created by Camp attendants, in several categories. There’s even a competition for demos that run on the flow3r!
  • The Datenzwerg (“data gnome”) is an open source environmental sensor. Several of these will be deployed at the Camp to measure, for example, temperature, humidity, UV and noise level.
  • The Seidentrasse team is working on an outdoor 1:22.5 model train network with about 250 m of track. They can be contacted via Matrix.

  1. See this Matrix discussion for details on the ground loop problem. The issue is basically that the Camp is largely being powered by Diesel generators, and there will probably a few volts of ground potential difference between each generator. Since it is not obvious for attendees where the borders between the generators are, the safe solution is to prohibit shielded Ethernet connections. ↩