There is a live streaming in place at Hackmeeting. It is run by radio#cybernet and they are broadcasting live 24 hours a day (at least so they say). The web site says they have been the first italian radio streaming in Ogg Vorbis format, but the current stream is MP3.

The live stream playlist link is http://www.kyuzz.org/radiocybernet/stream.pls. When I checked it was just a bunch of noise but maybe I just bumped into a temporary problem.

99% of the content will be in italian. The only exception is probably my talk, scheduled to take place at 22:00h today. Looks as if everything is behind schedule here a bit. So if you like, tune in. Maybe it even works :-)

Well, as on any hacker event, there are t-shirts for sale. Hackers love t-shirts as they allow to express meaningful, probably witty statements without any direct physical human interaction which comes in handy as hackers prefer to spend their time on interaction with the machine.

What was completely new to me is that the long-term idea of actually providing hacker underwear came to life. I am not sure if the penguin is really well-positioned or is capable of producing any extended sexual charm. But who knows? Of the 600 people at Hackmeeting around 10% seem to be women. We will see what happens.

Let‘s have a look at some other nerdwear at Hackmeeting:

Well, you know, I have been doing some other nerdwear in the last years. This business didn‘t get much attention recently and everybody is asking me what‘s next. Well, I guess there will be something happening at the Camp for sure.

Walking around I bumped into something familiar. Strange, I‘ve seen that face before. This looked like…

Yes. It looked like the ampflication system of of the original Blinkenlights installation. And in fact, it turned out to be a similar project. The young guy behind controls it via the parallel port and he was very submissive when he confessed that the software is just for Windows assuring me that his friend is actually just installing a Debian Linux on his second computer…. I told him not to miss my talk later (without revealing to many details :-)

Quite a lot of clones of Blinkenlights have evolved in the last two years. The web site of my favorite clone – LittleLights – actually provides an additional list of software resources especially for DOS and Windows (which is not that well supported by us :-). If you run Windows, have a look at tools like BlinkenPlayer Exxtreme and give us some feedback on its usability.

The Hackmeeting is a lovely event. Entry is free, everybody is helping out.

However, the network is weird. There is a firewall at the ISP nobody has access to. It already successfully blocks incoming traffic preventing use of certain services already. In addition, there is shaping (which I can understand) and even more port blocking installed at Hackmeeting. The only available ports are ssh, imaps, smtps, pop3, pop3s, smtp, imap. No public sniffer installed, but I guess some inofficial ones are running. I switched off my honeypot anyway.

So: no instant messaging possible so far. I am going to talk to the admins to get at least IRC, AIM and Jabber working. I wonder if anybody is using these protocols at all. I would consider free networking part of the game. There is some bandwidth paranoia and a idealistic preference for intranetworking in place I assume. I would prefer unhindered communication.

The above port list even means: no http. Just started a discussion about this as I don‘t get that point at all. Let‘s see what the outcome of all this will be. For me this would mean: no weblogging as I am using XML-RPC to post my stuff. It only works becaused I plugged my base station directly in the de-militarized zone, behind the firewall. And, oh my god, no anon-cvs as well. Useless.

I consider limited internet access to be one of the problems today: NAT and port blocking at the ISP side is already preventing people from using the net effectively. I want to set up servers, I want to access my machines from the outside, I want to do peer-to-peer networking, dynamic file exchange and most important: i want to experiment and learn with the network. With the current access mechanisms, this is not possible.

For the near future this means: i need my own VPN available to no longer suffer from weird restrictions.

I can only recommend having a spare Apple AirPort Base Station with you all the time. Makes you much more flexible when on the road. This Power-Over-Ethernet Adapter makes it even more useful.

Hmm. At the airport, the first things I saw were a TIM network and a CCC phone. Funny.

One of the main problems for me here is the language. I don‘t speak italian. Just a bit spanish but it is impossible to make this work for me here in any way. Well, almost everybody speaks english here so it is not a general problem but of course most of the chatting and the talks in the next days will be in italian as well.

Well, I do not complain. Hackmeeting is a local event. Like the Congress used to be for a long time. We are trying hard to make the Congress a bit more international and we have already succeeded a bit. But there is still a long way to go. However, the Camp on the other hand will be mainly in english.

But Hackmeeting excels in other ways: it moved from town to town each year. So it is forced to adapt every time which is probably a good thing. But to get Europe‘s hackers together, some kind of regular international meeting has to be established. Maybe the Congress can fill this niche, maybe not. We should try anyway.

Europe is still divided – not in old and new – but by language, electrical plugs, alternating mindsets and totally different national political situations (see Lex Berlusconi). But I believe the Internet and other media slowly and ever faster brings us together.

Post Scriptum: Did you know what „I18N“, the general terms for internationalization issues, actually stands for? It is so simple: I + 18 letters + N.

After a five hour flight (there is no direct connection between Berlin and Torino) I finally arrived at the Hackmeeting place called „El Barrio“. The event actually starts tomorrow so there are just a couple of people so far.

The event is really cool: entrance is free (although you are free to pay any kind of donation of course). For the first time, Hackmeeting is not taking place at a squatted place but in a former school that is usually empty. Doesn‘t look as if the administration has any plans for this place in the near future.

However, everything reminds of the good old days of the Chaos Communication Congress at Eidelstedter Bürgerhaus in Hamburg. Cables are running from room to room, old computers fill the tables and the general atmosphere is relaxed and freaky.

On the first floor, you are welcomed by the „human DHCP server“ which will hand out a IP address to you on request. I didn‘t request one. I hacked my way to the server room and attached my AirPort Base Station to the router giving me wireless access to the net. Internet access is a shaped 2 MBit/s connection. Performance is ok. Although the final router is doing NAT and is out of control of the admins. So no Remote Desktop administration for me unless I set up a tunnel. At least I‘ve got something to hack for tomorrow :-)

On the plane again. I have left Berlin with an Airbus 320-200 of Alitalia. Pushing away news of a bomb being found on board of one of Alitalia‘s flights recently I try to do something useful with my „air time“.

I grab one of the „Herald Tribunes“. Actually I grabbed three of them. Probably because I am used to being handed over a three-kilogram edition of Frankfurter Allgemeine on other flights and I forget that international US magazines and newspapers are usually not that thick because there is nothing to report on the world because nothing happens. At least nothing happens that you could explain to Americans that‘s easy to swallow.

The Tribune presents the usual stuff: photos of US soldiers in Iraq accompanied by happy children, US soldiers in Iraq taking away guns from civilians, US presidents claiming that the weapons of mass destruction will be found sooner or later. Hmm. The USA dropped so many cluster bombs and mines on that country, why don‘t they just take of them?

The cabin crew tells us there is a „problem with the catering“. What they mean is: there is no catering. Instead they serve disgusting coffee and tasteless crackers. The crew actually looks more swedish to me: they are all blond. But once they open their mouths it is clear they are not. It is difficult to tell if they are talking in italian or in english to you. It boths sound more or less the same.

So I turn to my computer and watch my battery drain faster than speed of light. When it awoke it showed 86%. I am sure it was fully charged when I left. My PowerBook G4 is two years old. And it shows: the PC-Card slot stopped working long time ago, the power connector has a Wackelkontakt, two pixel columns on the screen produce a fancy blue vertical line and the overall look of the machine can only be classified as „used“. I like the „used“ style, but I would be much happier if Apple would start asking people like me what their computers should be made like. 76%.

I mean, you usually pay around 3000 to 4000 EUR for such a machine, depending on configuration. Quite a lot of cash. And if you drop it on the floor, it‘s kaputt. Funny, eh? Why can‘t these machines be rugged at the first hand? But no: they bend, they scratch, screws fall out of it and so on. The life cycle of a laptop is two years, not more. This has to change. But WWDC looms, „rumour“ has it there might be a new PowerBook as well. My sources tell me that there will be a new PowerMac for sure but it is still unclear if there will be a new laptop. 66%.

Landed in Rome. It‘s hot when I enter the bus and I am happy to be back in air-conditioned realms again. I proceed to the transfer zone. Another bag check. My co-travellers are still too dumb to know that they have to take their metal stuff off before going throught the detector. However, the transfer zone is boring. Lots of shops, I choose the pizza place, I mean: this is Italy, isn‘t it?

It isn‘t. The pizza is just yet another junk product. But at least it tastes totally different from what I am used to in Germany. All the products are described in italian only. I don‘t care. I open my PowerBook: no wireless network available. Sigh. I was told there will be Internet in Torino airport. We‘ll see.

I bump into a „Telecom Italia“ lounge-style area. It has six Windows terminals and some nice red couches with plugs for power, Ethernet and head phones (3,5mm so that standard computer headphones don‘t fit, oh my). And: there is a wireless network as well. But logging in is prohibited: the router blocks me because – as the helpless girls at the info counter put it – I am not a Telecom Italia customer. Why are they so stupid everywhere? Is it so complicated to just switch Internet ON at airports? I mean, they provide water and electricity for free. Why no Internet access? I don‘t get it. 46%.

However. My next flight is waiting. Bringing me to Torino (or should I call it Turin? No, I stick to the original name as I would do with any german city as well). No food on this flight at all. Just some dry biscuits and a bit of orange juice. I keep on reading until everything is over. Touchdown in Torino. There will be Olypmpics here in 2006. How interesting. My friends are late. I sit down and try to get Internet: nada. Again. I want to be in Helsinki now :-)

Cybersonica Festival is taking place in London starting tomorrow. It is basically about electronic music and video art but in contrast to Barcelona‘s Sonar festival it also features symposiums, workshops and presentations in addition to the usual live performances and dance parties.

Falk Gärtner – better known as proto.beamaz:fAlk – will have his apperance there as well. If you are in London, go check it out. He is the one who was contributing the visuals to our Blinkenlights videos and was playing live on the Bibliothèque nationale de France during our Arcade project.

If you live in London, go check out his work.