[HacktionLab] post-OHM2013 (2)

Thu Aug 8 12:50:16 UTC 2013

Hi again,

Thanks for response!

See in text for comments

> Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2013 09:35:31 +0100
> From: "Martin (Crypt)" <crysison at googlemail.com>
> To: hacktionlab at lists.aktivix.org

> I was there for the whole of the week helping out with setup and during
> the
> event, and had a really good time.  I was heavily involved in the set up
> of
> EMF last year, which was a similar event in england, so I know some of the
> challenges in setting up an event like this, and even at barncamp,
> although
> its a much smaller event, theres still a huge ammount of work that has to
> go into it, so I have huge respect for the organisers of OHM.
>
>
> I spoke with Koen Martens, who is one of the lead organisers for OHM and
> its clear that the festival would not go ahead without a lot of
> sponsorship, so its a difficult position to be put in.  Personally I
> would't have accepted that sponsorship, but I can see the reasons for it,
> and as I wasn't putting the work in to make it happen, it wasn't my
> decision.

Two things might be interesting to know (if not known) and without
prejudicing Martin's opinion:

- Koen is, besides conveneer of the highly succesful 'Revelation'
hackersspace in The Hague, also a permanent employee of Fox-IT. (He
asserts he is not involved in any 'dirty tricks' related work there).

- Fox-IT was also major sponsor of the previous big Dutch hackers event,
HAR ('Hacking at Random')  https://har2009.org/  and
https://wiki.har2009.org/page/Main_Page.html

> As long as they don't have influence over the program and camp in general,
> which they didn't, they are easy to ignore .  OHM and the duch hacker
> camps
> have never been overtly radical, they are more radical in the general
> nature of the community, and have always accepted other points of view,
> even from those on the other side of the security fence, as long as they
> come with an attitude of wanting to engage with the community and learn
> from us.

(NB see for what I think of this approach further below)
The main purpose of Fox-IT's sponsoring and visible presence at OHM2013,
as I understand it, was exposure and most probably, recruiting - though
not there and then. Both aspects come under severe strain in case of
controversies and PR issues. Their reaction to these 'threats' have not
been very diplomatic, to put it mildly. And now it is not unlikely that
the current OHM organisers will have to 'kiss goodbye' to renewed
sposnorship by Fox-IT. Something they're most likely to blame the
'terrorists' (the word was apparently used) with Noisy Square.

> The other controversy was with the police presence at OHM.  Originally the
> police wanted to set up a village in order to identify themselves and talk
> to hackers.  This was eventually turned down, although we know there are
> police at OHM, so that shouldn't come as a shock to anyone.  I think the
> danger was of them trying to recruit, so them having a village was
> probably
> a bad idea, and they were asked to come as themselves or not at all, which
> i think is inkeeping with the spirit of the event.

Some correction here on two points (afaik):

- Open police presence has been a feature of 'H' events ever since HIP
(http://www.hip97.nl/). Since these bashes are big, publicised events, the
police has a statutory right to be there, to patrol the grounds, etc. A
right they're eager to uses since they also wish to 'sniff the air' and
get clued in on last developments. That in it self has never been a real
problem - more like an unavoidable nuisance one has to put with.

- With OHM, however, the organisers had the unfortunate thought to
'defuse' any latent antagonism by inviting the police to 'join in the fun'
and mingle with the crowd by establishing themselves not as a 'camp in
(that is, at the margins of) the camp, but as village. "we are all hackers
aren't we'? being the idea. As if that was not the smartest move at the
best of times, the whole Prism/Snowden etc situation, even if less
inflamed in the Netherlands, made it totally unworkable. It was this
ill-advised initiative that triggered Groente's manifesto (refered to by
ekes)

Aside from that, police was immo (unlike Fox-IT) not at OHM for
recruiting. They've sufficient staff by now (& budget cuts in NL too), and
nowadays most work is outsourced - to Fox-IT for instance...

>
> What I found to be totally disgusting was the noisy square village asking
> several of the main organisers of the camp not to come to the events at
> their area because they weren't welcome due to these controversies.  I
> think that showed a total lack of grattitude for putting on the camp and a
> total disregard for the spirit of the camp, and how the hacker community
> operates.

I was not aware of this and have asked N^2 for clarification, but I think
it was a bit more complex, and also non trivial threats had been voiced by
some ohm orga people (cutting of the electricity - or even running over
the teepees with a SUV ...) (rumours, gossip, hearsay deptt rulez ;-)

>
> On Thu, Aug 8, 2013 at 7:49 AM, Patrice Riemens <patrice at xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi People,
>>
>> If any of you were at https://ohm2013.org, I'd be most curious to hear
>> about yr experience. I was there only for one day on Friday and enjoyed
>> it
>> - socially, and for one day. There have been some heavy controversies
>> both
>> before as during the event regarding the role of ITsecurity companies
>> (one
>> of which was 'golden' sponsor) and the place of hackers in a situation
>> of
>> total surveillance & control in general. The outcome is largely unclear.
>>
>> Cheers to you all,
>> patriziio & Diiiinooos!
>>
>>

> ------------------------------
>

> Date: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 12:17:11 +0200
> From: ekes <ekes at aktivix.org>
> Cc: hacktionlab at lists.aktivix.org
> Subject: Re: [HacktionLab] post-OHM2013

>
> For those who don't have a background in all this the original article
> that started stirring the pot by Gronte is still a good one:
> http://www.puscii.nl/blog/content/whats-wrong-kids-these-days
>
> I think this might also start to put aside any idea that Dutch Hacker
> scene and the camps they organised and were involved in were never
> radical. It's actually probably more of a case that the HXX etc. are
> just bigger now.
>
> Finally on the orga not welcome at Noisy Square point. The discussion
> was that some people at the Noisy Square voiced the fact that they were
> not comfortable having a particular discussion about police and people
> working for the police with those people present. As it happens, the
> outcome of the discussion was that they were not stopped from taking part.
>
> Cheers, ekes

I think there is some consensus among the less totally un-clued that the
time for discussion and dialogue with the security aparatus, wether state
or corporate, or the current hybrid of both ("GovCorp anyone?), is really
and solidly behind us. 'They' might listen, but will not learn, and surely
not alter their ways. They know what they want: absolute power and total
control, however illusory. And they consider us, at best their chattel, at
worst as their enemy. It's a sad and dangerous world, and naievity is
deliterious to survival.

Cheers from patrizio & Diiiinooos!