Hak5 (EU?) Meetup Part Deux

[VaKo]

I think we'll have enough work getting enough folks to make one meetup....

Most of the people who turned up last year, or were going to turn up, won't want to fork out just to fly to the US for a meetup.

With the US$ as low as it is, it could be quite a cheap vacation tbh.

[Shaun]

With the US$ as low as it is, it could be quite a cheap vacation tbh.

That might be true if it weren't for the matter of the flights, which would be at least £300 at the very low end. Also the drinking age there is 21, which could be a problem.

[DarkSenay]

Alright, I am going to get back to the original idea, I think Amsterdam would work out great. So in that respect, who could possibly make it to a August/September meetup?

[moonlit]

September would be better for me I think but yeah, I'm up for it.

[metatron]

There is not much to do in Amsterdam other than drinking, getting high and sex shows, all of which I've seen before so I don't think I would make it.

[VaKo]

Well what about Finnland then?

[ls]

i vote for Belgium , the center of Europe

ps: in Belgium it's legal to drink beer when you're 16 , for anything with more alcohol you need to be 18

[metatron]

I'll go anywhere there is something to do other than just get fucked up. I'm all for having a few or a lot of drinks but it's nice to have something else to do in the day.

[jollyrancher82]

Like I said last year, if all people want to do is get "smashed", I'll stay here and do it without paying to travel.

[DLSS]

i vote for Belgium , the center of Europe

ps: in Belgium it's legal to drink beer when you're 16 , for anything with more alcohol you need to be 18

second tht vote , ps we could also gou out n shit there's a lot of great affordable places ^^

hell some u dont even need to pay entrance :p

[VaKo]

I quite like Amsterdam myself, there is more to do beyond getting fucked up but art gallerys and museums may not be to everyones taste.

[cyber_eagle]

Well this is a geek meetup right? So lets think of something unique to that kind of meet we can do during the day and/or night. If we leave enough time to plan it more specifically than last time we can build on that experience. For a start, lets try to get somewhere we know ahead of time has stable(ish) internet.

This is hak5, so maybe we could try to generate some actual content this time, something we tried but failed at last time mostly due to the shoddy intenet connection. It doesnt have to be live but that might be fun just for the hell of it. Maybe we can come up with cool things to demo, discuss, present or whatever. Things that get content at the end but are also fun to do.

Maybe some competitions, nothing too fancy cos we wont get it organise otherwise. something stupid but fun, i'm thinking along the lines of building shmooball guns and chilling beer in creative ways. except not those things because those have been done hehe. Building the biggest catapult, modding a waterpistol with the most cool and unecessary tech possible (lasers, soud effects, led's) and having a geek water fight. I'm really thinking aloud here, but you get the idea i hope.

if we can get an idea who is definately coming (i said definately, not like last time when most of the definates didnt show up lol) we can see what skills (iif any hehe;) they have and maybe people can come up with some tutorial like sessions that could also be filmed, and those who may already know stuff could help, or just have a good laugh. maybe that ones a bit ambitious to get quality but meh, its just ideas.

The obvious one is a lan party with some game or other, lots of beer, rofls and streams. If a meet happens in more than one location, link them up, challenge each other.

I'd love to suggest CTF, but I think thats asking a bit much for this group. You'd have 1 or 2 people dominating and everyone else having no clue whats going on lol.

There's lots of things we could do, but we cant do them all, if we stand a chance of doing any we should prob pick 1 or 2 and really focus on them. We had lots of ideas last time but nothing really came of them. It was still fun hanging out but I think we all thought we could improve it next time around. Assuming everyone can get to wherever it is, I think most people who were there last time would prob come this time, so we know we have some people who are likely to show up this time, and we can really try and pull together and make it work good.

I know i know, but aiming high is good!

[DLSS]

Maybe some competitions, nothing too fancy cos we wont get it organise otherwise. something stupid but fun, i'm thinking along the lines of building shmooball guns and chilling beer in creative ways. except not those things because those have been done hehe. Building the biggest catapult, modding a waterpistol with the most cool and unecessary tech possible (lasers, soud effects, led's) and having a geek water fight. I'm really thinking aloud here, but you get the idea i hope.

geek waterfight = wet T-shirts + manboobs = fail :s

geek chicks can have waterfights anyday of the week tho ^^

[SomeoneE1se]

geek chicks can have waterfights anyday of the week tho ^^

someone invite snubs

[tim.vangehugten]

I vote also for belgium  :P

Does someone has an idea for the location in Belgium?

[ls]

I vote also for belgium  :P

Does someone has an idea for the location in Belgium?

maybe this : http://www.gentcongres.be/

[metatron]

Belgium seems like a lot of hassle getting anywhere. I'm not one for having to ass around with public transport and I don't really want to have to rent a car just to get from the airport. I say the place needs to be a more developed part of the world, a place with it's own airport nearby.

I'll throw Berlin out there as it's kind of the hacking center of Europe, being that the CCC is large run out of there. They have an airport, good cheap public transport, good cheap hotels/hostels and lots of things to do in the day and night. 

[VaKo]

Berlin would be an awesome idea.

[DarkSenay]

I also think Berlin would work out great, I made it there last summer. Pretty phenomenal.

[cyber_eagle]

Berlin could be good on the surface. Its a pretty cool place, easy to get to, makes a change from last year without being too hard for people to get to. as far as i know the east is still pretty cheap too. My only concern would be the new german hacking laws. They are still pretty untested but seem quite restrictive, with lots of people pulling research and tools down and some people refusing to set foot there. Of course we're all pretty low profile so it might not make much difference but its definitely something to keep in mind, especially depending on what activities we want to do.

[metatron]

Berlin could be good on the surface. Its a pretty cool place, easy to get to, makes a change from last year without being too hard for people to get to. as far as i know the east is still pretty cheap too. My only concern would be the new german hacking laws. They are still pretty untested but seem quite restrictive, with lots of people pulling research and tools down and some people refusing to set foot there. Of course we're all pretty low profile so it might not make much difference but its definitely something to keep in mind, especially depending on what activities we want to do.

I'm aware of the laws but they seem to be largely unenforced at the moment and the hackers I know in Germany, think it will be a future issue but it has not yet affected them, after all they still have hacker spaces which are easy to find if the police wanted to. 

I don't think we would have any legal issues, well no more then we would anywhere else in the EU.

[Joerg]

I would also vote for Berlin due to cheap places good transportation system.

[metatron]

If it's more organized, with back ups put in place like cyber_eagle said it may be worth renting a small meeting room in a hotel, although we would really need at least 30 people to make it worth while. We would have an AV set up if anyone wanted to give a talk or to just have a big screen for competitions. I'd stump up some extra cash but I think it may be a little unrealistic thinking we would get 30 people outside the US as Europeans tend to be a little more reluctant to travel to generally untested events. 

Look at what happened when they tried to put together a DEFCON in London, they ended up canning it as they didn’t have enough people that wanted to go (to my understanding, although the money they were asking for was way to high) and that had some good speakers and was organised by people that are more known in the community.

BrumCon only had about 30 people turn up (what I was told, although they are planning a big CCC style event for 2010) and that’s been running for years and DNScon well people are still thinking about putting it together but last year and this year will not happen.

I would love to see a full on con but I’d say it is more likely to be like an extended 2600/DEFCON/CCC/LUG monthly meeting. If it happens this year, back ups for things need to be put in place and I no longer fly with BA (no one should) so that should solve some problems with missing luggage/ kit. I will say this, I don’t think to much thought needs to go into it, keep it fluid, just have a handful of things in place with back ups.

[moonlit]

If it's more organized, with back ups put in place like cyber_eagle said it may be worth renting a small meeting room in a hotel, although we would really need at least 30 people to make it worth while. We would have an AV set up if anyone wanted to give a talk or to just have a big screen for competitions. I'd stump up some extra cash but I think it may be a little unrealistic thinking we would get 30 people outside the US as Europeans tend to be a little more reluctant to travel to generally untested events. 

Look at what happened when they tried to put together a DEFCON in London, they ended up canning it as they didn’t have enough people that wanted to go (to my understanding, although the money they were asking for was way to high) and that had some good speakers and was organised by people that are more known in the community.

BrumCon only had about 30 people turn up (what I was told, although they are planning a big CCC style event for 2010) and that’s been running for years and DNScon well people are still thinking about putting it together but last year and this year will not happen.

I would love to see a full on con but I’d say it is more likely to be like an extended 2600/DEFCON/CCC/LUG monthly meeting. If it happens this year, back ups for things need to be put in place and I no longer fly with BA (no one should) so that should solve some problems with missing luggage/ kit. I will say this, I don’t think to much thought needs to go into it, keep it fluid, just have a handful of things in place with back ups.

I'm a little biased but I think it's really been those interested have been primarily European and if those in the US want a meetup it would do them well to organise some themselves (though I know travel could be an issue, it's a pretty damn big place). You're right in saying that big events don't happen in the UK but I think we can be a little flexible in where in Europe we could go. I had thought of CCC some time ago, I mentioned it on IRC and someone mentioned that it was probably one of the worst times to travel, though I think it would be a good reason to justify trying.

I agree that this doesn't need to be particularly rigid, fluidity is absolutely fine (and would probably make it more fun because we wouldn't be trying to get to things/places on a particular schedule) but I also agree that backups and Plan Bs are always a good idea just in case. Where we go will depend on what we plan to do and vice-versa to a certain degree, and if we do end up going to a user group or con group meeting (or even a con itself) then we might be a little more limited. Whether we do attend one of those things will depend on our intention to do our thing within a larger group of people. It'd be nice to meet as a group with others within the tech/security/computing fields but we'll have to see what our options are before we know if we're able to do so.

A meeting/conference room would be a nice idea but I'd question our need for one, last time I think the hostel lounge was sufficient (though free wifi would've been nice, had it worked). Again, it depends on what we intend to do. Perhaps if we did do small contests or video watching sessions then it'd be advantageous but as cybereagle suggested, it'll depend heavily on who's there because many potential attendees might be unable to participate for lack of knowledge.

Intoxication is a natural option but it's not something we need to do during the whole meetup, late time we kept the drinking to the evening really (except a pub visit or two, but that wasn't really to get hammered, more for refreshment) while we were doing other things, card games and attempting to get internet access (and many failed attempts to stream on Hak5Radio which we eventually managed in the middle of an office block courtyard).

[DeGrijze]

for 4 years following in a row iam the founding father behind the (small) WirelessPowerKamp open  air meetings/events (in Englisch its WirelessPowerCamp) here in a small town in the Netherlands (near to the German border).

And found out that metatron statement

Europeans tend to be a little more reluctant to travel to generally untested events

is verry true.

Add first WirelessPowerKamp open  air meeting/event in 2005 only a hand full of people turned up, the second WirelessPowerKamp open  air meeting/event in 2006 more people turned up.

And add the 3th WirelessPowerKamp  in 2007 people from Belgium and Germany  joined this open  air meeting/event.

And now for the up coming WirelessPowerKamp  in 2008 air meeting/event we have to take care that we will not be over booked.

So yes metatron statement

Europeans tend to be a little more reluctant to travel to generally untested events

is verry true.

Gerard