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The Chaos Communication Congress is an annual conference organized by the Chaos Computer Club. The congress features a variety of lectures and workshops on technical and political issues related to Security, Cryptography, Privacy and online Freedom of Speech. The event takes place regularly at the end of the year since 1984, with the current date and duration (December 27–30) established in 2005. It is considered one of the largest events of this kind, alongside the DEF CON in Las Vegas.
The congress started out in 1984 in Hamburg, moved to Berlin in 1998, and back to Hamburg in 2012, having exceeded the capacity of the Berlin venue with more than 4500 attendees. Since then, the meetings in the considerably larger venue in Hamburg continue to attract an increasing number of people, around 6,600 attendees in 2012 and most recently more than 13,000 in 2015. The 2016 congress was the last event to take place at the Hamburg venue due to renovation, and it is still unknown which venue will host the 2017 congress.
A large range of speakers are part of the scene. Organizational work is done by volunteers called Chaos Angels. The non-members entry fee for four days has been 100 Euros in 2016.
An important part of the congress are the assemblies, semi-open spaces with clusters of tables and internet connections for groups and individuals to collaborate and socialize in projects, workshops, and hands-on talks. These assembly spaces, introduced at the 2012 meeting, combine the hack center project space and distributed group spaces of former years.
From 1997 to 2004 the congress also hosted the annual German Lockpicking Championships. 2005 was the first year the Congress lasted four days instead of three and lacked the German Lockpicking Championships.
Congresses
Starting with the 16th congress in 1999, congresses are abbreviated C3 and prefixed with the congress number (e.g. 30C3 for the 30th congress). Most have been subtitled with a motto reflecting the zeitgeist and congress topics.