Indeed. This is a commercial event with too much security - quite the opposite from the usual hacker events in Germany. You need to give lots of info on registration including a passport style photo, your laptop serial number (because equipment is required to be tagged) and apparently bags are searched on entry and exit. It's ridiculous. That's why the usual hacker crowd in Germany totally ignores this event.
Wasn’t this originally supposed to be in Barcelona and only moved to Berlin very late?
You can’t just organize events like that in Berlin. There are already many other (broadly) similar events in Berlin, with more focus and better organization.
It just doesn’t seem very attractive to me and it’s a total culture clash. Paranoid security theater? No alcohol? I’m sorry, but not in Berlin.
These procedures trade my freedom and privacy for security.
I always have someone keep an eye on my stuff, but I've also been at similar events (Chaos Communication Camp 2011) where keeping something unattended was not a problem at all.
Treating all you attendees like potential thieves is simply a bad premise for a hacker event.
Yes. Of course. And there have been or will be stolen laptops at this event. The "security system" is easy to circumvent, if you do a little planning and want to steal something. The stickers are removable and re-attachable. You can register whatever, whenever you want. It is not done at the door. On my MacBook the serial number was taken from a screen, that I prepared.
But even the CCC had several years of congress with this kind of "security". So I am not mad at the organizers. We even had one congress where every participant had his/her photo taken. This actually had a major uproar and wasn't done ever again. I think maybe the organizers will learn and do things differently next time. At least I hope if they do this again in Berlin.
The most ridiculous things like not bringing lighters or no smoking outside the Hanger was removed from the Term & Conditions.
