Introduction
This FAQ answers the (hopefully) most important questions about the Chaos Computer Club. We included also a list of questions, which are frequently asked our members.
All informations, which are given here - or by one of our members - in the name of the club, are formulated with our best knowledge. We can't give a guaranty for correctness, especially in jurisdictional questions. Suggestions, especially by means of corrections, are welcome.
The FAQ is avaiable online via http://www.ccc.de/faq.html and will be posted monthly in de.org.ccc.
Please send corrections and creative suggestions to: faq@ccc.de
Apart from that: Enjoy your machine!
Contents
Questions concerning the CCC: General topics - Contact addresses - Communication - Membership - Meet the CCC - Publications - Marketing - Software -
Questions concerning CCC-topics: Decrypting of encrypted TV-signals - Online banking - EC-cards and their aftermaths - Telephone cards - Becoming a hacker - Passwords - Forgot the password(s) - Trojanische Pferde - AOL for Free - Telekom questions - LINUX
General topics
Q: What is the CCC?
A: the CCC is a galactic community of human beings including all ages, genders, races and social positions. We demand freedom and flow of information without censorship. Although we enjoy to discuss and analyze recent advances in information technology, our focus is on addressing the issues of our time by giving targeted recommendations for a public policy able to deal with these issues in an intelligent manner. While this also includes more or less spectacular endeavours the focus of our work is on creating a public awareness for the need to approach issues like (e.g.) security, privacy and key escrow from a more informed, open viewpoint.
If you are interested in supporting these goals, then the CCC is for you. If not, you might want to consider looking at other, more technically oriented computer clubs. We do NOT select our members on some dubious "elite" criteria. As it will be difficult for you to contribute to our efforts in Germany, in case that you are interested I suggest that you contact us again (identifying yourself with your real name) for a contact at the CCC-Bay Area (our only overseas operation so far).
Contact addresses
All contact addresses of the CCC and the Chaos Family can be found on our addresses page, which is avaiable online at http://www.ccc.de/Address esAndContacts.html. In the moment many new meetings are formed, that's why we don't provide a list here.
Communication
Asking the club
Q: May I ask the club for assistance with technical problems?
A: Our work is honorary. We can't and don't want to answer general questions concerning programs, hardware or what so ever. If you have such a question, please address one of the many newsgroups on the net.
If your problem is so exotic, interesting, heart-stirring or just unsolveable and you think that only we can help you, then:
- Read this FAQ (maybe you are not the only one, who grapples with this problem?)
- Have another look in de.org.ccc (maybe your problem is examined in depth right now?)
- Think carefully about what you want to write
- Remove this HTML-crap from your mail
- Don't send any attachments
- Be patient
and if you have done all that, then write to ccc@ccc.de. At your own risk. And if you belong to the few people with real problems, then don't be scared by the explicit words. Then you belong to these people, we enjoy helping and not to those KeWl KIddIEs, who can get lost on our behalf.
Q: I wrote a mail more than once to ccc@ccc.de. I think, that guy could finally answer my mail.
A: "that guy" consists of ca. 50 guys and guyls, this address isn't owned by one person but is a so called mailing list. Many people write a mail to it daily for asking a lot of questions. That doesn't mean that you will get an answer (or even a satisfying answer) in any case. Here are some hints how it could work:
- Choose questions, which could be interesting for CCCer. "How do I crack ..." , "Where can I find cracked programs" or "My program ABC doesn't do XYZ any more since I did DEF" don't belong to this category by definition. Analogous to post-office clerks who don't feel responsible for bank robbers, the CCC points to the software market and the manufacturers.
- Try to find things out on your own. Use search engines. Read the CCC-webpages. If you couldn't find an answer anyway, then ask!
- Mention in your question, what you know. It doesn't matter if you are a 14 years old student or a 50 years old CS professor. But the answer depends strongly on your own experience.
- It makes no sense to send you a standard text about search engines if you mention that i.e. Yahoo doesn't have an appropiate section and that AltaVista only found something in Czech and something in English which didn't match your problem.
- Configure your mailer correctly. Only few things on this planet are more irritating than working hard to find an answer for a problem - just for finding out that the reply-to-address is invalid.
- HTML-Mail (also called ""rich mail"") should be deactivated.
- Don't send any attachments. PLEASE! ccc@ccc.de is a mailing list. Your XYZ KB go to many, many people. Many of these have a totally different system to the one you have. Particulary the products of the firm Microsoft aren't universal, that means, Windows specifics. Word etc. is installed on very few computers in the CCC-domain only.
Press officer
Q: I am a journalist and I want to report about the CCC and I have some other questions too. Who can give me information?
A: Please address our press contacts, more information is avaiable on our web server at http://www.ccc.de/AddressesAndContacts.html.
Mailing lists
Q: Does the CCC have a mailing list?
A: In the moment we do not provide a public mailing list. But we are preparing the installation of mailing lists.
Newsgroup
Q: What is de.org.ccc? How do I get on it?
A: de.org.ccc is a so called newsgroup, which belongs to the worldwide Usenet. Principally everybody can read and write on it - that means there is no "editor's office" (neither the CCC nor anybody) but the probability of meeting people from the CCC here is relatively high. The newsgroup is the right place for chaos specific discussions in general.
For reading News you normally need so called "newsreaders" (i.e. Free Agent). But you can also read news with your internet browser. For doing this, you must enter a news server, also called NNTP-Server. Your (friendly) Internet provider will tell you which server is the right one for you. If he doesn't know: there are also "open" server, but often you are only aloud to read from these, you can't post on them.