One sign of their success is their membership figure: More than 1,700 individual as well as corporate members are now supporting the association, even including Google (which might create some of its own problems one day).

Their campaigns included a protest against the European Copyright directive which saw the biggest online petition in France (collecting 165,000 signatures apparently) that eventually stopped the national implementation being whipped through parliament shortly before Christmas 2005. Apart from the online petition some of the strategies employed were systematic calling of MPs by their constituents, a complete set of alternative amendments that would alter the bill in favour of more freedom and that were carefully adapted to each party’s policies. See more information at eucd.info.

Another campaign against DRM saw flash mobs demonstrating in music shops all over the country, one of which was also joined by Richard Stallman and which did not go unnoticed. Some of the activists would also get themselves arrested for the crime of circumventing DRM technologies.

In their latest campaign during the French elections they would try to convince candidates to sign a “pact for Free Software” in which they would declare to further its cause and oppose any measure aimed at limiting some of the freedoms inherent in free software (to copy, modify etc). A distributed campaign with 600 volunteers would lobby 520 candidates to sign the pact. As a result, out of 577 MPs in the French parliament, 66 have signed the pact and can now be called upon to act!

Jérémie summarized some of their main insights from their campaigns as follows

public :

• only use basic arguments to engage citizens
• explicit striking examples
• simple atomic actions (that someone can do in a couple of minutes, provide templates)

journalists:

• call ALL papers (again and again)
• identify specialists
• trade exclusive infos

politicians:

• want to get reelected
• real lack of expertise
• carrots or sticks
• indirect menaces work! (e.g. someone else signed it)

He argued that prospects for protest are not that grim because “We are many, they are few!” and concluded with a call to network national efforts. Actually my summary does not do justice to Jérémie’s great talk so have a look for yourself. A video should be available soon here.

There are a lot of talks and workshops although a lot of stuff is happening outside of the conference rooms. The creativity assembled here is truly astonishing. Here are some highlights:

A long standing topic of the CCC activity has been criticising the recently introduced biometrical passports in Germany for being too insecure. One argument against the fingerprint identification used in these passports has been that it is really easy to obtain someone’s fingerprint and then go on abusing it. A case in point: Apparently the Chaos Computer Club could obtain a fingerprint from Wolfgang Schaeuble, the Minister of the Interior, that he left on a glass. Rumour has it that this print has now been spread widely already having been used to falsely identify the minister for all sorts of actions … (who would have thought he was shoplifting …)

There has also been a spontaneous demonstration against the German data retention law coming into force next year (ie. in three days) which requires all telecommunication companies to store for six months connection data of its customers. That is whom you have called, whom you have written an email to, which websites you were looking at. This law does not even have an exception for lawyers, journalists or other formerly protected groups. On first of January a complaint will be filed with the Federal Constitutional Court (the highest court in Germany for constitutional matters) to challenge the act. This complaint is already the most widely supported complaint in German legal history, having been collectively filed by more than 20,000 people.

As it seems there are ever more reason coming up to join a demonstration you might want to consider one of the inventions showcased here today: the digital demo sign. Basically a portable video projector with an attached transparent screen and a wireless keyboard. This way you can dynamically update your slogan.

Another thing that captured my attention were some self-assembled flying machines sporting 4 rotors and called Mikrocopter. It might not look like much but some of these little machines are equipped with GPS so they can find their way around easily and can carry a payload of up to 5kg. Apparently it costs less than 1,000 Euros to build one  …

Last but not least, a great effort that seems to be still not yet widely know is OpenStreetMap.org which is an effort by volunteers to collect open geodata in a wiki style manner.