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What is HIP?

HIP is an acronym for 'Hacking In Progress'. It will take place on the Friday 8^th, Saturday 9^th and Sunday 10^th of August 1997 at campsite Kotterbos, Aakweg, Almere in The Netherlands. The campsite is about a 30 minutes drive from Amsterdam.

Remember 'Hacking at the End of the Universe' (HEU) in 1993? The people that published Hack-Tic, a computer underground magazine in The Netherlands, organized it. Hundreds of hackers, phone phreaks, programmers, computer haters, data travellers, electro-wizards, networkers, hardwarefreaks, techno-anarchists, communications junkies, cyber- and cypherpunks, system managers, stupid users, paranoid androids, Unix gurus, whizz kids and warez dudes spent three days building their own network between their tents in the middle of nowhere, located in the Flevopolder in The Netherlands.

HIP will be the sequel to HEU. A campsite full of PCs, laptops, and Unix machines, all connected via an intertent Ethernet that is connected to the Internet. People from all over The Netherlands and other countries will come together to learn and discuss the benefits, as well as the risks of new technologies. They'll listen to lectures, join workshops, enjoy special presentations and, last but not least, party, all of this in a friendly open-air environment of a very wired campsite far away from the civilized world.

HIP will happen on the same days as Beyond HOPE, a hacker convention in New York, organized by the people of 2600 Magazine. There will be audio and video links between both events, and we're working on cool gadgets to further enhance your sense of 'grassroots telepresence'. This will be a twin-event in the true sense of the word.

Who is organizing HIP?

Once there was a little magazine in The Netherlands called 'Hack-Tic', and it published wild ways to play tricks on the information infrastructure of the world. The magazine doesn't exist anymore, but most of the people that wrote articles for the magazine or helped organize Hacking at the End of the Universe (1993) and even some of the people that helped put up the Galactic Hacker Party (1989) are still in touch with each other. The every-four-year-itch has gotten to us again...

It's going to be quite a project to organize something that is better than HEU, but we're not facing it alone. We'll get lots of people to help us.
The hackers that were present at HEU have successfully infiltrated in key positions to aid in the upcoming political takeover as was agreed. Many have the agreed-upon provisions in their job contracts since 1993, stating they would need time off for the final strategic meeting.

HIPcamp and HIPnet

There'll be no hotel rooms or anything like that so you'll want to bring at least a tent and a sleeping bag to HIP, even if this means you can't bring the paper-tape unit that came with your VAX 11/780. We'll supply a campground, toilets, showers, good food and electrical power (as close to 220V/50Hz as possible) and we'll do our best to supply everyone who wants it with an Ethernet connection. You will probably be able to trade wiring, extra outlets, Ethernet cards, and the use of modular crimping tools for almost anything.

HIPcamp will open on August 5^th, three days before HIP starts. If you decide to join in that early expect pretty primitive circumstances. If you don't care about that, or think that's the best part, you can help build HIPnet and all other facilities.

HIP stuff

A lot can and will happen in the coming months, and we'll keep adding new topics even during the event itself. But we're definitely going to discuss the legal situation regarding encryption, as well as the latest technical developments in this field. The current decay of the Usenet, copyright issues, censorship as well as many other legislative, social, political and technical issues surrounding Internet will be discussed. Computer security, or the lack thereof will also be a hot topic. We'll have research workshops (i.e. GSM and chipcard security) and you can also join many 'how-to' workshops and lectures where you can pick up on Linux (Unix you can run at home, not built by Microsoft), perl (a very powerful computer language) and many, many other topics.

Tired of all these lectures and workshops? Just sit down, smoke or drink socially accepted substances, interact with other humans, volunteer for kitchen work and have a good time. We've had people at the previous event that were not into computers at all, and they had fun.

We'd like to receive as many ideas from you as possible at this stage. So if you (and some of your friends) want to organize a lecture or workshop, please let us know. If you keep having this wacky dream about some project or construction that would work really well in an environment with lots of other freaks, this is your call to action. We dream of an event with thousands of creators and no audience.

No audience?

We'll try to offer different ways for the Internet population to truly interact with the events at HIP. Please get in touch if you'll have some friends at your house and you want to have CU-SeeMe or other connections to us. We'll also be broadcasting live and buffered feeds of audio and video on the net. Mass-media coverage will be provided for the interactively challenged.

Press

All press is welcome to visit HIP, but there will be a few strict rules. All members of the press will pay the entrance fee, no discussion about this. There will be a part of the campsite that is off-limits to all press. No filming, photographing or recording is to take place there. Some people like to have a press-free moment, some have employment-related reason for shunning media attention.

What else?

Many more things could be said but it is still a bit early. The main networking tent and the bar will be open 24 hours a day and we'll have a depository to stash your laptops, backpacks and other valuables. We haven't figures out the exact entrance fee, but, just like HEU, HIP is going to be a non-profit event. And if you haven't guessed it yet: all workshops and plenary events will take place in English.

I want to be HIP too!

Don't worry: you can be! Subscribe to the announcement mailing list. It's spam-free and will only carry HIP announcements written by us. You can also participate in the ongoing, yet slightly messy debate in the newsgroup alt.hacking.in.progress. If you can't find the newsgroup don't contact us. Refresh the grouplist in your newsreader or ask your access provider to check their newsfeed.

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