There is a storm brewing. Political and legal efforts to prevent Europe from sliding into divided, unfriendly societies of surveillance and repression are becoming less and less effective and sustainable. So, it's time to return to good traditions: Technical resistance against surveillance, measurement, data snorkeling, and infiltration, is one of the necessary components. With this in mind, the 38th Chaos Communication Congress, under the motto ‘Illegal Instructions’, will place a stronger focus on how we can outwit misanthropic technologies through illegal instructions.

Like all previous congresses, 38C3 will be an international event that welcomes all democratically minded life forms and invites networking and productive cooperation. In addition to lectures, workshops and lightning talks, there will be an extensive art and cultural programme, and plenty of space for assemblies to explore how we can use illegal instructions to clog the digital capitalist surveillance machinery to make it come to a grinding halt.

Anyone who likes to present, follow, and discuss technical and socio-political hacks in their Christmas holidays, is invited to shape our event by responding to our Call for Participation which starts in the beginning of October. Further information on how to get there, how to participate, how to get tickets, where to register your hackerspaces, and all other organisational details can be found in our events blog.

The Chaos Communication Congress is the largest hacker conference in Europe and - like all CCC events - organised and run by volunteers. As in previous years, more than ten thousand participants are expected from 27 to 30 December, including more than 2,000 volunteers.

The Congress is a huge self-organised free space, teeming with an unmanageably creative number of workshops. We expect spontaneous activities in the so-called assemblies organised by more than 350 completely independent groups, where artists and cultural organisers put their heads together with hackers and activists.

There will also be a lecture programme with around 120 curated lectures, the majority of which will be streamed as usual, and later made available in the CCC video archive.