The “Chaos Computer Club”, founded in 1981, is world’s oldest and most renowned hacking community. Based in Germany, the “Chaos Computer Club” is a non-governmental organization that focuses both on the integration of the hacking community and educating the public on complicated issues. Carefully analyzing the nature of technology and weighing chances against risks in the use of it has been a key factor in the work of the club.
The CCC has proved to be an influential force in German society on a variety of topics, including but not limited to privacy, digital freedom, risks and opportunities for technology and politics for the information society. Strongly adhering to the principles of hacker ethics, the CCC supports open structures and transparency in politics and society while maintaining a strong stand on the privacy of the individual.
The club is actively using digital media in the form of mailing lists, wikis, websites and podcasts to provide information and discussion of topics to the public.
The CCC, and especially the Chaos Communication Congress event, serve as a forum for the political-technical community encouraging open discourse, unlimited disclosure. The CCC disapproves of secret communities and governments working in secret. The CCC also encourages and supports the development of open systems, open source software and has itself realized a variety of projects at this level.
The influence on German and European society and politics has been strong and has helped achieve some groundbreaking decisions by the German Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) and similar institutions in other European countries reversing a variety of laws endangering privacy and democracy. This includes but is not limited to
a) a ban on election ballot computers in the Netherlands and Germany, keeping the voting process private and free from computer fraud
b) the repeal of the laws on “online searches” in Germany
c) the repeal of the German data-retention law

Apart from its political work, the CCC has been an outstanding contributor to hacker culture.
a) The Chaos Communication Congress and Chaos Communication Camp have pioneered a new form of conference that has influenced events around the world.
b) The CCC-based Blinkenlights project has been a role model for modern interactive media art in public space.
c) The worldwide Hackerspaces movement has been strongly influenced and motivated by the CCC structure in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
In 1984 the Club became famous for its “BTX Hack”, a discovery of security flaws in the state-run Videotex network. A surprised public, basically knowing nothing about computers and networks, suddenly discovered that technologically savvy individuals were able to transfer huge amounts of money from a bank to the club exploiting these flaws. Returning the money and notifying the press about this incident before anybody noticed made the club immediately famous for its “Robin Hood” approach. This kind of “public hack” became the signature feature of the CCC.

Links: http://www.ccc.de/

The Chaos Computer Club (DE) was founded in 1981 with “1984” in mind. The club started as a loose community of computer experts and people with various other expertise and interests. In 1984, the CCC also founded its annual “Chaos Communication Congress”, which today is world’s biggest meeting for alternative technical research, with more than 5,000 attendees from all over the world. In 1999 the spin-off event, the “Chaos Communication Camp”, redefined the idea of the congress, bringing hackers out in the open air over several days, demonstrating the vast variety of cultural achievements that the worldwide hacker scene has created over a period of many decades. Today the CCC has more than a thousand members worldwide and is influential in many international groups and events. The concept of regional CCC groups CCC has sparked the concept of “hackerspaces”throughout the world, with more than 400 such spaces being founded since 2000. The CCC is generally seen as the core influence on this powerful cultural movement.