CongressChecklist

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List of things to do, to pack and tips on attending a congress, especially Chaos Communication Congress

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Humans

General considerations to make the congress a worthwhile experience for everone, humans, robots and aliens alike.

Manners

• Be excellent to each other
• If you spot somebody not being excellent to someone else, remind them to be excellent and have them apologi(s|z)e to the insulted part(y|ies).
• If you don't want to be called $swearword, don't behave like one.
• Help each other out

Things to do before travelling

• Charge ALL the batteries!
• Make backups
• Update all the software on your devices
• Send a pull request to this list for all the things I did not think of.

Things to pack

Documents

• Train/plane tickets (including verification documents for self-printed DB tickets, like your credit card or Personalausweis)
• Congress tickets (printed or in iOS 6 passbook)
• Passport or other kind of photo ID (Personalausweis)
• Driver's license (even an international one)
• Hotel booking
• Ham radio license

Payment stuff

• Some cash (€uros)
• CreditCard
• Coins (€uros, for automated vending machines, like public transport tickets)
• Bitcoin wallet
• Emergency numbers for your bank so you can lock your credit card/debit card/Bankomatkarte in case it gets lost/stolen/left behind.

Emergency information

In case of an accident or other emergency condition carry a piece of information whom to contact or any special medical inforation that might be viable to your survival/first aid/medical staff.

Emergency Information for 29C3:

Personal hygiene

• Tooth brush (plus charger if it is an electrical one)
• Toothpaste
• Shower gel
• Shampoo (To avoid bad hair days)
• Conditioner
• Tampons
• Sanitary Towels
• Condoms
• Disinfectants
• Soap
• deodorant, antiperspirant
• Hairbrush/comb (to avoid bad-hair-days)
• hair-band (Zopfringerl) to tame your mane
• handkerchiefs

Cosmetics

• Make up
• Nail polish
• Nail scissors
• Nail file
• Razor (with spare blades)

Medication

Generic medication

• Patches (Pflaster)
• Aspirin (If you partied too long…)
• Thomapyrin
• Parkemed
• Clarityn (or other Anti-allergic)
• Neocitran (Just in case hacker pest strikes)
• Metavirulent
• Contraceptives
• Caffeine pills (In case you don't like Mate and nobody knows if you can actually drink the coffee served there.)
• Something for your stomach (if you've got a nervous digestive system when under stress, while flying or generally travelling)

Personal medication

Your personal medication does not belong on the public interwebs for your privacy. This is just a reminder to pack it. Please do not include your personal medications in pull requests. :-)

Clothing

• At least ONE clean shirt for each day you stay, plus two for travelling to and from congress. (nerdy print is always welcome)
• At least ONE set of clean underwear for each day you stay, plus two for travelling to and from congress. (Doesn't necessarily need to be in matching pairs, but that if up to you.)
• At least ONE pair of clean socks/stockings/tights/overknees for each day you stay, plus two for travelling to and from congress.
• Enough pants/skirts/trousers/dresses/etc. so you can wear clean clothes every day you attend congress. (Even if somebody accidentally (or intentionally) spills a beverage all over you!)
• Sewing set (needle, thread, spare button for your trousers/skirts/shirts/blouses/etc.)
• Long sleeve shirts
• Hoodies, Pullovers
• Jacket (wind proof, at least somewhat water resistant)
• Cap, wool cap
• Umbrealla

Gear

• Laptop (with a working battery)
• Charger for Laptop
  • Mac: Small Duck-head and long (Schuko Plug) cord
  • Mac: MagSafe to MagSafe 2 Adapter
• 3* or 5* Extension (230V≈ @50Hz) with Schuko Plug (and optional switch)
• Simple extension cord (230V @50Hz, Schuko Plug)
• USB Sticks
  • Put an OWNER.txt file on them with information on how to contact you in case one gets lost accidentally. (Twitter, phone (for example DECT, 29C3 GSM extensions), email, name of the assembly you're well known at, owl, raven)
  • For devices with private information be sure to encrypt them! (TrueCrypt, GPG, FileVault)
  • make note of the filesystem used so you know if they will work on the system of the person you want to exchange data with. (FAT32 is a safe bet to work everywhere.)
  • Mac: NTFS, ZFS, Ext can be read, but not written to without 3rd party software. FAT, ExFAT, HFS+(J), HFSX are fine for current OS X versions.
• Ethernet cords (Cat5e) of multiple lenths. Maybe have a spare to tether a friend.
• Torch (Have spare batteries or rechargables and a matching charger that works with 230V≈ @50Hz)
• LED throwies
• Phones
  • Mobile Phone (GSM) One each
    • For your normally used SIM card
    • For an optional SIM card of the country you travel to
    • For a local GSM network at the venue
  • DECT phone (for the local wireless phone network)
  • Be sure to register your extension number at Eventphone
• Chargers for all those phones, or at least matching wires if you can charge over USB.
  • iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPad, iPad 2, iPad 3 (The new iPad)
    • USB-30 Pin dock connector (one each)
  • iPhone 5 (or newer), iPad 4, iPad mini
    • USB-Lightning (one each)
  • Most Android phones
    • USB-micro USB cable
• WiFi Router/Firewall (to connect to the hotel Wifi/Network)
• Photo camera
  • batteries
  • charger
  • memory cards (CF, SD, SDHC, xD, memory stick, etc.)
    • freshly formatted
  • card reader to import pictures (if your laptop doesn't have a matching built-in card reader)
  • camera bag
  • camera strap
  • lenses with lens caps
  • lens cleaning cloth
• RS232 cable
• USB A-B cable
• mini USB cable
• micro USB cable
• Firewire (400, 800) cable
• Antenna wire for WiFi or ham radio equipment
• 3.5mm jack splitter (so you can watch a movie together on the train)
• Headphones (so you don't have to talk to other carbon units while travelling)

Other gear

• Swiss knife
• Victorinox cybertool
• Leatherman
• Screw drivers, pit set
• soldering iron
• any other tools you may need (even if unlikely)
• analog notebook (dead tree style)
• pen, pencil, quill

Securing your devices

Read the How to survive guide in the Congress Wiki. There are many excellent tips in there.

Backups

Make fresh backups of ALL the devices you bring to CCCongress.

BIOS/EFI Password

Make sure you do have set a BIOS or EFI Password to prevent booting from a live CD to attack your system.

Full disk encryption

Activate full disk encryption with pre-boot authentication. (Mac: Activate FileVault.)

Backups

You did make fresh backups of all your devices, did you?

VPN tunnel

Have at least one trusted, working and tested VPN endpoint available for tunneling out of the congress network.

• OpenVPN
• L2TP/IPSec
• SSH
• iodine (DNS tunnel for those pesky for-pay captive portal WiFi networks)
• Tor/Vidalia

Also have those tunnels configured on ALL the devices you intend to use, and have it tested. That includes your Laptops, phones, tablets, servers, fridge, etc.

Links