Well, we just started, and then it was important not to worry too much. Well basically Rop often has megalomanic ideas, and this was one of them, and this was one we decided to try and realize. Rop and I have been co-organizing the Galactic Hacker Party in Aug, 89 and we thought it might be time for a new big hacker event like that, so we just, we started with a date. The Galactic Hacker party was in the first week of August 89, so we decided we would do this in the first week of Aug 93. Then we thought up a name, HEU, to get a little universe with the Galactic Hacker party, to get a bit of connection in the name. Then we found a place to do it. We asked around to some people who organise big events. We took a look at a place and we decided it would be great and so we rented the place. Then we were thinking about the program. What subjects would be interesting? What people would be interesting? Then we started to call up people and we were like, "Hey! we are organizing this big event in August, would you like to be in a forum? Would you like to speak about this or that? Would you give a workshop about so and so?" And most of them said yes and then we had our program. We started to make a text for the press, and we sent to about 70 newspapers and magazines our press release and well, nobody reacted. This was in March. It all started in January. This was the idea, hey we want to organize a hacker event. We found the camping site in Feb. and then in March we did our press release. And we really thought it was going to be big and everybody would be very interested, and then nobody reacted. Actually we got one reaction. It was from the committee or Neufalvenlon. We had used the name Flavapolin, which is the part of Holland that we organized it in. So they got angry and said you call it Flavelon instead of Flavepul and that was the only reaction we got to our press release. And so we made leaflets to do handouts. Rop travelled to the Ciebit, the big German computer fair, in Hannover, it was also in March and he had 3000 German leaflets to hand out at Siebet and the night before we had been folding them, they had 3 folds, but they weren't finished yet. So the next day in the train, Rop had all of these leaflets, and handed them out to everybody in the train "please help me fold them! I have to have them ready for the fair". And of course we put a message on the internet. That got us alot of response.
It is important because it is a congress where everyone is very open. We had alot of publicity, everybody is welcome. We try to invite people who are against hacking to explain their point of view. We want to have an open discussion, to show that we are not some computer hackers sitting in a dark corner doing illegal things, we want to show the world what we stand for. Providing information and things like that. And because it was a very international event. I counted at least 50 nationalities and i think its very good if people from different countries with the same interests can exchange ideas and making friends around the world.
Why did I become involved with Hacktic? Well it was sort of by co- incidence. Rop started Hacktic in 89, in Jan, in his bedroom and he happened to be a house mate of mine and he was always busy with things like that and so I was interested too. I have always been hanging around it, and sometimes i write something for the magazine. I don't consider myself to be a hacker but i am interested.
Hacktic started as this little magazine with kind of naughty articles about techniques and what people could do with them and what things people could do with those techniques were not really meant for, just kind of funny, but Hacktic is also expressing the opinion that people are entitled to have information, and people are entitled to do things with techniques that they want, that other people should not tell them what to do with techniques. That's why it's called a magazine for techno-anarchists basically.
Did you ask this to any of the boys? I think there were more women than usual at things like this. I think usual its about 5% and now maybe 10%, something like that. You ask me? Very few, very few. Very few girl hackers, I mean there are a few girls and very few girl hackers. I mean alot of girls are more interested in hanging around. Not really into the techniques. And for that reason not hacking. I think women in general are more interested in the use of the techniques and not the techniques themselves. I have never hacked for example, and since for some time i am really addicted to data communications and stuff. I might have become a hacker if i had gotten that addiction a few years earlier when there was no public internet access for everybody who wanted it. But now I do not have a reason to hack. I can get internet access.
Well Hacktic was the first organization in Holland that gave people the possibility to have access to the Internet, if you were not a member of a student or personnel on a big university or person in a big organization or something. Before Hacktic started with this you could only have Internet access if you were on a university or a big company, and I think Internet is something so wonderful, its so brilliant, this network, really around the world and it makes you able to communicate with people who are physically miles and miles away. I think its very important that lots of people can have access to this internet and that is one of the most important things hacktic is doing right now.
Well one of the main goals of the DDS is to get people involved in local politics. The DDS is a sort of computerized Amsterdam and there is a lot of information about local politics. There are alot of non-profit idealistic organizations who offer information with little electronic offices in the city so people can get info. And we have a voting system so people can have electronic votes about local politics, to give a signal to the real live politicians what people think. We hope it's a good way for people to make it easier to participate in local politics and its a good way to get them interested. It's a nice way to play around with your computer and get information about politics and being able to participate and discuss with other people.
Apart from the political side of DDS, i mean the local politics, its a way for people to meet the Internet, its not only a local system but you can also go onto the internet. You can not do everything, you can use gopher and there is irc, we have some pubs so you can irc people, their is also the possibility to go onto the internet, read news, send e-mail and to see what's it all about, that's also an important thing.
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