HAR2009

This year was the first time I ever went to a hacker conference. One of the more famous ones is organised every 4 years in the Netherlands. This year the event was called Hacking at Random 2009, it took place in the very nice little town of Vierhouten in the National Park called De Veluwe.

A couple of months ago my friend Brenno asked me to join him in starting a small radiostation for the duration of the event. I must admit I wasn’t expecting much, something like my pirating days at Twilight Radio, but Brenno started well by applying for all kinds of licenses so it was 100% legal.

And then on Wednesday evening I arrived, totally confused on what to do, where my tent was going to be pitched. I picked a spot, put the tent up and left to find Brenno. I found him in the middle of a tennis court, with two radio studios and a huge tent that was to be our home base for the rest of the event. Below is a selection of the best photos I’ve taken, most of them are HARFM related, others were taken from around the HARFM “compound”.

Our intrepid leader and CEO, Brenno de Winter

The first evening started nicely with some guys flying quadcopters. I want one.

Most of the campsite was beautifully lit by Artevent, but the participants also added their stuff

Like the CCC tent where a DJ played every night until LATE.

PsychiC, the HARFM CTO in his element.

Ubik was too tired to ride the wheels of steel for a whole show, but with the help of PsychiC and ??? he managed a wicked Drum ‘n Bass set. I really enjoyed it. All three of them mixed songs while Ubik also chose the music. Real vinyl… Hmmmmmmmmm, droooool….

PsychiC and ??? enjoying Ubik’s mixing.

HARFM and security.nl invited a company to show their harddisk shredder to HAr2009. Here’s the owner of the company explaining how the machine works to Joram Polak of security.nl

Chantal and Chloe enjoying some French fries

Aldert Hazenberg, the boss of HAR2009

PsychiC and some of his friends organised a Lasergame on saturday night. Here he is explaining his troops how to eliminate each other.

PsychiC and Sven assembling the guns

The troops at ease

The troops trying to kill yours truly

Koen Martens working the CD player during his Pinball radio show

Pinball guy during Koen’s show

Silent disco.

Remember: ze sheik unsilenced ze silent disco!

The CCC tent and surroundings on the last day of HAR2009

Barry van Kampen

And again, the host with the most.

Sven, the CNO, hard at work making (up?) some news.

PsychiC

Chloe, totally fed up with all the grown ups around. She thought she could do it better by herself, and she was right.

I really loved doing HARFM and also enjoyed what little I saw of HAR2009. There’s definitely going to be a next time, probably for both of them. See you guys!