38C3: Day 3 brings hacked prisons, location data and tax fraud
On the third day of the congress in Hamburg, the speakers were clearly critical of the system: the lack of CumEx consequences, unfair monopolies and tax havens.
"Transparency is a bargaining chip," stated Arne Semsrott in his presentation at 38C3. Nevertheless, the Freedom of Information Act is still useful for keeping an eye on the powerful.
(Image: Screenshot von media.ccc.de)
- Detlef Borchers
A major component of the Chaos Communication Congress has always been the critical examination of state structures. The fight against hacker laws and for the decriminalization of the creative use of technology is part of the club's DNA. In Hamburg, however, there were also people on stage who denounced tax fraud and unfair monopolies. There were even standing ovations for this.
A team of Netzpolitik and BR journalists explained their research into a treasure trove of cell phone location data that was openly offered to them for sale. They had not received a conspiratorial tip-off – as in the case of the recent VW data breach – from a whistleblower, but had gone shopping at a data trading platform. As a free "trial snack", a retailer had given them billions of location data records containing unique device IDs. Using these advertising IDs, the journalists were able to create detailed movement profiles of suspected secret service and government employees, including a possible NSA agent.
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Flaws in the system and phone monopoly
Lilith "riot influencer" Wittmann demonstrated to the audience how she hacked prison phone systems and used publicly available API endpoints to make them leak sensitive information about prisoners. The activist also took a closer look at the manufacturer of the systems and software and found unpleasant things. Not only had the company been charging unusually high call charges for a long time, but it was now a de facto monopolist that the judicial authorities had to grudgingly fall back on. In a live demo, Wittman also showed the audience the "Vauzettchen" program, which is still used for administration in some youth detention centres and contains all kinds of problematic content in the GUI and source code.
Wittmann's research made use of the Freedom of Information Act (IFG), which Arne Semsrott from "Frag den Staat" also sees as a tool for keeping an eye on authorities and the government. However, the activist stated that it is becoming increasingly blunt, as authorities and courts do not always adhere to the legal requirements. In addition, anonymous requests are no longer permitted, which makes the IFG less useful as an instrument for monitoring the authorities. Transparency is a bargaining chip, criticized Semsrott, who distributed the final edition of the newspaper FragDenStaat (DE) with helpers – the DE stands for Druck-Erzeugnis.
Two presentations dealt with a rather unusual topic for the Congress: tax fraud. Pentester "martin" showed in his presentation how tax fraud Ă la CumEx and CumCum is a kind of art form. Former public prosecutor Anne Brorhilker, formerly the central driving force behind the CumEx investigations, then outlined the fraud scam and how she got to grips with the fraudsters. She criticized the fact that there was no culture of cooperation between authorities and that they often made incompatible decisions, for example on data protection issues. For example, email encryption via PGP is sometimes explicitly prescribed and sometimes just as explicitly prohibited, which has made her daily work much more difficult. Brorhilker, who now works for the NGO Finanzwende e.V., received a standing ovation for her educational work from the packed auditorium of three thousand people.
Free hacking in the assemblies
If you want to treat 38C3 like a traditional conference, you can put together a seamless lecture program from over 140 contributions and jump back and forth between the halls for four days – queuing included. However, such a lecture hopper misses out on an equally important part of the congress. Because there is just as much to see away from the lectures, namely in the assemblies. In several halls of the CCH, hackers sit at rows of tables and islands, tinker, talk shop and show off their projects. There are regional groups such as Hackwerk Aalen and project-related assemblies such as the OpenStreetMap project. While some hackers only need a table, socket and network cable, the Center for Political Beauty has brought a former prison bus to Hamburg and other assemblies have built their own workshop rooms out of partition walls.
The mix of technology, art and politics is what makes the Assemblies so appealing and represents a further development of the Hackcenter of earlier events. c't editor Keywan met Florian from Hamburg and his soccer-playing robot at an assembly.
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Auracast is cool, but insecure
Auracast is a component of Bluetooth Low Energy Audio and stands for streaming audio in public spaces. It is primarily intended to make life easier for people with hearing aids: If several people with hearing aids are sitting in front of an Auracast-enabled TV set, they can subscribe to the same Bluetooth stream.
With greater transmission power, Auracast installations are possible at train stations and airports or in sports bars, where each person with hearing aids or normal Bluetooth earbuds can subscribe to a specific station or announcement channel. This also makes the technology interesting for audio advertising, which is played into the streams on offer. The encryption specified in Auracast is designed to prevent unwanted hijacking of the audio streams.
At 38C3, security researchers Frieder Steinmetz and Dennis Heinze used BISCrack to demonstrate how Auracast encryption can be broken in just a few seconds. Previously, Austrian researchers had used BISON (PDF) to show how unencrypted Auracast streams can be manipulated. The abbreviation BIS contained in both acronyms stands for Broadcast Isochronic Streams from Auracast. Steinmetz and Heinze appealed to the manufacturers of Auracast streaming tools to take care of secure encryption so that the "cool technology" is widely accepted in the future.
The 38th Chaos Communication Congress is taking place at the Congress Center Hamburg (CCH) and will run until December 30, 2024. The congress is sold out and day tickets are no longer available. However, almost all presentations will be available as recordings on the congress website.
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