Overview
- The 39th Chaos Communication Congress is underway in Hamburg with about 16,000 participants under the motto “Power Cycles.”
- Organizers announced a recurring Digital Independence Day starting 4 January 2026, encouraging action on the first Sunday of each month.
- The initiative is coordinated by Save Social with support from the CCC, Digitale Gesellschaft, Gesellschaft für Informatik, Nextcloud and Wikimedia Deutschland, with public backing from author Marc‑Uwe Kling.
- Planned measures include local “Wechselpartys” to help people move to alternatives such as Mastodon over X, Signal over WhatsApp, privacy‑focused browsers and even Linux.
- Conference talks also probe security issues in Bluetooth chips, electronic patient records and the Deutschlandticket, scrutinize tools like Palantir, and feature Cory Doctorow urging legal changes to curb platform lock‑in.