What The Hack, the latest incarnation of the legendary hacker community event, will take place this week, from 28th to 31st of July, in the Netherlands. Located in a forest, early participants have managed to install 10^9 bps of bandwidth with 3 km of fibre to and more than 20km of copper on the campsite, featuring a high-capacity DECT phone system, radio and data networking.

There will be discussions and lectures on just about every aspect of computer networking and security, ranging from low-level hardware to development of wireless systems for the third world. Open Source software, cryptography, biometric security schemes, quantum mechanics, data retention and patent legislation will be among the topics discussed and worked on at What The Hack. The campsite has already become a hive of activity with people performing the practical side of hacking.

The community spirit on the campsite brings out a unique flair that this festival delivers all four years since 1989. The infrastructure and a lot of fun stuff is built by the early birds among the participants. Due to enthusiasm and excellent sense of self-organisation, the built-up is running ahead of schedule. "Despite some rain, the atmosphere is great and people are building their own villages now, and I'd be hard-pressed to think of things that people did not bring. And I'm real glad the weather looks much brighter later in the week", says convention organizer Rop Gonggrijp.

What The Hack: http://wiki.whatthehack.org