CFP


久闻大名的草泥马们[1]

[1] colloquially, “s’up, motherfuckers”[2]
[2] literally, “long have we heard the name of the grass mud horse”[3]
[3] figuratively, the one horse joke we will beat to death

The Crüe welcomes you to New Zealand’s best (also only) hacker con.

          __    ___      ____                     ________     \/  
    _?   |  | _(>ω<)_  _ _(_^▽^)___   ____   ____   \______  \   <'l
   ( .\  |  |/ /   \ \/ \/ /   |/ ___\/  _ \ /    \      /    /    ll
@羊人@@  |  鸡<|   |\  尾  /|   \  \__( <会> )   |  \    / 七 /     l草泥马~  
@|@@||   |__|_ \__ | \/\_/ |__ |\___  >____/|___|  /   /____/       || ||
''  ''        \/                    \/           \/                 '' ''__
_-----\                                                           ------/
       \_--- NEW ZEALAND'S HACKER CON - WELLINGTON 9-10 NOV 2013 /


Kiwicon 7: 9-10th November 2013, The Opera House, Wellington, New Zealand.

Firstly, your rebellion against the hegemony of 7-bit US-ASCII is justified.
Without your Unicode output path you will not be able to read our CFP in a
properly harmonious fashion. For this is your polyglot welcome to Kiwicon 七 -
Kiwicon 7. This once, we are auspicious in both East and West.

In Mandarin, 七 represents togetherness, while the word for
seven sounds like 起, to arise, or even 气, which we shall      __-
loosely translate as “spunk” (not moxie, or gumption, but a    /' ) 
different sort of spunk - the sort the Kiwicon Crüe            `/( \
traditionally rejoice in.) This year, we find our precious      \_\_>
fluids have been tainted. Though spring bursts and burgeons   ==="="\==
with sprout and flower, we are brittle and dry against the           '
vegetable surge. No out-curling ferns; no delicate fronds      ^^ a kākā
of new life, new growth. And all the while the kākā rips at     (kinda)
our protective bark to lick at what life essence remains to
us.

And so we are sapped of our spunk, enfiladed by state espionage. In our terror,
we cannot see all and know all about those who wish us harm, and worse, we are
betrayed by the overwatching orrery of our own five eyes. It is, to borrow the
words of a Reverend, not very neighbourly at all. Time for us to get some new
neighbours.

Our new neighbors know what it is to watch their dreams, police themselves for
thoughtcrime, to speak in a bestiary of metaphor in the name of harmony.
Fortunately, our national background has already made some of us overly familiar
with certain animals; perhaps more with 羊 (sheep) than the river crabs of the
马勒戈壁 (Mahler Gobi desert), but we will turn our grief into strength, and we
will learn.

In this spirit of 七 - togetherness - with other 讷嘚族 (nerrrds), we welcome
your submissions to Kiwicon 七. Hacking is a culture of innovation and
circumvention; of flipping bits, flipping pointers, flipping the enforcement
mechanisms against themselves and flipping the (kākā) bird. Share with us your
techniques, your research and your tools. Let us all stand in firmness and
solidarity with those who can teach us so much.

To have friends coming in from afar is delightful! Join us at Kiwicon 7, and say

羊人的鸡尾会坚挺地支持草泥马   

because if we don't listen to the parable of the Grass Mud Horse and the River
Crab now we will have to learn it over Tor later, while 囧 (do we have to
translate? just look how sad that character is)..

Kiwicon is not all 草沃(fertile grass), so alas we cannot provide travel or
accommodation to speakers. But we would gladly accept your submissions on topics
various;
    - computer hacking type shenanigans
    - snapper quotas
    - exactly how the GSCB intends to implement its obligations under the
      TICS bill, on the assumption that it will pass in the same way as the
          GCSB bill (sadly, it’s a Dunne deal)
    - interpretive dance or poetry explaining how a politician who resigned
      his ministerial post rather than give up the contents of his mail
          spool ends up being the deciding vote for a law that legalises
          snooping of all our spools (note: recitals of Alanis Morissette not
          permitted)
    - quite exactly how “freedom” came to be “rolling packet captures of all
      the things”
    - explaining to our Prime Minister how end to end encryption works

Submit the traditional data:

    Name/Handle:
    Title:
    Synopsis:
    Duration:
    Origin city, country:
    A brief bio:

As Kiwicon is single threaded, you may block for as much time as you wish; if
you have 30 mins of content, submit 30 mins of talk. There will be lighting talk
slots of 15 mins, and full hour slots are the exception, not the rule.

Submissions to: cfp@kiwicon.org by no later than 7pm NZT, 14 Oct 2013.