It’s nearing the end of 2011 and a certain reality is emerging about the years ahead. Computers are not just desktops or smartphones. They have found their way into just about everything we know of. And it’s increasingly apparent that we have far less control over these systems than we’d like.

So it’s not a big surprise that hacking has become such a way of life for both good and evil. We are hacking apps. We are hacking society. Food is getting hacked. Hackers are finding ways to take over control systems for passenger trains. They’ve infiltrated the Department of Defense. They are the first wave of a new “makers movement,” that we see manifested in such efforts as Ariel Waldman’s “Spacehack” project.

Hackers give us a view into the future of society by trying to take some control over the universally present computer. That’s apparent when you look through the discussions and workshops for the 28th Annual Chaos Communications Congress (28C3) which starts today in Berlin.

Its stated purpose:

The 28th Chaos Communication Congress is a annual four-day conference on technology, society and utopia. The Congress offers lectures and workshops on a multitude of topics including (but not limited to) information technology and generally a critical-creative attitude towards technology and the discussion about the effects of technological advances on society.

Take Cory Doctorow, the novelist, short story writer and essayist who blogs for BoingBoing. Doctorow will speak today The 28th Chaos Communications Congress in Berlin on the coming war on computation and the how the copyright battles are just the beginning of a century long battle. The stakes are high. For Doctorow the battle is for humanity itself.

Doctorow says the problem is two-fold. Computers have replaced every machine, every device we know of. There is no known general-purpose computer that can execute all the programs we can think of except the naughty ones. Second, the computer has replaced every machine known to man. “There are no airplanes, just computers that fly. There are no cars, only computers we sit in. There are no hearing aids, only computers we put in our ears. There are no 3D printers, only computers that drive peripherals.”

Doctorow’s discussion runs on themes that several of the other speakers will cover.  An analysis of Bitcoin will explore the ways the digital currency flows across network, behavior of individuals and its s scalability as a P2P-currency.

Other discussions explore the current range of bio-engineered foods such as glowing sushi and Chinese space potatoes; the concept of utopian cuisines and resources for the Black Hat food hacker.

Hacking the mind? A session titled Quantified Self and OpenBCI Neurofeedback Mind-Hacking looks a how “we can track the functions and changes of our mind and body and look into the “Mirror of the Digital Self”. Analyzing, and finally optimizing, the patterns we find, a new and optimized self can be envisioned, and gradually metamorphed into, using scientific method and data mining statistics.”

On these pages we often write about big data. The impact of big data is baked into our future. How hackers use data will define the direction of our society. The Chaos Communications Congress is a reflection of that new reality.

A sure trend to follow in the new year.