Up in the hardware hacking village, a team put together all seven DEFCON 17 badges for the very first time. Here are a few pictures of their hard work coming together.
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DEFCON 17 Badge Hackers
Published: August 3rd, 2009 | Category: Security Conferences
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Cool, was wondering why some were different, of course how would I know, I got there Thursday but was still only able to secure a laminated paper badge (which I’ve only modded slightly). The line around the block Friday to get the remaining badges was passed over for, oh, I don’t know, what did I go there for…talks! But really, I’m glad the con was so popular this year, I really got a lot out of it, and look forward to submitting something for 18!
So, what secret functionality gets unlocked when all the badges are connected?
It would just blink grey code. Though the Human acted as a controller so we were able to program (after fixing erroneous code errors and increasing power) a color chase and “Defcon 17″ in morse.
Huh, sounds kind of anti-climactic. At least they could’ve gotten a bunch of points in the scavenger hunt for it.
The stock code was somewhat anti-climactic, but it provided a convenient framework that made it easy for us to make it do what we wanted it to do, after fixing some bugs anyway.
(This is Smitty, the big guy holding the badge.)
At first, I was convinced that Tangent and Kingpin had snuck different code on the badges than what was distributed that would do something cool if all seven were assembled, but they didn’t.
I want to say Thanks! to Jeff (Tangent) and Joe (Kingpin) for making the badges so much fun to do every year. I’m already chewing on some ideas for next year that I think will kick much booty. Looking forward to it.
-Mark
I have to say the whole badge hacking thing is a great idea, but sadly I’m a software guy by trade, and I’m not that good with hardware (yet). And it’s true, I was hoping for something really sweet to happen when the badges were assembled. It seems Jeff and Joe chose instead to allow us to come up with our own sweet modifications, which is still a great idea because it allows for many more possibilities.
The coolest thing I discovered about the badge this year (even if it might be unintentional) is that if you blow air on the mic, the brightness and color of the LED resembles that of a smoldering ember. It might not sound that special, but if you try it you’ll have one of those, “Oh yeah, it totally does!” moments.