Some fairs give visitors a paper card with their name on it to get in. Boring, they thought at DefCon. The cybersecurity fair organizers are creating a badge that contains a Raspberry Pi microcontroller that can be used to play a Pokémon-like game. Sadly, there’s a fuss about the maker who says he wasn’t paid for his design.
Badges are always one of the highlights of DefCon, the annual hacker convention held in Las Vegas. There’s even a term for them: #badgecon. There’s an official badge that every visitor gets upon entry, but you can also collect dozens of other badges at various locations. VillagesFor example, there is a badge with a rocket in the Space Village and visitors can use a soldering iron to put LED lights and buttons on their badges.
Official badge of the year Designed by Mar Williams It looks like this:
The badge is shaped like a cat, but it’s not the shape (or the massive weight on your neck) that stands out. The DefCon badge is a single-board PC that runs a Pokémon-like game and supports emulators. The badge is based on RP2350 controllerThe new chip that powers the recently announced Raspberry Pi Pico 2 is based on. So the Pi, along with the Pico 2, is the only device that has a microcontroller as a driver. However, it is clocked at a maximum of 125MHz as standard, says the firmware writer.
The login badge also has a USB-C connection. 1500mAh Lithium-ion battery For charging and a six-pin connector on the front that is practically used in the showroom to put small additions on the badge. These can be purchased in various VillagesThe badge also includes a 1GB micro SD card with the DefCon logo on it. There are several LED lights on the badge that players can customize to their liking. There is also an infrared module on the badge. This is intended for exchanging items with other players in the game.
But the coolest thing about the badge is the six buttons on the front and four on the back. This allows users to play a Pokémon-like game. In the game, you will walk around a virtual exhibition hall and have to collect QR codes and find items for non-playable characters. The game was created using gb studio program.
The firmware on the badge was written by Dmitry Grinberg of Entropic Engineering, who Software rules On his GameBoy emulator United Gulf Bank“Any GameBoy game up to 2MB should work on it,” he says. He adds that larger games can be played if users install a larger flash drive. Additionally, the badge is capable of running PalmOS, based on Grinberg’s implementation of rePalmHackers in the exchange already have Special tools released To hack the badge and load ROM easily.
sensation
The badge will be distributed to all 30,000 visitors, staff, speakers, and journalists attending the show. There’s a lot of drama behind this year’s brutal operation. Grinberg, the firmware maker, was arrested earlier this weekend by the DefCon organization I withdrew from the stagein the middle of his speech explaining the badge. This happened after it was revealed that he had easter egg The badge states that he was never paid to create the firmware and contains the Bitcoin address he requested donations from.
Entropic Engineering, which produces the badges, also complained that DefCon paid it only partially. The organization Respond to that Saying that Entropic had already gone sixty percent over budget. Then DefCon went out of business. On that Entropy responded again. DefCon imposed “impossible demands” on badge production. In particular, the number of badges that had to be made in a limited time period was unrealistic, according to the company.
Software problems
The production issues were reflected in the badge. There were several bugs there. For example, the badge did not save game progress when the badge was restarted. The badge also froze when players touched the infrared component. DefCon quickly released a new version of the firmware. Players can install it themselves, but they can also visit the website foolsDefCon staff who run the show. This sometimes led to long lines, but that’s also typical for DefCon.