Category Archives: badgelife

All the Badges of DEF CON 26 (vol 3)

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I tried my best to see every badge and speak with every badge maker at DEF CON 26. One thing’s for sure, seeing them all was absolutely impossible this year, but I came close. Check out the great badges shown off in volume 1 and in volume 2 of this series. The game is afoot, and if you are headed to a hacker conference there’s never been a better time to build your own hardware badge — whether you build 5 or 500!

All right, let’s look at the badges!

Hack for Satan Badge

The Hack for Satan badge is …read more

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A week in security (August 20 – 26)

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A roundup of the security news from August 20 – 26, including a look at insider threats, several breaches, and what tech giants Google and Facebook are doing about their privacy issues.
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Security world
Week in security

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2018 Electromagnetic Field Badge: It’s an Entire Phone!

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As is always the case with a significant hacker camp, we’ve been awaiting the official badge announcement for the upcoming Electromagnetic Field 2018 hacker camp with huge interest. These badges, for readers who may have been on Mars for the past few years, are part of a lively scene of wearable electronics at hacker conferences and camps, and can usually be expected to sport a fully-fledged computer in their own right along with other special functionality.

The announcement of the 2018 badge, dubbed the TiLDA Mk4, does not disappoint. We’d been told that there would be an on-site GSM network …read more

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Badgelife: A Defcon 26 retrospective

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Another year, another Defcon. In this retrospective, we take a look at the crown jewel of Defcon swag: badges. Reminisce with us about the coolest badges ever made and traded.
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Conferences
Security world

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Badgelife, The Hardware Demoscene Documentary

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Last week, tens of thousands of people headed home from Vegas, fresh out of this year’s DEF CON. This was a great year for DEF CON, especially when it comes to hardware. This was the year independent badges took over, thanks to a small community of people dedicated to creating small-run hardware, puzzles, and PCB art for thousands of conference-goers. This is badgelife, a demoscene of hardware, and this is just the beginning. It’s only going to get bigger from here on out.

We were lucky enough to sit down with a few of the creators behind the badges of …read more

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Hackaday Links: August 19, 2018

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If you want to creep everyone out, [Hunter Irving] has your back. He found a weird, creepy knock-off Thomas the Tank Engine toy and mounted a servo to it. This animatronic face is really, really creepy and has the aesthetic of a pastel plastic hell of the forgotten toys destroyed in a day care in 1991. It probably smells like a thrift shop. This rosy-cheeked locomotive shall derail your soul. It sings karaoke.

Like badges? Sure you do. Ph0xx is the badge for the upcoming Fri3d Camp, a family hacker, maker, and DIY camp in Belgium with 600 attendees. The …read more

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Teardown: Queercon 15 Badge (and the Game Hidden Within)

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Queercon is a conference within a conference. Taking place within DEF CON, Queercon is a social network of LGBT hackers that gathers each year to host events, talks, and a kickin’ pool party. Since 2012 they have also been building electronic badges as part of the fun and I can vouch that they’re contenders for most creative badge design every single year.

A total of 450 electronic badges were made this year, and the aesthetic is as close to a polished consumer product as I have ever seen in a badge, yet they also retain the charm and feel of …read more

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First Look at DEF CON 26 Official Badge

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To the delight of everyone, this year’s official DEF CON badge is an electronic badge chock full of entertainment. Of course there is blinky, the board is artistic, and everyone hopefully maybe gets one (it’s rumored 27,000+ were manufactured) if they don’t run out. But the badge contest at DEF CON is legendary — solve all the puzzles you are awarded the coveted black badge.

The creators of this badge are no strangers to the Hackaday community. Displayed proudly on the board and in the firmware, we discover that The Toymakers are the ones who have put it all on …read more

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Programmable Badge uses E-Ink and ESP8266

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You’ve probably noticed that the hacker world is somewhat enamored with overly complex electronic event badges. Somewhere along the line, we went from using a piece of laminated paper on a lanyard to custom designed gadgets that pack in enough hardware that they could have passed for PDAs not that long ago. But what if there was a way to combine this love for weighing down one’s neck with silicon jewelry and the old school “Hello my name is…” stickers?

[Squaro Engineering] might have the solution with Badgy, their multi-function e-ink name…well, badge. Compatible with the Arduino SDK, it can …read more

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Unofficial Badges Get Official Recognition at DEF CON: Badge Life Contest

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Badge·Life (noun): the art of spending too much time, energy, money, and creativity to design and produce amazing custom electronics and get them into the hands of those who appreciate incredible craftsmanship.

Brand new to DEF CON 26 is the Badge Life Contest to celebrate the creativity and ingenuity that gets poured into a custom badge.

For years, #BadgeLife has been flying under the radar at DEF CON. A growing movement of creative designers have put in late nights, emptied pocket books, and agonized over production, shipping, lanyards, boxes, batteries, programming woes, and every other kind of problem you …read more

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