I can verify. I was the one dragged off. I wrote the firmware for the badge. All of it.
Read your blog/article about the badge project yesterday and it was such a good read, even for a not-much-of-a-hardware-guy like me.
Approx:
Entropic is engaged to make hw. I am asked (unofficially) to do sw.
Entropic works for free but does charge for parts and subcontracted stuff . Eventually defcon stops paying. Entropic is uninvited from badge talk. Their logo is ground out of plastic case. Their logo hidden in publicity photos of pcb.
Tempers are high. I implement the Easter egg. This is months ago cause thats how long one needs to pre-flash chips.
Time passed. Defcon still working on their game last moment. They had volunteers reflash badges cause they didn’t make the real pre flashing deadline. I forgot about the screen entirely more or less.
Day of con. I spend all day helping debug badge issues. Push updates. Help people. Even pushed an update from plane on way to con to fix some things.
Badge talk time. Half an hour before defcon tells me no talk for me cause someone found the Easter egg screen and they are pissed. I show up anyways since it was promised.
I get dragged off stage.
I hold talk outside answering questions.
Next steps: I have no contact with defcon. They never bothered to. Normally: who cares? I get to talk, people get to play with badges. Nobody cares.
But… I got kicked out, and… they have no license to my firmware they are distributing. Likely DMCA notice.
(“Had to” means a friend offered me one, laughed, and said “aw, c’mon”. I could’ve easily said no.)
First, I literally saw them do shots during a talk yesterday for some first-time presenters. Secondly that WASN'T the "old defcon" either! Drinking is a relatively new tradition in the history of the con. I've spoken twice. Once at DC 17 (no shot offered) and once at DC 23 (shots were offered). There's video proof:
No drinking, DC 17: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okPWY0FeUoU Asked to drink, opted for a coin instead (we were asked beforehand): https://youtu.be/6dmvtbrM6hs?feature=shared&t=1153
And recently I've had a string of bad, unalterable, and irrevocably-permanent events occur in my life. And yet, I'm very pleased to say that your write-up on your experiences with the RP2350[1] presented a small but meaningfully-positive thing for me to look forward to.
Please be well -- and don't take any guff from these swine[2].
[0] https://media.defcon.org/DEF%20CON%201/DEF%20CON%201%20annou...
[1] https://dmitry.gr/?r=06.%20Thoughts&proj=11.%20RP2350
[2] https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fear-and-loathing-in-las-ve...
Defcon has a lot more grassroots stuff, but it's grown to a size that it cannot avoid the corporate BS anymore. It's probably one of the biggest and most disruptive conferences in Vegas, venues don't like having 1000s of hackers hanging around slot machines.
Any one of those things sounds unpleasant to me, let alone all 3 at once.
And most corp trips are to black hat, not def con.
I've been offered a trip to black hat before and asked if I could go to def con as well but no. I was thinking of just staying longer on my own dime but we got a travel ban for cost cutting reasons so the whole thing never happened. I wasn't really interested in black hat anyway so I didn't care, I hate corporate PR.
But Vegas to me is a detractor. I hate gambling. I'd love it if it were in NYC or something. Much easier from Europe too.
not true in the vulnerability research space.
Actual engineers are sent to defcon because blackhat talks are advertisements, not educational presentations.
I worked in a "blue team" and we would only get travel approvals for black hat. Even though I've never been as I didn't want to and I was hesitant to visit the US. Black Hat doesn't interest me precisely for the reason you mentioned. I don't want sales pitches, I want unrestricted flow of technical information without marketing motives.
The only problem is it's in an extremely expensive period of the year for hotel stays. For that reason I've never actually been.
In 2024 not sure I’d really see the point, there are other conferences I’d likely enjoy more and mostly that itch is scratched by YT.
The on I’d still like to visit in person is fosdem and given I’m in the UK that one would be much easier.
With blackjack. And...
If you are in contact with any of the Entropic folks, maybe point them to this or the r/ thread so that they can provide more context.
I'd love to hear their sides of that story. (Both Def Con and Entropic). I'm curious now.
I'm sorry you got roped into this conflict too though. I have great respect for your work.
I just don’t see how they lose anything there (or rather, don’t see how they lose anything there that they lose a hundred times more of by their actual actions, namely reputation).
They've not really shrunk or significantly grown and are really opposed to corporate and government interests (as Fox-IT found out in 2013)
I just don't really like going to the UK anymore since Brexit. It just puts me off because the main driver of it was xenophobia. I've avoided it, I have not been there at all since Brexit. I probably won't ever go there again unless there's a serious change. Of course none of this is on the EMF community which is great, I've met many of them at other things.
As for the hacker camps I only really go to the Netherlands ones. The Congress is too expensive for me with the hotels around Christmas and with my lack of car it's hard to go camping in Germany so I've never been to the chaos camp either. Within Holland it's been easier because they've recently been at locations near me.
It parallels what Ivan Illich said about revolutions, namely that if a revolution survives it will turn into a system that stifles the same freedoms it supported.
Aka, either you die the hero, or see yourself become the corporate stooge/villain.
The DMCA criminalises breaking DRM, or providing tools to do so, such as distributing a tool to remove the DRM from an e-book.
This is textbook copyright infringement. $150k statutory damages plus, at the court's discretion, legal costs and fees. And that is just the result of civil action. You could probably find a prosecutor who would love pursue criminal action against the conference to appear strong on cybersecurity.
There is a reason why even large corporations, which often play chicken with lesser laws, are extremely careful about copyright infringement. The law has real teeth if the infringer has significant wealth.
Reading about rePalm has changed my definition of what monumental effort looks like.
(You should absolutely add that you managed to get PalmOS running on the badges in question!)
Demand the minimum for every badge distributed — as even if you later provided licenses to holders, DC had no license when distributing the copies as merchandise at their for-pay event.
Not saying they were morally or ethically right, or smart to do this at all - but legally there usually is a right to remove a unwanted person from your stage with the help of your own security.
The police does not want to be called, for every bouncer action.
It can get into a grey area, if violence will happen, the security may not simply beat someone out - but grabbing and forcefully moving or carrying out is legal. But if there is serious resistance and the security unable to handle it in a nonescalating way, then they would need to call the police. But usually, the bouncers would just get brutal, then. Attacking security gives them some freedom to act.
If other people are endangered by someone, very different scenario, anyone can (and must if possible) stop violence.
Source: short stunt as a professional security
They have committed assault against you.
This serves two purposes. The first is, a crime has been committed. The second is, you may now defend yourself.
I'm sure there is something similar in common law for other buildings. EG control of a space.
(I know nothing of this incident, just speaking generically.)
How do you think bouncers work?
Though I'm sure you can find them on eBay.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Defcon/comments/1eoe4u7/comment/lhe...
>I show up anyways since it was promised.
-you get asked to leave the stage
-you refused to leave the stage
-you told them they'd have to drag you off stage to get you to leave
>I get dragged off stage.
When people get SWATed, usually a fake call is made, were the police are told that a murder was already committed by the caller and that we will kill everyone on sight. Thus the police expect real danger, brings the big guns and their trigger happy attitude, kick the door in and are more likely to kill the victim.
It's not SWATing if the police come to handle a disturbance. The SWAT team need to be deployed for a SWATing.
Anyone could have called the cops too. A gathering of 100 people can make people nervous. But I wouldn't be surprised if Defcon called them too.
Calling the police is not SWATing someone.
Bullshit.
Swatting is:
> the action or practice of making a prank call to emergency services in an attempt to bring about the dispatch of a large number of armed police officers to a particular address.
The cops response for like, someone disturbing the peace or someone playing loud music in the middle of the night, is nothing like when the SWAT team comes with automatic weapon, full body armor and flash bangs, expecting to be shot at, as promised by the phrank call.
Claiming the calling the police on someone is swatting, even though US police routinely execute people unprovoked attacks, is not swatting. The difference is the intent - the intent of swatting is terrorism and murder.
select "ABOUT" and press "A" to enter about screen
Press "SELECT" button there despite that not being listed as a valid input.
I do wish I had more context from the video, but at this point, it's getting hard to imagine any good reason for Defcon to do what they did. Assuming that you weren't threatening someone in the audience or something like that. Doubtful, from the way you've been talking.
Anyway, it looks like good stuff. Wish I had some Game Boy games to try it.
Anyways, just seemed odd.
One cannot lay even a finger on another person, ever, let alone jostle someone just because they don’t like what they are saying.
It doesn’t matter if they are “security”. It’s assault and battery just the same as if I shove grandma out the way to get to the bus!