couch
[Music]
so I was evil this year and made a mud
for those who don't know the mud is a
multi-user dungeon a text-based game
go to Evil dot AF evil.af
yeah all fun now this game is different
you have to become an admin on the game
because it's hackable
and the contest is submit original
content to the game hack it live show it
to me on Friday a person who creates the
best content wins a new sealed analog
pocket
evil.af thank you
that's quick all right
so before Tour Makers come up here and
talk to you about I want to tell you
about three more of our sponsors that's
the semper SEC Fortinet and Red Canary
again you can find them out there along
all of the corridors between all of our
our sessions and toy makers here are
going to tell you about these fancy new
badges everybody have yours turned on
and ready to go
yeah you're scared to turn it on that's
probably a reasonable fear
the question is if you know where the
switch is
we had a couple that did not
all right so this year welcome to 2023
um we made 700 badges this year as you
guys may know from the previous years we
like to introduce you to concepts of
different Technologies or areas of
technology so our first year was a
three-bit xor stream Cipher built of
7400 logic our second year was a time
sharing system from the 70s third year
was phone freaking with a phone system
fourth year was paper tape
fifth year was flamingos and vending
machines
and this year we introduced the early
internet
when the internet was slow to load but
everybody had a Blog to share their
thoughts
so
um
it's everybody loves so badges are kind
of a miracle when they actually work and
so I'm going to tell you the story of
how they almost did not work
so this is actually plan B version two
because plan a due to part shortages we
couldn't Implement that and then with
plan
um B version a we were actually going to
have a screen an eeing screen that was
the size of the badge itself
but when I went to set up the purchase
order for the initial screen the vendor
essentially told me it was 150 more in
cost
and fortunately I had gotten these
screens as a sample as well and when we
did the test we also realized that
instead of a 20-second upload like
update period with the original screen
it was only going to be four seconds so
while I recognize that you guys are like
man
we're taking our time here
one early internet two they're fast
they're actually fast for eating
um okay so basic facts about this badge
it runs on a Raspberry Pi Pico normally
normal Raspberry Pi Picos have two
megabytes of eprom space this one has 16
megabytes it runs off a 200k ram
when we uploaded our files there were
116 files loaded into each badge but it
can proceed procedurally generate up to
1400 additional files
all right more scary things that happen
with this badge
so a month and a half ago we ran out of
RAM
and with 30 percent of badge functional
functionality left to implement
so whisker had to completely redo the
architecture of the code like over 10
000 lines of code I think that we had to
refactor and rewrite drivers up and down
and then a month ago I went to test the
battery to see how long two batteries
would last you know whether it lasts the
conference
I put the batteries in nothing
and I'm like we are so screwed badges
that cannot work with batteries so then
our engineer was like try three
batteries
so I tried three batteries
nothing
so
took a look at it poked prod and he said
hey
the manufacturer schematics for the
board are incorrect
so digital folks
if you look at your badge right above
the battery
you will notice a piece of fly poop
called a resistor
that had to be removed from a part of
the board and soldered with two tiny
strand wires do two pins on the chip
and that was done
three weeks ago
four weeks to 700 badges yeah
and then three weeks ago while whisker
was working on the networks deck we
realized there's something weird with
the uart where if you sent more than 80
bytes at a time it would start
corrupting the data
so in order to get the networking
working we essentially had to invent
BitTorrent on the badge
so we've got badge torrent working as
part of the networking
and I wanted to let you guys know too
that
um sometimes you guys are guinea pigs
for us
so this is whiskers first foray into
Python and micro python
so for his first project he decided to
create an operating system Network stack
character mapped Graphics programming
language called dog teeth which I used
to write the badge Adventure game a
compiler first head programming language
web browser and all of the badges
exist and every other badge
so the more badges that are on in
network mode uh the more robust this
network will be so if you're sitting at
a talk turn it in onto network mode so
it can communicate with each other and
you'll get more information
all right VIPs there are probably only
30 30 to 40 of you guys
harass them
you paid for the privilege
you have an SD card it's going to have
information and tools for doing badge
customization and a ton of documentation
on the programming language how to use
the tools the scripting markup language
this can help you design custom logos
custom websites and only VIPs have
documentation for the source code which
is open so if you're a python developer
feel free to grade the code but it works
okay it works
all right that's right
if anyone has a hard time with the UI
please come to 102b as in boy to let us
help explain it I know that sometimes
the colors might be a little difficult
to see
and also if you want to look at the
debug output of the system connect them
to a terminal at 115 200 baud
oh and whisker also created a custom
font for the badge and so all of the AI
generated badge art has been modified
with our
typeface called Tim kursky so toy makers
ski but Tim kursky
and there are ttfs for the font on the
SD card
so visit mod at entry point to customize
your name
and then come ask questions if you get
stuck and I think we've got a video
[Music]
together
they were telling me last night how many
crazy number of hours they put into this
badge it's it's I don't know how you
managed to do that 18-hour days and
um 18 hour days since December
let's discover
[Music]
foreign
[Music]
it's been years since I left the silo
I was invited to attend the conference
but now I suspect the conference is
happening outside
what is outside no one here believes
there really is in outside
[Music]
why can they not see that something is
strange
our world exists in a simulation
the simulation dangles on a lanyard
at the real conference we are only
Imaginary Friends
[Music]
are you really out there Cipher Khan
my name is Tim Tim kursky
I suspect that my world was created for
the amusement of an advanced species of
hackers
if anyone finds this recording find me
on the intricone
[Music]
thank you so much we hope you guys enjoy
the badge
thank you yes that is so much work that
goes into that thank you for all that
um last thing after the event tonight we
actually do have the uh the garcade is
happening upstairs so when at 10 o'clock
if you want to play a crapload of video
games let's do that so with that I hope
you have a great Cipher con Keynotes
coming up right now thank you very much
[Applause]
foreign
[Music]