Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

[blakdayz]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

<SNIP>
out here, in the open, where everyone knows and sees where everyone else stands... that's where I like these talks to happen. (I do wish pyr0 had the free time to chat with us on the forums here, though)

<summon>
***rubs the magic keyboard***
.... pyr0 ... pyr0 ... pyr0 ...
</summon>

[eris]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

Some good stuff going on in here. Black badge has become a hard subject for everyone and the size of the convention is really making them almost unmanageable. Good talks going on here however.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

Black badge has become a hard subject for everyone and the size of the convention is really making them almost unmanageable.

i'm wondering if there's any good parallel between Black Badges and, say, Bitcoin.

Back in 2010 & 2011 it was relatively easy to acquire Bitcoin. Nowadays, however, there is perhaps some element of chagrin or disappointment for people with the notion of "oh, man, if only i had started mining BTC back a few years ago" etc etc. I can see a lot of DEFCON attendees now saying to themselves, "geez... those folk back years ago had it so easy when getting Black Badges."

i don't know if there's an universal solution to this. and i don't know if it's really a legitimate goal, to attempt to make things more egalitarian. but i'd be fine with every passing DEFCON, about another 20 or so people were earning Black Badges. i would really see nothing wrong with that. if we allowed this to happen back when only 2000 to 5000 people were attending the con, why is it suddenly a problem when we have 10,000+ people attending the con?

[Pyr0]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

Lots of stuff being said here so instead of dealing with each charge / question on it's own I will post a summary and then start answering questions from there.

Black badges:
1. Black badge events are recommended by me and approved by Dark Tangent - for the record we usually have to go back and forth a few times before we come to a consensus but DT has the final word on both the events that receive the Black badge and the number of badges they get.

2. Black badge events are selected based upon the amount of time/challenge a human will need to spend or overcome to win the event. Events that take place on a single day and may only take a few hours to play RARELY qualify for a black badge. Most of the time, if a contest takes a human 2+ days of the con and presents an adequate challenge it will qualify to POTENTIALLY be a black badge C&E.

3. Black badge events change from year to year - just because you were a black badge the year before doesn't mean it's going to happen the following year. This year we dealt with several people/events/contests lying, pressuring, whining, and bitching about how they were "promised" that they would be a black badge event. Those issues were corrected, appeased, or told to pound sand. I want to be very clear about this issue because this flexibility will not be granted to anyone in the future. Dark Tangent and I (Pyr0) are the ONLY people who can tell you that you will be a black badge. If we haven't told you that you are a Black Badge you AREN'T A BLACK BADGE.

4. Black Badge = Entry to DEF CON forever (forever = DEF CON or YOU Dies . . . whichever one happens first)

5. Human Badge = Entry to DEF CON once

Official / Unofficial:
1. Official Events are define as multi-year, well supported (both staff / human attendance), well received, event, contest, or village.
2. Unofficial Events are usually single year, new ideas, or something that we can't support by name due to legal, community, or other issue - But we see a potential for it to benefit the community as a whole.

- Official events can also apply and if approved receive support for their event. With that said, it's important to remember that just because you ask for hotel rooms, badges, a beer budget, blow up sheep, etc. doesn't mean that we can provide it to you. We try our best to be fair balanced and act in the best interest of the community, but our budget is VERY tight and has to be spent on needs not wants. You have to remember that we run a very tight ship to keep ticket prices low.

Other:
1. During the last 2 years I have started awarding human badges (good for the following year) to most of the official contests / events that aren't black badge events to help improve their prize pool and to try and help even things out.

Any questions?
Pyr0

[kallahar]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

Thanks for the clarifications! My only recommendation would be to try to make the decision rather early, so that the teams competing (especially if they have to do prep work well before con) know what to expect.

Kallahar

[Salem]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

... so that the teams competing (especially if they have to do prep work well before con) know what to expect.

I can agree with that. Some contests take little to no pre-con prep work other than general skill acquisition, others take a significant amount of planning and prep before getting to Vegas. Knowing if the prize is a black badge could definitely make the work feel more worthwhile. At the same time I still have to agree with the notion of competing because you want to compete, winning because you're the best, and if a black badge comes your way then you know you earned it.

[mauvehed]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

<summon>
***rubs the magic keyboard***
.... pyr0 ... pyr0 ... pyr0 ...
</summon>

You have to do that in the mirror with the lights and your pants off.

[TheCotMan]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

My only recommendation would be to try to make the decision rather early, so that the teams competing (especially if they have to do prep work well before con) know what to expect.

I see advantages to that.

How do you feel about disadvantages:
* Once people know their contest is not a black badge contest, they walk away, so they can attend talks, parties, or socialize with other people.
* If enough people/teams do this, some games will be cut short with default winners, and some games can be broken if scoring requires people to keep playing in order to compute scores.

Consider Scavenger hunt... if a team recognized they were in third place, and find out there is no black badge, they could decide that screw-over the team in first place by donating all their found items to the team in second place. This is a kind of hacking of the rules of a game, and has been allowed before. End result? A winning team could be a team selected by the disgruntled, allowing the team that worked the hardest (on their own) to lose to a team that was selected as a winner by other teams.

This is one example, and the Scavenger Hunt has changed "owners" twice (IIRC) since that abuse of rules happened, with a super-sized union of many teams as winner. Other contests may have similar problems.

From my point of view, if people are playing just to win a badge, and they decided to quit, that is up to them. People should be allowed to start/stop any contest whenever they want. That is not the issue. The issue is the result of announcing black badge events before contests end. Is that result enough of a problem to make announcing contest winner before closing ceremonies better than announcing them after all contests have ended?

[kallahar]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

Well, I think it's important to make that decision before con. Keeping it secret or trying to judge at con who "deserves" the badge is just setting the system up for abuse by "popular" or "connected" people who "know DT".

Of course, that can happen before con, but at least the decision isn't made during the stress of con itself.

Kallahar

[yamamushi]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

Consider Scavenger hunt... if a team recognized they were in third place, and find out there is no black badge, they could decide that screw-over the team in first place by donating all their found items to the team in second place. This is a kind of hacking of the rules of a game, and has been allowed before. End result? A winning team could be a team selected by the disgruntled, allowing the team that worked the hardest (on their own) to lose to a team that was selected as a winner by other teams.

This is one example, and the Scavenger Hunt has changed "owners" twice (IIRC) since that abuse of rules happened, with a super-sized union of many teams as winner. Other contests may have similar problems.

My team has won Scavenger Hunt 5 years since DC14, and not once have we ever had this happen or even considered attempting it. My team worked their asses off this year, and we didn't cheat to stay in the lead as much as we did. We took shifts sleeping, and were up for the ~72 hours of Defcon running around the hotel or Vegas to gather everything we could. The only reason we were able to do this is because we prepared ahead of time, which is something most scavenger hunt teams never do.

Anyone see those PedoCrunch pins that were being passed around this year? I was the one who designed and had them made as our team logo (our team name was "Too Old for Crunch").

We were the ones that got this video recorded, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaW-opIh7GE , and I wish I could talk about some of the cooler things we've accomplished.

We play scavenger hunt because we like getting involved in so many different parts of Defcon every year, and the contest items often encourage getting involved in other Defcon contests and events. Though more and more, it feels like scavenger hunt and some of the older contests are getting dismissed without any clear communication.

Regardless of all of that, we'll still keep playing year after year even if it's not a black badge event.

[b0n3z]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

I apologize as this will be long and responding to multiple posts....

The problem with this (and I really don't know how to get past it) is that I don't know how you make the change at this point. You can't really "revoke" the free admission for life from the people that already have won that and to try to say "ok, black badges up through DC21 are free admission for life, but DC22 and after don't get it" is a logistical nightmare for registration that isn't feasible.

Shouldn't be in my opinion. You should have a handle or some kind of "proof" (probably video) to say THESE winners are eligible. The rest will get X (x=whatever is decided)

1. prefer the prestige of having a black badge? wear it around the con instead of using it at Reg

As a 4 year attender of defcon, the last 3 gooning, I've only ever laid eyes on this years black badge as a couple of the goons were not only presented with them (noid and londo) but a couple others won them (jake23 and phreck). With that, I'd say wearing them as a proper badge INSTEAD of the human badge, that would present a problem as security. We have to check badges to gain entry. Yes there are multiple badge checkers of varying experience, but whose to say you don't fake the badge or even run into a set of goons who have not been gooning long enough to know it's a legit badge? Just my .02 on that brother.

I also don't agree that "once black badge, always black badge" makes sense. I am not referring to your contest(s) here...but...what happens when a contest's quality goes to shit? What happens if a contest is awesome and gets a black badge but then the organizers of that contest change and the new organizers can't even spell organization and the contest becomes crap. Who is supposed to keep track of changes in contest organizers?

That would be of course the personnel at defcon who are in charge of that. I would say keeping an overall contest a black badge, until contest organizers change, wouldn't be a bad rule.

Or maybe keep the badge as an award, like the hacker olympic type of award. Who gave the most moving talk? Who made Defcon something that was not to be missed?

This could EASILY get to become a good 'ol boys club. Not to say that anyone in defcon staff WOULD allow this, but because the community is so small and the speakers, who tend to be some of the same people yearly, could speak again the next year....it's definitely a possibility that someone on the "voting" council or whatever would say oh X is speaking again? Let's just give it to him.

And all black badges should be non-transferable.

Couldn't agree more! The alternate would be, the person who has 2, 3, 10 black badges would claim all 10 human that year and then hand them out to his friends, which is also not appropriate in my opinion but if they've won that many badges, their choice until someone like DT says stop it.

2. Saving money versus showing leetness - letting the attendee choose may be best. When they arrive, they can turn their Black Badge in temporarily to Reg for a human badge that year (saving money) or purchase their own human badge and wear their Black Badge with it around the con (showing leetness)

3. What contest gets a Black Badge - once a contest becomes established and the powers that be of DEFCON declare something official, that would be the way something is declared as Black Badge worthy. Official status isn't guaranteed year-to-year, but re-evaluated. If the same leadership is in place and there are not major changes happening to a contest, it would likely remain official. If it is handed off to a wholly new team running things or something new is being tried.... it can revert to unofficial status that time around.

4. When to Announce - There are difficulties with this, but i strongly support announcing which contests are official (and thus Black Badge being awarded) before the start of DEFCON. (either by Thursday or perhaps even in the program if advance planning is possible)

5. Big Teams - One contest: one Black Badge. That is a rule i'd surely support. Teams choose on their own who gets the Black Badge (and with enough advance notice as in point 4) and the rest of the folk get free Human access the next year.

Agreed on all points!!!

That was a pretty harsh personal attack. Personally I prefer discussions out in public rather than trusting secret back-room deals.

Kallahar

YEP.

I can't say the same for you. You're very much in the same category, but it's worse when you do it, since you're a goon.

I'm confused by this highwiz. Are we (kallahar and I), as goons, not able to state something that we feel but expect it to be taken differently because we ARE goons? If we are not talking FOR defcon, which none of us can do officially nor would any of us do as it's stupid, then take it as such. Our opinions. I could be reading it wrong and taking it more personal then should be....if so apologies.

"Official" vs "Unofficial" is definitely getting blurred. Toxic BBQ is unofficial. Yet it has been listed in the schedule and people often give attitude to the organizers that "they already paid defcon admission, why do I need to donate money for this?" indicating a general confusion as well. If some clarification of that could be arranged, for all concerned, it would help-.

You hear more and see more then I do eris because you've done this longer and more people love you. If I, who is ONLY a cook for the toxic bbq and do not have any official capacity for the toxic bbq, heard someone raising a fit about it AT the bbq, I'd be quick to tear into them. Londo and now Grave Robber...digger..., don't remember the exact handle at this moment, have put a lot of time and effort into it. They give up their personal cash to fund the bbq which is obviously offsite, which means it isn't sponsored by defcon, and all they ask for is donations to try and break even and to support the cooks and other people who help. (We as cooks see NONE of that money and I don't ask to EVER be paid for it. The amount I have/will learned bbq'ing for it is never going to stop and I can't thank everyone enough who give me the chance! I believe this year one of the donation announcements was something along the lines of, if you enjoy the food and drinks then please donate as we have all taken our own money to bring this event. If you like the cooks please donate to help them keep cooking. etc...)

That was very rambling but long story short, if you don't want to support something that isn't official and complain because you paid admission so you should get in free to it.....fuck off.

see, THAT I would consider a much more dick move... trying to use my personal friendships with the staff to gain a little suction and advance my own contest's status and give my winners special treatment.

I'm close with pyr0 and most of his team, I'm on good terms with Jeff, etc. But, to me, DEFCON is now way to big and contests have too much riding on the line for anyone to broker backroom deals... it's a recipe for ill feelings (not to mention everyone trying to bend the core team's collective ears) and smacks of a sort of nepotism to me.

out here, in the open, where everyone knows and sees where everyone else stands... that's where I like these talks to happen. (I do wish pyr0 had the free time to chat with us on the forums here, though)

THIS so hard deviant! No back stage behind the scenes bs.

Some good stuff going on in here. Black badge has become a hard subject for everyone and the size of the convention is really making them almost unmanageable. Good talks going on here however.

I wonder if jeff has looked into making a team solely FOR black badges? Might not be a bad idea for defcon since it is getting so big...

Back in 2010 & 2011 it was relatively easy to acquire Bitcoin. Nowadays, however, there is perhaps some element of chagrin or disappointment for people with the notion of "oh, man, if only i had started mining BTC back a few years ago" etc etc. I can see a lot of DEFCON attendees now saying to themselves, "geez... those folk back years ago had it so easy when getting Black Badges."

Excellent comparison in my opinion...

1. Black badge events are recommended by me and approved by Dark Tangent - for the record we usually have to go back and forth a few times before we come to a consensus but DT has the final word on both the events that receive the Black badge and the number of badges they get.

Have you thought of creating a group or team for this? Maybe you oversee but have others look at the overall contest and make recommendations before sending them to jeff? Just a thought...

2. Black badge events are selected based upon the amount of time/challenge a human will need to spend or overcome to win the event. Events that take place on a single day and may only take a few hours to play RARELY qualify for a black badge. Most of the time, if a contest takes a human 2+ days of the con and presents an adequate challenge it will qualify to POTENTIALLY be a black badge C&E.

That REALLY makes me curious why scav hunt isn't almost if not always a black badge....just my curiosity brother.

3. Black badge events change from year to year - just because you were a black badge the year before doesn't mean it's going to happen the following year. This year we dealt with several people/events/contests lying, pressuring, whining, and bitching about how they were "promised" that they would be a black badge event. Those issues were corrected, appeased, or told to pound sand. I want to be very clear about this issue because this flexibility will not be granted to anyone in the future. Dark Tangent and I (Pyr0) are the ONLY people who can tell you that you will be a black badge. If we haven't told you that you are a Black Badge you AREN'T A BLACK BADGE.

Again, maybe having a team with overall authority be you and DT....

4. Black Badge = Entry to DEF CON forever (forever = DEF CON or YOU Dies . . . whichever one happens first)

What about what was mentioned with people giving their badges to others?

5. Human Badge = Entry to DEF CON once

BUT YOU AND DT AND NIKITA AND UHHHH...PEOPLE PROMISED A HUMAN BADGE WAS GOOD FOR LIFE!!!! I WANT A REFUND FOR ALL THE YEARS I DIDN'T ATTEND!!!

Official / Unofficial:
1. Official Events are define as multi-year, well supported (both staff / human attendance), well received, event, contest, or village.
2. Unofficial Events are usually single year, new ideas, or something that we can't support by name due to legal, community, or other issue - But we see a potential for it to benefit the community as a whole.

I would like to ask why toxic bbq hasn't been seen as an official event. I understand if it was never asked is the answer, but with the amount of support people give to it AND the fact that many people have voiced for it to not only be on site to attract people, but also to ensure good eating can be had....

Anyone see those PedoCrunch pins that were being passed around this year? I was the one who designed and had them made as our team logo (our team name was "Too Old for Crunch").

I was able to get one of those pins and they are awesome! I was a sniper for the SE contest and some of the kids saw them and IMMEDIATELY knew what they were, why they were, and laughed. Some others immediately backed away thinking I was fond of the pedobear scene/theme and I laughed and just told them and the parents it was a hacker inside joke. Luckily security didn't get called on me cause, being security, they'd have had fun with it I'm sure.

Though more and more, it feels like scavenger hunt and some of the older contests are getting dismissed without any clear communication.

I have heard this from more then just you and agree that since scav hunt has been going on as long as it has....it's definitely more deserving. That being said, I work to much to participate and engage as much as I'd like so that's my uninformed .02.

[blueAlien]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

Not that I'm anybody whose opinion matters on this, but that's never stopped me from giving my 2¢. Keep the black badges largely as they are: a prestige bragging right, and a financial reward. Free admission for life if you don't want to wear it around the con. Screw trying to say they're non-transferrable: it'd be impossible to enforce without compromising DC's way of doing things and if you're good enough to earn more than one black badge, then you're good enough to get your friend in for free too. But to that end, black badge contests should be contests that take skill, and skill that's related to hacking. CTF: obviously. Tamper evident: sure. Deviant's awesome locksport contests: yep! Beverage cooling, FPS games, short stories, and the like: sorry, but I don't really think it's deserving.

tl;dr I got off topic; keep black badges as rare prizes worth something.

I do agree that Black Badges should be for hacking only related contests. I would include TeamFortress only if game hacking is part of winning. Potentially even something for DCKids if whatever earns the badge is really freaking awesome! ScavHunt maybe, if it required the use of social engineering... Not to mention those already listed. Which ever contests are picked for Black Badges should also remain the same each year, with very little variation (since new contests might change this to some degree).

If a contest doesn't get a Black Badge, then the person running it should find a suitable prize for the amount of work involved, such as what 10,000c Pyramid has done. There a lots of ideas that could provide suitable rewards for contests: free beer, party admittance, hotel voucher, gift cards, etc. Hell, I would do the ScavHunt even if it did not get a Black Badge, just because that sounds extremely fun! I think your biggest problem is not advertising the contests enough so that attendees know when and where they are happening, or what the restrictions are. If you want to not have a feast/famine situation, only allow a certain number of entries on Black Badge contests. CTF has to be PRE-QUALIFIED to participate!

I do think there should be an honorary Black Badge given away to people who have become "Legendary" in the community. Maybe do one a year for a while, and then once "caught up", only do it when a Legend is born... For example, Cap'n Crunch, should get one because without the work he did back in the day, there's not telling what the hacker community would be like today. I would think Kevin Mitnik has earned his Black Badge as well. The most fair way to do this would be by community submissions and a goon vote for final selection.

Finally, don't change how they work. Free admission for life, because you're a badass! Honestly though, if I ever received a Black Badge, I would still continue to purchase a badge each year. Mainly for two reasons, an "I was there" token and I still want to support the event so it can happen next year.

[b0n3z]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

I do think there should be an honorary Black Badge given away to people who have become "Legendary" in the community. Maybe do one a year for a while, and then once "caught up", only do it when a Legend is born... For example, Cap'n Crunch, should get one because without the work he did back in the day, there's not telling what the hacker community would be like today. I would think Kevin Mitnik has earned his Black Badge as well. The most fair way to do this would be by community submissions and a goon vote for final selection.

Multiple feelings about this...

1. Pedo Crunch DOES NOT deserve one! This is only MY opinion but fuck no! It is bad enough having to keep him away from kidcon. Just fuck him.

2. Mitnick, really? Fuck him as well.

3. It sounds like you'd essentially be doing a who can break the law and then get away with it to get a black badge contest almost.

[Dark Tangent]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

I've been lurking on this thread for a while. It's really cathartic to watch everyone work through the issues we've had to consider each year.

I agree with much of what has been said, and there will be a change for DC 22 to the way black badges are managed. Pyro and I will announce well in advance what contests get black badges this year, and we'll put together a Black Badge FAQ (And also try to make a list of all the hackers who have been awarded them that can be public)

Back to lurking..

[astcell]

Re: Official vs. Unofficial contests, and which get Black Badges?

If we're going to do honorary black badges we need to include Star Wars Kid, Edward Snowden, etc.