[Defcon 15] Badge Hacking

[rabbi]

A number of people have asked me to put info about our team's badge hack up on the forums -- we'll be posting a step-by-step HOWTO, but for now, here's a link to the page where we'll put them, which currently has kingpin's poem (interpretted by the rappers "The Brothers Grimm"):

http://www.osogato.com/hacks/

I think it's also worth mentioning, for the other 39 people who picked up the Spyder development kits (the programmer that one uses to write code to the microcontroller), that the Spyder actually *comes* with an 8-pin dip version of the µc *inside* the programmer, which you have to rip out (and optionally, stomp on while cussing loudly for 3 minutes, if you've been trying to load code onto the badge for the last 30 hours). This information is buried in a manual somewhere on a CD, but otherwise unadvertised.

(I suspect that this is why there were only seven entries, and only two of those (ours and the Game of Life fellow) managed to actually load the code themselves rather than using kingpin's rig.)

Regardless, thanks much to DT and Kingpin for the badges. This was the most fun I've had with a DC contest yet.


--rabbi.

[rabbi]

Re: Badge Hacking

BTW, I'd really like to see other people who hacked their badges post links to their code here. Apparently our entry was the only hardware hack, aside from soldering on the accelerometers, etc., but I'm sure that will change as people have more time to play with the badges, so step-by-step photos of hardware hacks would be great, too.

(I'd especially like to see the code for the Game of Life that uses the accelerometer as the random seed. That hack rocked.)

[Kingpin]

Re: Badge Hacking

I'll also be hosting the various hacks along with any source code, pictures, schematics, etc. on my website somewhere at http://www.grandideastudio.com

I'm still recovering from DEFCON and haven't had a chance to sort anything out yet, but stay tuned!

I can only hope that we'll continue to have badge hacking contests for the DC badges :)

Joe

[krux]

Re: Badge Hacking

Just started tinkering around with the code now that I picked up the usb spyder to update the code, etc... Goto statements... in C code... good god man.

rabbi, good call on the bit about pulling the chip out. I'd get it to send the code, and the badge would mysteriously not get updated. Eventually I decided to look at the pdf, and saw that note one one of the pages.

Seriously though Kingpin, nice job on the badges.