DCSG1 - The DEF CON Singapore Badge Presentation - Michael Schloh, Joyce Ng, Dani Weidman
Source: YouTube · DEFCONConference · published Sep 30, 2026 · 25:41
The DEF CON Singapore 1 badge team introduces their inaugural electronic badge—shipped under extreme time pressure—with infrared laser tag, BLE color zones, and a hidden puzzle 0:30.
Key Takeaways:
• Charge nightly via USB-C; transport it powered off in its protective box so metal objects can't short the exposed circuits 2:10
• A "mission impossible": hardware confirmed April 6, badges shipped from Shenzhen April 20, and all 2,677 arrived April 23—firmware still being flashed the night before 5:58
• Laser tag uses a safe IR LED (no real lasers), five team colors, a 15-minute cooldown per player, and an online team scoreboard 11:32
• Scoring uses ~15 base stations and ESP-Now: badges store hits and transmit every 30 seconds, trading live scoring for reliability 15:05
• It uses the open Open Laser standard (modified NEC protocol, Arduino/MicroPython libraries) so attendees can build compatible hardware 16:28
• "Color flooding": base stations double as BLE beacons that recolor badges per village, with ~15 zones planned 18:36
• 16 RGB LEDs run at ~80fps via the libneon library; schematics are at media.defcon.org, and Colin O'Flynn's hidden puzzle—guaranteed unsolvable—awaits 20:00
A deeper technical session follows, and the team invites attendees to the cryptocurrency village for tips and workshops 1:46.
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First 800 characters of the transcript
Morning, DEF CON Singapore. Please help me welcome welcoming Michael Slow and the badge team to the DEF CON stage. They will be speaking about the introduction version of hacking the very first DEF CON Singapore badge. In an hour, there will be the hardcore version next. So, welcome. >> [applause] >> Okay, guys. Hello. Uh my name is Michael. Michael and I'm here to introduce the DEF CON Singapore 1 badge design team. And it is in place number one, it's Dennis from uh RRG Group, right? Singapore Dennis. And we have Danny, who is responsible for the the laser tag application that we're going to demonstrate later. And we have as well Arjan, okay? So, there's other people involved um who are not on the stage um and we had a lot of help. We got really lucky with a really strong team. Um but thi…