#and he grills Team Skull for what they did OFF SCREEN. they couldn’t even give us THAT.

[fujii-draws]

OKAY! Chatot rant in tags below! Read at your own discretion.

[jennygirl2014]

Raven-Chapter 7

Chapter Summary: Raven gets interrogated by Nick Fury, who is trying to decide whether or not she can be trusted to return to SHIELD. Raven has to make a decision, take the deal while it’s on the table, or find herself in jail.

Warnings: language

           Fury stood in the front of the room, eying Raven, and she sat there shackled to the chair and eyed him right back.  He slowly approached the chair that was across from her and sat down, both of them feeling a sudden weight from each other’s close presence.  He set a box down on the table with several cords attached to it.  For several seconds they sat there and did not speak, daring the other one to open their mouth first.  Fury was the first one to break the ice. 

“Raven…” he growled her name in disgust.

“Fury…” she returned the greeting.

“I’d like to say it’s good to see you again, but due to the circumstances I just can’t make that statement.” His demeanor was very dark and angry.  Raven shrugged.

“Well, you know…” she wasn’t fazed by his comment.  He pulled the cords from the box and stretched them out to Raven’s hands, there were small finger clips at the ends.  She had expected him to pull out the lie detector, and of course he didn’t disappoint.  She smirked and put her hands forward, allowing him to put the tiny clamps on both pointer fingers.  

“Right now, the agents in the other room are recording our conversation.  I am going to ask you a series of questions, of which you will answer, and you will resist the urge to open your mouth for any other reason you may think of.” He demanded her cooperation.  

“Alright.” She agreed without showing any aversion.  Fury sat there quiet for a moment, and Raven patiently waited for him to start interrogating her.  

“State you name.” he said it as if it were a command.  Raven gave him a funny look.  “Name, agent.” He tried again.

“This is bullshit.” She chuckled at his formal approach.

“State your name!” he raised his voice.  She sat back in her chair and sighed, figuring it was best just to go along with the motions.

“Celeste Nevara Simon.” She gave in.

“Identification.”

“Agent 217.”

“Alias?” he kept firing off the questions.  A smirk crossed her face.

“Raven.”

“Raven, do you know what you have been accused of?”

“Yes, I am aware.”

“Will you state it for the record?”

“I was conducting matters and affiliating myself with Hydra while I was a part of SHIELD.”

“You are also accused of killing five SHIELD agents.” He paused, “What is your response to these accusations?”  Raven simply shrugged and didn’t speak.  “Did you, or did you not, kill those agents?” Raven swallowed and answered quietly.

“Two of them, yes.” It was the first time she had admitted it to anyone.  Fury’s face grew colder.

“Why did you kill them?”

“Because they found out who I was.  I couldn’t afford to be exposed like that.” And there was a moment of silence, “If it means anything, I really am truly and deeply sorry that I did it.  And I do regret my actions.”

“I’m sure their families would sleep better at night knowing you feel that way.” He gave a sharp and sarcastic remark.  “How long have you been involved with Hydra?” he questioned more.  She drew in a long deep breath, filling her lungs while trying to search her brain for the answer.  It had been too long to recall correctly.

She shook her head, “Many years.” She said it regretfully.  “My parents were Hydra, and so were their parents.  I didn’t choose it so much as it chose me.” She tried to explain.  Fury stayed stiff in his seat.

“Were you aware of other members of Hydra being involved with SHIELD?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know that our strike and insight team were Hydra?”

“Yes, but not all of them were.”

“Are there any members of Hydra that were also involved with SHIELD that are still under directive after Project Insight?”

She paused, “Yes, there are still several members of Hydra in play.  A few of your strike and insight guys are still alive and following Hydra.  But none of them are currently in SHIELD.”

“How do I know I can trust that statement?” he questioned her.  She nodded at the small machine in front of them.

“Well what does that say?” she tried to convince him she was being honest.  He glanced down at the machine to read its screen and then back up at her, no comment came from his mouth.  “Does it say I’m lying?”

“I will ask the questions here, Agent.” He reminded her very sternly.  She straightened her posture and waited for him to grill her even more. “How were you involved with Project Insight?”

“I actually had nothing to do with that.  That was all Pierce.  And for reasons I don’t feel obliged to state right now, we weren’t on good terms and I was steering far clear of him and his bullshit.  Notice whenever he was in town, I was gone.  Now I did know it was going to happen, I do admit that, but I did not have my hands in that task.” Fury furrowed his brow at her.

“Who were those people that were found in the building?  The ones responsible for the bomb in the civilian residence.”

“Hydra.” She stated it sharply.

“We are aware that you were the one who managed to help the civilians escape, but are you responsible for the deaths of those Hydra members?”

“Yes I am.” She held her head high and proud “Aren’t you proud of me?  I took initiative and handled that one on my own.  You’re welcome.” Fury didn’t find her humorous.

“What do you know about the Winter Soldier?”

“Nothing, I know of him, but I was not at all involved with that project.  They kept me as uniformed as possible.”

“Why was that?” the question was more out of his own curiosity than for the purposes of the interview.  

“I think it was in case they wanted to kill me.” She said very directly. The look on Fury’s face showed a lack of compassion.  “I’m serious. That’s just how things work.”  

“Pierce was killed last year during the attempted launch of Project Insight.  That being the case, how is Hydra still organized?” Raven couldn’t help but to chuckle a little.

“Pierce was just another highly ranked asshole in the bunch.  Hydra was never run by one man alone.  But after his death they decided it would be best to divide the power and expand a little further, now there are several divisions of Hydra all over, each one has a leader.  They realized keeping all their eggs in one basket just wasn’t going to work out too well.” She elaborated.  The expression on Fury’s face slowly changed to worry.

“Are you insinuating that SHIELD is outnumbered by Hydra?” his voice raised slightly.

“I’m not insinuating, I am flat out telling you that, yes, there are thousands upon thousands out there still.  Your operation is a mere fraction of what they have.”

“Were you a highly ranked asshole in one of these divisions?” He played back her words and Raven snorted with laughter, she welcomed the confrontation that was threatening.  

“I was an important player, I will admit.  I had some authority.  But no, I was not ever a leader of any division.”

“What division were you a part of?”

“I was never part of any specific division. I mostly went from one to the next and made sure things were running smoothly. The last one I went to, I ended up cracking some skulls, so to speak.”

“Who was the leader of that division?”

“Georges Batroc.” Fury’s expression changed slightly. There was a look in his eye of astonishment, and maybe another dose of humility came into play.  “I know you know of Batroc.  After the whole hostages on the launch ship scenario and blah, blah, blah…”

“Are you telling me Georges Batroc is a leader of Hydra?”

“He was, very shortly after Pierce died he climbed the ranks.  I’m not exactly sure when he joined, but he was on board.  Until I killed him, of course.” Raven linked her fingers together and rested them on the table.  She reached out a finger to point at the lie detector in front of her. “How am I doing so far?”  She was growing bored of the whole situation.  

“How did you escape from Agent Romanoff and Captain Rogers when you were apprehended in Quebec?” he ignored her remark and shot the million-dollar question she had been waiting for.  Raven bit her lip with a slight grin on her face, knowing somewhere Steve was probably listening and sweating bullets.

“A girl never reveals her secrets.” She said it very quietly, keeping the grin across her lips. Fury stared her down.  “I plead the fifth.” She continued to evade answering him.

“I would strongly suggest you give me some sort of answer.” He replied.  Raven tilted her head.

“I promised I wouldn’t go into any more detail other than the fact that I slipped out through a window sometime early in the morning.  That’s all I have to say about that.” Her grin was now a full smile. She had managed to keep her promise.

“Do you have any other important information you can relay to me at this time?”

“Anything you want to know. Just keep firing away.” She stayed in a humored spirit.  Fury sat back and his eyes went down onto his lap.

“You seem awfully content giving up all of this Hydra intel. Is there any particular reason?”

Her tone changed dramatically, “I don’t want to be a part of Hydra anymore.” She admitted, sounding as sincere as she possibly could.  Fury sighed and kept a straight face before continuing.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t have you locked up for the rest of your life?” he almost sounded like he was asking an honest question, and not so much giving her a rhetorical remark.  There was a cool sweat forming on the back of Raven’s neck, signaling that even though she would never admit it, her nerves were getting the best of her.  She would have rather been dead than be locked away for that long.  She licked her lips and turned her head to the left, looking at her reflection in the mirrored wall.  But she focused on what was behind her reflection on the other side, ears and eyes judging her and preparing to discuss her fate, and that included the man whom she had just argued with before Fury came in.  “Raven?” he brought her back into the present.  She turned back and looked at Fury.

“I can’t.” she breathed, “Because in all honesty, you should.  And I wouldn’t blame you.  I know what I’ve done.  But I can tell by your stalling that you have something else in mind.” Fury at first was in shock by her admission, but something close to a smirk crossed his face.  “And I’m thinking I am not going to like it at all.” Fury let out a low chuckle and dug into his pocket.  He pulled out a newspaper clipping and slapped it down on the table.  Raven leaned over to read it.  It was an article with the heading “Mystery Heroine Saves Civilians from Burning Building”, and she saw what appeared to be a picture of her, taken as she was climbing the wall with the little boy on her back.  Fury put his index finger firmly on the article.

“Hydra now knows you are here.  And you know as well as I do, they are going to be looking for you.  And we both know what they are going to do to you when they find you…” his voice was dark and grim.   “Luckily for you, I’m a little more forgiving.”

“Are you?” she questioned his motives.

“We can offer you protection.” He tried to level with her, “And in exchange…I will give you the chance to redeem yourself.  But I promise you, I will not make it easy on you.  And if you put a single toe out of place…if you even think about going against my orders…I will have your ass locked up until you draw your last breath. Do you understand?”  Raven sneered.

“You’re offering to protect me from Hydra?  In exchange for my loyalty?” she was offended.  “You know what this is about?  I’ll tell you what it’s about.  The truth is you need me a lot more than I need you!” she began to spout off, “I have access to all of Hydra’s intel and operations, and you want to use me to get ahead, or at least even out the playing field.  Why the hell should I agree to help you?” Fury sat there with his arms crossed, letting her bark on.  “You hunt me down, you sent your biggest dog after me,” she was referring to Steve, “And then you ask me to sign over my life to you?  You can take that deal and shove it up your ass!”

“It’s either this…or prison. You’re lucky I don’t have you killed.”

“Oh, spare me!” her face was starting to turn a shade of red.

“You need to think about the situation you have put yourself in.” Fury stopped her tantrum from hitting full swing, “You dared to play both sides, which is a very dangerous game. You chose to play with fire, and now you’ve got yourself burnt.  You have done wrong by both SHIELD and Hydra and you are lucky you are still alive to be sitting here in front of me right now.  And you know that.” Raven grit her teeth and huffed.  “There are thousands right now that would like to see you lying dead somewhere.  You have made yourself very unpopular.  And you are damn lucky that I am offering you this once in a lifetime opportunity.  But the offer ends here.  It’s yes or no.  You’re either with us or against us.” And he paused, “It’s either my way, or no way. And if you don’t choose my way, I can assure you I will do everything in my power to make sure that you never see the light of day again, and that you are left with absolutely nothing except four stone walls and a bucket in a corner to shit in.  So, what will it be, Raven?”

“Screw you.” She muttered in his direction.  Fury slowly stood from his chair.

“I’ll give you a minute to think it over.” And he swiftly walked out of the room.  Raven sat there with hot blood coursing through her veins and her heart racing.  There were no words to describe the amount of rage boiling inside of her.  She slammed her fist down on the metal table and the hit echoed in the room.  She didn’t want to go to prison, but in her mind working for Fury again was no different than being a prisoner.

           Agent Hill swiftly made her way into the viewing room and stood next to Natasha and Steve.  She peered in at Raven who still sat strapped into her chair.  She stood silently next to them until Fury came through the door and stood facing the three agents.  He sighed, his face showed signs of distress and mental exhaustion from grilling the stone cold, unwilling, foul woman in the other room.  He directed his attention to agent Hill.  “Did the other agents come to a verdict?”

“It’s divided but not by much.” Hill informed him, “Twenty of them want nothing to do with her and agree that she should be sent to jail.  Only five of them are willing to take a chance.” It was a sad fact that Fury had only managed to scrounge up 25 field agents at the time, not even remotely close to the number he had before the insight incident.  Fury knew times were tough for SHIELD, so tough that he was willing to take the risk.  

“What do you think?” Fury asked Hill.  She drew in a deep breath and looked at Raven again.

“I don’t think we can trust her.” She said it with an uneasy tone.  “She was always hard to keep track of before, and now we can’t afford to take those chances.” Fury nodded and then turned to Natasha.  He didn’t even have to ask her about her opinion before she chimed in.

“I say let her rot in prison.  If she really hates the idea that much, ghost her.” Her words were bitter and laced with angst.  “We don’t need her kind of crazy here.  And calling her crazy is putting it lightly.” Fury eyed Natasha with disapproval and crossed his arms.

“Natasha, put yourself in my shoes for a minute.” He started very gently, “I only have a handful of field agents, and some of them barely know how to handle a gun.  You three are the finest I have.” In a round the bush sort of way he complimented Natasha, Hill and Steve.  “But I could use another capable person in this operation.  Yes, she can seem a little bit…unstable,” he tried to find the right word, “And she’s difficult.  But she is one of the best agents to ever be recruited.” Natasha rolled her eyes, “We could use her.  She has potential.  If we can keep her on a tight enough leash and not give her the opportunity to step out of bounds…this could work.”

“I disagree.” Natasha quickly replied.

“I know you and Raven don’t exactly see eye to eye.  And you two have a bumpy history, but you have to put that aside.  For the sake of SHIELD.” His eyes burned into her, and she went quiet.  Steve stood on the sidelines, curious about what the story was behind Natasha and Raven, but he knew it wasn’t the time to ask.  Fury then directed his attention onto him.

“Captain Rogers?” he finally asked him.

           He was put in a tough spot, standing there with eyes and ears on him and a mix of emotions in the room.  He understood why Natasha and Hill wouldn’t want Raven on board, and he understood why Fury was hesitant but willing to give it a try.  They all had some sort of history with Raven, but his was a lot more complicated.  When he first met her she was one person, and later on he discovered she was a completely different person.  He had feelings for her at one point, and then tossed those feelings aside when he found out the truth, but things only got more complicated after that night in Quebec, and to add to that he had let her walk away in Russia.  Fury could never know about him letting her go when he found her, and he could absolutely never know what happened between them, it was bad enough that Natasha knew.  He was worried that if he said something wrong, even in the slightest, he would be found out.  On the other hand, he didn’t want to see Raven locked up for the rest of her life. He had to wonder, should he be quiet and not put his reputation on the line, or try to spare Raven?

“I think we should give her a chance.” He finally found words.  Natasha scoffed at him.

“Of course you do.” She spoke up, and he prayed that was the extent of her dispute.  Fury gave him a curious eye.

“Why do you think that?” he asked, suspiciously.  Steve looked to his right and saw Raven sitting, and he swore at that second he could feel her anxiety hitting him through the glass.  He knew she would never own up to it, but she had to have been terrified.  The truth was he pitied her, and he wasn’t sure why.  She had argued with him that he was incapable of letting go of who he thought she was, and maybe she was right.  But maybe it was the other way around, maybe she could learn to change.  He decided to put his bet on that possibility, that maybe Raven really could change.  

“She’s got a lot of talent.” He spoke very calmly, still looking at her through the window.  “I know she’s done a lot of things she shouldn’t have, and she was involved with Hydra, but if she says she wants out of it then maybe we should believe her.  Maybe she can change.” He saw her turn and her eyes fell onto him, and even though he knew she couldn’t see him, he felt as if she was searching for his help.  “If we keep a close eye on her and don’t give her the opportunity to slip, maybe she can make a difference.  She knows far more about Hydra than any of us do.” The room was silent.

“Is that truly how you feel?” Fury asked him, and he nodded.

“I think she could help us.” And he realized he had to address the other side of things, “Yes, she’s a criminal, and she’s hurt a lot of people, and if she does do anything that could compromise SHIELD then absolutely, put her in jail for the rest of her life.  But let’s at least give her that chance.”

“I think you’re crazy.” Natasha spoke up again.

“She’s a threat.  And everybody knows that.  That could do great things for us.” Steve took a tactical approach.

“I actually kind of agree with Rogers.” Hill spoke up again.  Natasha’s jaw dropped open at the fact that now the other woman in the room was entertaining the idea.  “She’s the kind of girl you want to send into the bear cage because you know she’ll do whatever it takes to get back out.” She paused and then added, “I’ve seen her do it.” She looked at Steve who appreciated her support.

“I think it’s worth a shot.” Steve confirmed his vote.  Fury sighed and eyes all three agents.

“I guess that settles it.” He said the words but still showed doubt in his voice.  “But we’re going to have to keep a close eye on her at all times.  I don’t want her stepping foot outside of the compound without us knowing about it.” He pointed at Steve, “I think that it’s only fair that you handle that task, since she managed to escape from you and yet you still choose to keep her here.” Fury gave Steve the responsibility, and he almost wished Fury had picked someone else, but he knew not to discuss it any further.  “Can you handle that responsibility?  Since you seem to be so fond of her.” And after he added that last remark Steve wondered if somehow Fury knew what had happened.  A sick feeling washed over him.

“You have no idea.” Natasha murmured, receiving a glare from Steve.  

“I’m going to go speak to her,” he turned to walk away, “But I want this next part off of the record.” He added the last part as a command.  The three of them were left confused, but Hill obliged and turned off the microphone and recorder.  They crowded the window and watched Fury sit back down in front of Raven, observing what little they could without hearing the conversation.  The anticipation was brutal; there was nothing to go off of to read what was happening.  Both Raven and Fury stayed perfectly still, only their mouths moving during their discussion.  

“What do you think they’re saying?” Natasha asked both Steve and Hill.

“I have no idea.” Hill replied.  They watched Fury stand up and walk towards the doors again.  He stepped through briskly and only turned his head to address them as he continued to head towards the hallway.

“I’m sending her to a safe house until things settle.” He spoke quickly.  Steve, Natasha and Hill followed him, keeping close on his heels.

“A safe house?” Steve questioned him.

“Hydra will be looking for her.  She’s no good to us dead.  So just for the time being I’m sending her away.  Once we’re confident that she’s in the clear, we’ll put her to work.”

“So that’s it?” Natasha barked.  Fury stopped and motioned for two guards to proceed into the room they had just left. They moved quickly and quietly past their group without a single word.

“Not quite,” Fury started, “She has some demands.”

“Demands?  You’re kidding right?” Natasha continued to bicker. Fury’s eyes glazed over and he put his hands on his sides.

“She wants her own room, a hot shower and bottle of pinot noir while she stays here tonight.” He said while rolling his eyes.  The four of them stood silently for a moment, taking in the ridiculousness of her requests.

“Is that a joke?” Natasha questioned him.  “Seriously, that’s what she wants?”

Fury shrugged, “You know Raven as well as I do, so you know that it’s not a joke.”

           Steve and Hill looked at each other with confused looks on their faces.  Steve was shocked by the whole thing, Fury giving into such a silly request from the felon he had been hunting down.  But it was only more proof of the fact that whatever Raven wanted, she somehow got. For Fury to even entertain the idea of keeping Raven around, and then granting her those three silly demands was something Steve would have never seen coming.  The two guards walked out of the room, escorting Raven who was placed in between the two of them.  With cuffs still clanking around her wrists and shackles on her ankles she walked along beside the two large men with a content look on her face.  As they passed the group, she tossed a sideways glance at Steve, catching him in her dark eyes.  Without an ounce of emotion, she continued down the hallway and disappeared around the corner with the guards.  Their group stayed still and quiet, maybe wondering if they had arrived at a wise decision.  “Well, I guess that’s it.” Natasha broke the silence, “You’ve all lost your minds.”

Previous chapter here.    Next chapter here.

[techscorn]

so many cool badges this year. #defcon via Hackaday

Hardware is the future. There is no better proof of this than the hardware clans that have grown up around DEF CON, which in recent years has become known as Badgelife. I was first drawn to the custom hardware badges of the Whiskey Pirates at DC22 back in 2014. Hardware badges were being made by several groups at that time but that was mainly happening in isolation while this year the badge makers are in constant contact with each other.

A slack channel just for those working on their own DEF CON badges sprung up. This served as tech support, social hour, and feature brainstorming for all on the channel. In the past badges were developed without much info getting out during the design process. This year, there was a huge leap forward thanks to a unified badgelife API: the badge makers colluded with each on a unified communcations protocol. In the multitude of images below you frequently see Rigado modules used. These, and some others using different hardware, adopted a unified API for command and control, both through makers’ “god mode” badges, and for wireless gaming between participant badges.

I was able to get into the badge makers meetup on Thursday of DEF CON. What follows is the result of a frantic few hours trying to get through the sheer volume of badges and people to share with you all the custom hardware on display. One thing is for sure — there were literally thousands of custom badges built and sold/distributed during DEF CON. I can’t wait to see what the artisanal hardware industry will look like in five years time.

The MrRobot Badge

I knew that Brian Benchoff was working on a badge in his spare time. I had no idea the production he had undertaken. Brian’s Mr Robot Badge was one of the most popular of DC25. He had been working on it for months, ordering several PCB test runs to get the look just right. That’s not a custom solder mask color for the skin tone. Brian used a clear solder mask and two layers of silkscreen when he had Seeed Studio produce the PCBs. It’s driven by an ESP8266 and includes a 144 LED matrix driven by an IS31FL3731. Check out @MrRobotBadge to see the drumbeat of social media he built leading up to the con, and hear the entire story in Brian’s words on his recent project page update.

[Benchoff holding Mr Robot Badge photo by @catmurd0k]

DC DarkNet Badge

DarkNet has got to be the most popular contest at DEF CON. It starts off with a pre-conference online challenge called a casefile. Anyone who solved the casefile was able to purchase one of these badges two hours before they went on sale to the general conference-goers. The badge is necessary to solve the rest of the contest challenges

Our friend [Krux] is the mastermind behind the badge design. As you can see, it is laid out to resemble a rotary phone. Each of the numbers on the dial is a capacitive touch sensor, and the numerals/letters are open spots in the copper. These let back-mounted LEDs shine through. The badge comes as a kit so to use it you first must solder on those surface-mount LED as well as a connector for the screen and the LiPo on the back.

Who Doesn’t Love Blinky?

[Brian Benchoff] actually built three badges for DEF CON. The second was terrible, but the third was a solder kit of Ohm, the Tindie dog. [Jasmine Brackett] and [Shulie Tornel] were on hand talking to people about Tindie (a great place to sell extra hardware badges) and handing out the solder kit that includes two self-blinking LEDs, coin cell and holder, and a custom PCB.

[Sean McCabe] had a 3D badge. It’s the DEF CON 25 logo (note the 2 and 5 make up a skull with keys as the crossbones). There’s an RGB LED controlled by an ATtiny85 and coin-cell on a custom PCB. Grab the design files on his repo.

There was also a ‘punt’ badge. The SecKC folks built a badge (shown later in this article) but couldn’t produce enough in time so they showed up with edge-lit acrylic badges.

DC Zia 505

The DC Zia crew had about 10 people working on the badge this year. It’s their third year building badges for DEF CON and this one features four Cherry MX mechanical keyboard switches… clicky! The badge is a shield for an Arduino 101 (RIP). Last year they built a badge that was a shield for a Raspberry Pi and had a full-color video screen which they were showing off at the meetup. They are also joining in another trend, several badge groups (including MrRobotBadge) were giving away custom fidget spinners as swag.

AND!XOR God Badge

I’m not going to go too far into the AND!XOR badge since I did a full hands-on with the badge before the con. Here we can see the “God” badge that only the core team had. The Bender on a Bender was top three most popular badges at the con if not the most popular. They had a hugely successful Kickstarter and everyone was trying to get one at the con.

They shipped with the multiplayer features disabled until a code was input. This was Tweeted out at the beginning of the con and once people unlocked theirs the botnet game began. I was able to terminal into it and escalate my privileges to get root ([@Hyr0n] did help me out by suggesting which of his hint Tweets to revisit). I came across [Samy Kamkar] with on in the Chill Room. The code running on the ARM processor was read protect and [Samy] was using a Chip Whisperer to try to side-channel attack the badge. That’s pretty awesome!

Note the brain-slug addon board. There were about 10 of these built to test out the breakout header for hardware hacking.

Car Hacking Village Badge

Badgelife is often pushing right up against deadlines to get everything finished — this is an extracurricular activity after all. This is the un-populated Car Hacking Village badge. The assembly took longer than expected and the finished boards hadn’t arrived as of Thursday evening but did make it for sales in the village on Friday. 900 of these were for sale at $50.

You can see the full glory in this animated Tweet. An OLED display makes up the grill of the truck (which is a PCB itself) with amber blinkies all around. This is car hacking after all so the footprint on the left is for an ODB-II connector.

The Tribble Badge

The Tribble badge was a total surprise for me. [@emilyincarnate] built 58 of them and they were all hand-sewn and hand-soldered. The little balls of fluff were built around Adafruit Trinket boards, with addressable LED discs for eyes. I’m a sucker for the PCB badges with challenge games built into them, but I fell in love with this and it was my favorite to wear around the con. Perhaps I’m anthropomorphizing? I checked out the associated website and it seems there are some crypto challenges waiting to be solved over there. Get to work.

DC801

Look on the back of the DC801 Sheep badge and you’ll spot the familiar Rigado module that drives it and links it to the unified botnet game spanning many of the badges and Bluetooth greetings that talk back and forth. In addition, the firmware broadcasts username and then play a game of contagion.

[@rushan_ee] has been developing the board. The prototype boards carried by the core developers have “God” mode that can make clients go in and out of party mode. In total, they built 290 boards plus the 10 prototypes. Presales were coordinated through 801labs hackerspace in Salt Lake City. This is the second year Rushan has led the design and 5 years total for the hackerspace.

Octopus Badge for Bsides Vancouver

The Octopus badge was built for Bsides Vancouver a few months back. [Jake King] made a total of 120 for Bsides Vancouver. It is driven by an ATtiny85 with blue LEDs on four of the eight tentacles. There are two WS2812 modules for the eyes but [Jake] usually leaves them off because they drain the coin cell battery really quickly. You can get your hands on the design files on his blog.

Ides of DEF CON

I think the Ides of DEF CON badge was one of the other top three most popular badges. It was inherently a multiplayer badge, letting you discover and battle other badge owners wirelessly in a video role-playing game. You could walk around the con and see people sitting around glued to these badges like a Game Boy.

Thursday night was the first night everyone was getting together and when we ran into [Zapp] from the AND!XOR crew he was already topped out in level, and XP. The firmware wasn’t read protected (like the AND!XOR firmware) and so [Zapp] dump and disassembled it to artificially boost his player ranking. It’s an instant classic.

You can read about the dev process on the Ides of DEF CON project page. They had a very successful Kickstarter earlier in the summer.

Team Bazooka Badge

This badge was introduced to me as the only badge with a Vacuum Fluorescent Display on it. The VFD is an HD44780 addressable character display. Powering it is a 18650 cell in a battery holder. This is becoming an incredibly popular setup for badges and other custom hardware. You can check out the design, which is based around an ATmega382, on the Team Bazooka repo. This is an ultra-rare badge — so far there’s only one.

Hardware Warehouse

We also took a close look at the Hacker Warehouse badge before the con. It has an ESP8266 laid out right on the board rather than opting to solder on a castellated module. The badge is a built as a WiFi testing unit, leveraging the ESP chip’s flexibility in that realm to scan for AP, listen to packets, and even spew deauth packets. I don’t think there was too much mayhem cause on that front this year.

One of the really cool things that went along with the Hacker Warehouse badge is that they shared their space in the vendor area with other Badgelife folks. This provided an area for people who had acquired any of the badges shown off in this article a place and time to meet up with the badge creators themselves. Neat!

It’s worth noting that this was the first hardware endeavor for Hacker Warehouse which has focused on offensive security up to this point.

DC503

The DC503 throws503.party. Thank you to [Joe Fitz] for letting us crash it. The party is privately financed and supporting these badges is one way to get yourself into the party. [Joe] is behind this badge, as well as the bicycle design we saw at DC23.

One hundred of these badges were made through the effort of four team members and with the labor-saver of professional assembly. You can see the Rigado familiar rigado module on the back, and the coin cell that powers the badge. I really enjoyed seeing the lanyard, which is a USB-to-Serial cable. You are literally wear what you need to hack it around your neck. The badge hacking contest was judged in the suite at Caesar’s during the 503 party.

SecKC Badge

SecKC is the Kansas City infosec meetup. They wanted the badge to be a devboard and based it around an NRF module from Sparkfun. So far they’ve seen numerous hacks on the design, the best of which turned it into a cellphone with a rotary dial.

The crew had a preorder of 50 boards and ended up building 60. There was demand for more but they couldn’t get the boards fast enough so they made the acrylic badges we mentioned earlier in this article.

Puffy Badge

The puffy badge is another that we had an in-depth look at before the con. Shaped like a puffer fish, the badge is based on a router chipset module that was sourced from “some dude in China”. Searching for router chips that could run linux, 40 of the modules were ordered for the project. More details about the development process are available on the website.

Megabling and Derbycon Black Badge

Some people feel like they need to answer the question “How bright can a conference badge really be?”. [Blenster] answered this with a huge triangle badge powered by six 18650 Lithium cells. Look at the power regulation on the back of that thing!

Not to be outdone (by himself), [Blenster] was also sporting a DerbyCon 2016 Black badge which he designed and built himself. Those LEDs have a tiny pitch and he hand-placed and hand soldered with an iron — incredible.

Dragonfly Badge

The Dragonfly Badge was featured on Hackaday before the con. It’s primarily a blinky badge, but put more than one of them within sight of each other and they’ll sync up their flashing. One of the really nice touches is the aesthetic of the IR receiver on the tail.

106 of these were built but only 85 were fully functional on Thursday night. In true hacker fashion, the rest were being reworked in the hotel room. I saw a ton of these around the con so I suspect the rework effort was worth it!

Crypto and Privacy Village Badge

The Crypto and Privacy Village badge was one of the most gorgeous pieces of hardware on hand. The team went all out, even delivering the badge in beautiful matte black boxes with guilded lettering and a magnetic closure. The lanyardware have a cypher on them, the back of the badge has a cypher on it. There were PCB keys, ornately cut in interesting shapes. The badge is based on the WROOM32 (ESP32) moduel. It drives a backlit display with a rotary encoder on the front and a few capacitive touch sensors. The package included earbuds; the badge has a headphone jack and was set up to stream DEF CON radio all weekend. That’s a feature of a different color and quite fun!

Plugging into the badge you were greeted with MicroPython for you own badge hacking. On the wireless side, it finds other badges. I couldn’t get confirmation for sure but I heard that these were putting backdoors into the Bender on a Bender badge. Yes, it’s wireless badge warfare out there, friends. These boards were selling for $120 in the Crypto Village. When they sold out the team was trying to get the nonfunctional badges working but would sell to enterprising hardware hackers for $50 upon request.

Bsides San Francisco Badge / Life’s A Breach

[bon] and [redacted], the team behind the Bsides SF badge, came out with two badges this year. Their ‘official’ badge is being pitched as a ‘body camera badge’ for their conference in February. Their second badge is quite literally the best 3D printing work we’ve ever seen.

The Life’s A Breach / Tiki badge is more or less what you would expect from a conference badge — there are blinky bits, batteries, and some nice silkscreen art on a PCB. This gets dialed up to twelve when the 3D printed parts are added. The plastic parts on the Tiki badge are snap fit, with plastic bosses for holes on the badge, tiny ledges to clasp the PCB firmly, and a bit of vellum used as a diffusor for the eyes. We’ve been around the block with 3D printing, and we’ve never seen anything that marries milled PCBs and printed parts this well. We’re literally begging the Tiki crew for a write-up on how they managed to do their plastic parts.

1Bitsy 1UP

  The 1Bitsy 1UP badge should be an incredibly familiar form factor. It’s shaped just like a Game Boy, but with an extra set of right-hand buttons like on the old SNES controllers. With a beautiful color display and audio, this is the portable gaming experience you remember, but hanging around your neck as a conference badge.

The dev board on the front is the 1Bitsy. This was given out to all attendees at the Open Hardware Summit last October. Mine is still on my desk waiting for some love and this is the type of demo I needed to get really excited about it. At the con, [Piotr Esden-Tempski] was running a custom game he wrote for it and the thing is super fast. The pattern demonstration shown here is running at 80 FPS and this is without a framebuffer. It’s the STM32F4 banging 8 bits into the ILI9325 display using DMA that makes this possible. On the back you’ll find an 18650 for power, along with a battery minding circuit and an SD cards slot. We can’t wait to bump into [Piotr] at he next live event to see what’s been a added to the part of the board marked:

Here be dragons. Well, not at the very moment, but soon, I promise! Just wait for it. :D

Red’s LoRa Badge

I missed syncing up with him at the meetup but later ran into [Red] in the Chill Room. He has been doing the hardware badges for SkyDogCon and built a special badge just for DC25. It is sniffing LoRa packets and displaying them on two screens. He wrote the firmware on the plane. The platform is meant for development so plenty of room to grow here. It has a multitude of switches, both momentary press and DIP, which are controlled by the Propeller chip that runs the board. For connectivity there is the LoRa module and an ESP8266.

There’s actually a really cool concept at work here. He sets up a server in his room in a different hotel as the Internet gateway. The badge phones home on LoRa, which has great range, eliminating the need to navigate the shady WiFi options during the con.

Quadcopter Badge

This badge is a lot of things in one. Primarily it’s a quadcopter complete with a badge-based remote control. [Brian] covered it in depth before the con and we were so excited to receive this badge kit at our Breakfast at DEF CON meetup.

Weight was carefully considered during the development process. But for some reason the thing just wouldn’t get off the ground after everything was assembled. For this reason, there are two versions of the skull badge, one that flies and one that bling. You can see the add-on board for prototyping which is mean to look like a pirate’s bandanna, and in the upper left you can see the dual-stick controller complete with a buzzer and screen.

The greatest year of electronic conference badges yet

Badgelife is truly amazing. Should you give it a try? Yes, but not for the money. This is an art and not a business endeavor. There is no badge competition between makers, there is only a willingness to celebrate the effort and ingenuity to that go into every badge, whether it be a blinking LED or a networked multiplayer game. This is what drives the developers and what makes the badges themselves such a hot commodity at the conference.

This was the greatest year of badgelife yet, and we can’t wait to see what everyone will come up with by next year.

[Featured image source of all badges taken by Cat Murdock. You should follow her on Twitter.]

Filed under: news

[the-silver-wolfs-den]

Birth of the Snowlily

Hello my lovelies!! Here's what I've been working on the Snowlillyship like I promised

She looked down to the pregnancy test that was in her slightly shaking hand, the bold lettering on the screen reading ‘POSITIVE’. Just like the first two pregnancy tests she took before. All of them giving the same result: ‘POSITIVE’.

Honestly, for all her worth for being a Pokémon researcher, Lillie should have been expecting this, what with all her erratic mood swings, taking random naps throughout the day and weird eating habits as of late. Just the other day, she had really bad craving for a grilled cheese and Pomeg sandwich with soy sauce! She didn’t even like Pomeg berries, but that sandwich definitely hit the spot.

Before she could lament any further, she heard the bathroom door creak a little. She looked up to see a very familiar snow-white muzzle peak in before the rest of the snow-white canine body followed in. “Hi Shiron.” Lillie said somberly, which did not go unnoticed by Shiron as the Alolan Ninetails moved closer, letting out a slight questioning coo, as if asking her partner if everything was alright. Lillie could only shake her head, a slight smile still sitting on her face. “I’m fine, really.” She answered, petting Shiron’s head a few times.

The snow fox Pokémon welcomed the petting and after a few minutes, she gave Lillie that same questioning look.

Lillie knew she couldn’t lie to Shiron. She never could. Shiron was one of the few beings that Lillie could always talk to, even if her replies were coos, barks, and the occasional growls. “Do you know what this is used for?” She turned the pregnancy test that was still in her hand around for Shiron to see and give it quick sniff. “It’s what we women folk of the human race use to see if we are pregnant.” And again Shiron gave her a questioning look, this time tilting her head to add to the effect. Lillie laughed at this, “It’s a way to see if I’m having a baby,” she moved her free hand to her still-flat stomach. At this, Shiron seemed to understand what she heard and looked slightly excited as she gave her own happy yip and a couple of tail wags.

Lillie smiled at this before she looked down to the pregnancy test again, feeling her smile slip away from her lips, as her mind began to swirl with a sea of thoughts. She should be happy right? She should be over the moon about this. Then what was this nagging feeling in her gut, this prickle in the back of her mind that didn’t go away? It settled over her like a thick blanket. A really thick blanket woven out of dread, anticipation, and anxiety. She hadn’t felt like this since discovering her mother was going to use Nebby—er Cosmog, as a conduit to journey to the world of the Ultra Beasts (the incident dubbed as the UB Fallout incident by the Alolan Champion and the International Bureau of Affairs), and in doing so lead to the very real possibility of losing everything she held dear. Of course, living with the woman’s constant emotional belittling and mental controlling prior to her (ahem) leaving the Aether Compound didn’t help matters at all.

It’s honestly a wonder now, Lillie thinks, that she or Gladion didn’t have more emotional damage from it all. Of course, Gladion had his anger issues and her lack of self-confidence and fear of Pokémon, but she could truly say that if it wasn’t for Professor Kukui, Professor Burnet, Sun, Moon and Hau, her life as well as Gladion’s would be completely different.

Speaking of Hau, he said that he was going to be back soon from his meeting with the other Island Kahuna’s, something about Team Skull trying to make a comeback or something like that. Lillie felt another wave of anxiety wash over her. Oh great guardians above, what was she going to say to Hau? Of course they talked about having kids earlier on as they dated and now that they were married, would it be too soon? It’s only been two years, both settling into their careers as Kahuna and Researcher for both the Aether Foundation and the Pokémon League, so money wouldn’t be any issue, but what would happen—

“Lillie, you home?”

She jumped at the voice that carried through the walls of their home. Immediately recognizing the voice, Lillie watched as Shiron dashed out of the bathroom and down the hall. Deciding to put her simmering worries on the back burner for now, Lillie grab the clear see-through baggie that came with the pregnancy test, placed the small device back into it and pocketed it into her skirt pocket as she made her way out of the bathroom, barely catching a glimpse of one of Shiron’s tail going around the corridor that separated the bedrooms from the dining area/kitchen, living room, and another area that lead to the front door.

That’s where she saw Shiron pouncing onto her broad stature of husband’s shoulders who was bent over trying to put away his sandals, the latter holding two paper bags away (undoubtedly Malasadas) with one hand as he used his other to pet/shield his face from Shiron’s licking. “Okay, okay girl, I’m happy to see you too.” He laughed, keeping his attention on Shiron as he straightening up to his full height of 6’2”, easily dwarfing her slightly petite height of 5’2 ½” even from a slight distance. Shiron decided to take this opportunity to try to make a grab for the bags with Hau at the ready, moving his occupied hand higher from the hungry nips of the fox Pokémon. “Oh sure, you only like me ‘cuz I bring home the treats.” He feigned with sarcasm.

“Well it’s your fault for spoiling her every time she sees you.” Lillie pointed out in reply.

Hau snapped his head over to see his beautiful wife trying to hide the giggles that were escaping from behind her hand. With a quick move, Hau moved to escape from his Pokémon onslaught by coming behind Lillie and bringing his free arm around Lillie’s shoulders to bring her into his chest, feigning a hostage hold as his wife’s giggles morphed into squeals. “Hau! What are you doing?” She laughed.

“Taking the marauding Pokémon’s gorgeous owner as my prisoner.” He professed his statement with a quick series of kisses up her cheek to her temple. “The beast wouldn’t dare to take her dearly beloved Trainer.”

Lillie could only laugh at this as she saw Shiron shift her weight onto her hind legs and lower her muzzle down to her front paws with tongue sticking and quick pants as her tails wagged somewhat fast, clear indication that she was ready to play. Forgetting about her earlier worrywart session, she decided to play along. “Oh woe is me!” Lillie dramatically wailed, ignoring the stifled chuckle from Hau as he began to move them back into the dining room. “Shiron, save me from this tribal barbarian!” She added in the fake insult as Shiron began to jump around them, making playful growls and barks as she tried to make a grab for Hau.

“Cheeky woman! You dare mock the Kahuna of this island!” Hau roared in mock anger, settling the bags onto the table as he reached into one of them to grab (of course) a Malasada, “Let’s see if your faithful Pokemon will remain faithful after this.” He dangled the Alolan treaty in between them and the Alolan Ninetails as he moved them again closer to the open kitchen door that lead to their backyard, their unfenced-leading-into-the-Melemele-path backyard. Lillie’s laughter tampering off as she wondered what Hau was trying to do.

Shiron watched the treat with eager and hungry eyes, just waiting for the giant man holding her dear trainer to drop the treat already or to not pay attention so she could snatch it.

Once Hau got them into the position, he offered the Malasada towards the Pokémon, “You want this, Shiron?” To which said Pokémon got ready to jump for it. “Then, go get it!” And with that, Hau threw it as far as he could into the yard and closed the door behind him after Shiron took off after it like a Yungoos after a berry.

That's all I got for now. Like it? Don't like it? Please let me know?