Every year, the world's hacker population descends upon Las Vegas to trade notes, sit within on informational talks and run in friendly contests -- all in the autograph of Defcon. But this time out, it's the conference's ever-evolving smart badges that've caught our eye, unpaid mostly to what lurks beneath. Designed by Ryan Clarke -- the mastermind behind the gathering's Mystery Box challenge -- these hackable IDs, issued according to status (Press, Human, Goons, vendors, etc), come embedded with an LED, a multi-core processor, IR transmitter and accompanying hieroglyphic graphic. Only that's not each that makes these high-tech tags so special. Turns out, each one contains a game, buried within its widen source software, that's encoded beside several cryptographic, linguistic and mathematical layers. Shying away from hardware-focused hacks of the past, Clarke built this year's scavenger hunt-like unfit to be more inclusive of meeter skills, as it'll force conference-goers interested within cracking its code to disobey thrown social barriers and collaborate with other highly-specialized nerds. What's the end game, you ask? Well, according to Clarke, the puzzle is a continuation of closing year's secret cause romance (compete out by a real-life actor) involving "a [mysterious] society of computer elites." It's not the category of payoff we'd think -- thing greener and encrusted with a certain Ben Franklin's obverse would answer -- but it sounds intriguing enough. Chink on the source down to read more about the makings of this geek diversion. And may the pastiest neckbeard win!Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, SoftwareDefcon 20 badges meld hieroglyphs, circuitry and cryptography for linksman scavenger forage originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jul 2012 12:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms all for use of feeds.Permalink | Bugged | Email this | Comments
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/27/defcon-20-badges-meld-hieroglyphs-circuitry-and-cryptography-fo/
No comments:
Post a Comment