Gizmodo Australia » badges

DefCon Badge Hack Fools Facial Recognition Systems With Pulsing Light

Rosa Golijan — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:30:00 +0000

DefCon’s badges encourage hacking. In fact, the best hacks at the conference receive a black über badge signifying free lifetime admission. But why compete for the über badges when you can use steal them with this year’s winning hack?

You have to hand it to the guy behind this DefCon 17’s winning badge hack. He really wanted one of those black über badges and figured out how to get it, one way or the other. While it may look like one of those tacky Mickey’s Christmas Parade hats sold at Disney, the pulsing series of LEDs embedded in the bill of the cap confuses facial recognition systems. We’ll never know whether his design would’ve truly allowed the guy to sneak into the room where the badges are stored or not, but it’s quite an achievement to make a cat burglar’s dream toy out of these badges:

While this kills that old 100% accuracy claim regarding facial recognition, there aren’t any details about how the hack is meant to thwart facial recognition systems. Does it have to do with how 3D images are analysed? Does anyone have any insight? Specs? Cookies of your choice to whoever satisfies my curiosity on this topic. [Wired]

New PC Badges Help Us With our Conficker Decision

Jason Chen — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:05:11 +0000

Thanks, Italo, for mocking up these new PC badges. It’ll really help us decide which model to buy with our $US1500.

p.s. Relax people! It’s just a joke. [Thanks Italo!]

Wired Previews Hackable Defcon 16 Badge

Matt Hickey — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:00:20 +0000

Wired got a sneak peek at one of the more fun aspects of this coming weekend’s Defcon, the hackable badge. Last year’s badge was hacked in just ten minutes, but it didn’t have an SD card slot at USB support. The new card has fewer features than last year’s but is more powerful. And it comes with a longer battery life, good news. But not everything is known, and that’s kind of the point to these fun trinkets. [Wired]

Zune Listener Badges Show Your Dedication To That Band You Like

Jason Chen — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:00:00 +0000

The recent Zune Update a month or so ago added the ability to track your listening habits and reward you for them. Think of achievements on the Xbox 360, except not pedantic ones like listen to every artist that released a single in 2003. These badges are actually quite nice, and display on your Zune Card if you do whatever it is enough times in the previous month. A thousand plays isn’t all that hard if you’re sitting at your desk all day like us. No cheating, cause we know you’d just leave your player on repeat and turn your speakers off. [Zune via Zune Insider]

DefCon Uber Badge Hacked in 10 Minutes

Seamus Byrne — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 02:24:41 +0000

Now, now, don’t get too excited. Creator Joe Grand designed it to be hacked. Still, 10 minutes is a pretty respectable time for the soldering, reprogramming and reflashing job done by Dave Bullock, Wired’s photographer at the event. The badge features an LED display with scrolling text, and it even has an easter egg (typing in 31337 outputs “$kingpin$”, the board maker’s handle.) [Wired, but beautiful photos from Dave]