Defcon stiffs badge HW vendor, drags FW author offstage during talk

https://twitter.com/mightymogomra/status/1822119942281650278

by dmitrygr • 2 years ago

534 161 2 years ago

twitter.com

Animats• 2 years ago

Badge is a GameBoy emulator.[1]

[1] https://www.dexerto.com/tech/hacking-convention-uses-fully-w...

dmitrygr11• 2 years ago

It also runs PalmOS. I published images for that.

markus_zhang3• 2 years ago

I heard they didn't pay you in full. This is so sad. Why did they do that?

numpad0• 2 years ago

Put aside the fact that that’s awesome, that doesn’t sound like the safest thing on Earth to contract out.

gavinhoward3• 2 years ago

I followed the link, and while there is a video of someone getting dragged off stage, I can't really verify the other claims.

But even so, dragging a presenter off stage is sus. And doesn't seem smart because even if the other claims are not true, I'm tempted to never attend Defcon if that's what they do.

dmitrygr11• 2 years ago

I can verify. I was the one dragged off. I wrote the firmware for the badge. All of it.

rib3ye• 2 years ago

Can you please explain the timeline of events here?

gavinhoward3• 2 years ago

Yeah, after some more digging, it does appear to be you.

I do wish I had more context from the video, but at this point, it's getting hard to imagine any good reason for Defcon to do what they did. Assuming that you weren't threatening someone in the audience or something like that. Doubtful, from the way you've been talking.

Anyway, it looks like good stuff. Wish I had some Game Boy games to try it.

gorgoiler• 2 years ago

I’m sorry to hear this happened to you.

One cannot lay even a finger on another person, ever, let alone jostle someone just because they don’t like what they are saying.

It doesn’t matter if they are “security”. It’s assault and battery just the same as if I shove grandma out the way to get to the bus!

justjonathan• 2 years ago

I was at this talk, someone (you I guess) left at the beginning of this talk. To the audience it was not clear what happened,

bingo-bongo• 2 years ago

I think it’s so amazingly awesome that you just went outside and held an unofficial talk!

Read your blog/article about the badge project yesterday and it was such a good read, even for a not-much-of-a-hardware-guy like me.

patrickhogan1• 2 years ago

Nice work keeping the easter egg spirit alive. How would one trigger the easter egg?

romwell2• 2 years ago

This is Dmitry Grinberg[1] some of whose absolutely amazing projects (like, running Palm OS on other devices) have recently gotten some traction here on HN.

(In particular, he managed to get Palm OS running on the badges in question).

If there's one person whose credibility I wouldn't doubt on those matters, it's him.

[1] https://dmitry.gr

raldi• 2 years ago

Do you have a writeup or something? Twitter videos don’t really load anymore this year.

mvdtnz• 2 years ago

This needs way way way way more context.

h0l0cube• 2 years ago

Yep. Not sure why this is downvoted, but as an outsider to DefCon, I'm not sure what's going on here just looking at the tweet.

rwl4• 2 years ago

Here's a direct link to him being dragged off the stage:

https://x.com/dmitrygr/status/1822124650547257637

It's definitely somewhat aggressive. Way to burn bridges.

jmprspret• 2 years ago

Is there a non-twitter link? Blocks me because I have DNS adblock+using mobile browser.

swores• 2 years ago

While it doesn't show you any thread context, for media tweets like the video one linked if you paste the URL into a site like https://savetwitter.net/en it will spit out the video file to watch as well as telling you the text of that tweet (although, testing it with that tweet on my phone just now I had to select the title and paste it elsewhere to see as the page truncated the visible amount to fit phone width).

1vuio0pswjnm7• 2 years ago

https://nitter.poast.org/dmitrygr/status/1822124650547257637

UberFly• 2 years ago

Looked the opposite of aggressive to me. Smiles all around.

rcxdude• 2 years ago

He's being carried off. He's only smiling because of how ridiculous it makes the organisers look

peterpost2• 2 years ago

He is rudely forced down a stair. That could have gone very wrong.

Firmwarrior• 2 years ago

I feel like this is a good spot to mention that Dmitry's a friggin beast when it comes to engineering. As that Tweetster put it: "Dmitry is an insanely skilled dude. Easily on par with Carmack or Karpathy IMO. They almost had to delay the original Kindle Fire tablet because of a rare bug that all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't fix in 6 months, but Dmitry nailed it in a few days"

Summary of the events unfolding by Sargonas on Reddit:

Maybe this will help with a listed summary of the known facts from first hands accounts. I am leaving gaps where there has just been speculation or second hand unverifiable information, and welcome anyone with first-hand knowledge of those aspects to comment below me to fill in the gaps. I'm merely presenting the facts as we have them from first-hand accounts (mostly from reddit and discord), without personal opinion or bias (hopefully, human nature is a tricky thing.)

Entropic Engineering designed and built the circuitry of the badges, physically. They were either only partially, or not at all, paid by DEFCON for this work, contrary to whatever formal agreement they had in place. (Other amazingly talented individuals create the silk screen design, the shells, and the game, but are totally removed from this drama so I'm leaving them out of it.) Subsequently, all references to them have been removed in various materials, and even one of their logos was removed from the silk screen. (apparently small one may be left under the battery? but I can't check because I affixed mine to the board to stop it's shifting.)

dmitrygr wrote the firmware for the badges as well

Somewhere along the way, Entropic was cut out of the process and left to the side by DEFCON in a way that left Entropic feeling burned and under/un paid for their non-trivial work (according to some comments below it is 6 figure sum, but this is second hand info).

Dmitry felt this was unfair, and put an easter egg into the badge code. This easter egg simply comments that Entropic engineered the badges, and had their credits removed everywhere, with an address for donations if you wish to support them. This was entirely Dmitrys doing as a gesture of thanks to the Entropic team.

This easter egg more or less flew under the radar until EoD friday.

Friday evening, after spending most of his day traveling to DEFCON and writing a 1.5 update in his spare time on his flight to fix some issues, Dmitry was up on stage with the other badge creators about to present the usual badge talk, when word of the Easter egg went around (likely due to him including some slides on his portion of the presentation about it.)

DEFCON staff had Goons escort Dmitry off stage shortly before the talk started, delaying the talk some.

during the talk, a comment was made about “unauthorized code“ being on the badges.

Dmitry setup himself on the sidewalk outside the hall, and basically held his own mini talk about the work he did and Entropics contributions.

At some point, LVMPD showed up. It is unclear to me personally who issued the call but second hand info says it was DEFCON staff. They noted Dmitry was simply talking to people (albiet nearly 100 of them) on a public sidewalk, outside a building owned by the county, and nothing was really amiss, and left shortly after.

Dmitry, in his (likely valid) opinion feels this whole situation has not been handled well, and since his code was written free of charge, without any signed agreements with DEFCON or consequently any rights assignments, has announced that he intends to assert his legal ownership of the code (which is his right under us copyright law). As a result, he will gladly issue a non-transferable right to the code to any attendee who asks him for one, but is no longer going to "turn a blind eye" to the fact DEFCON does not have a legal license to his code, and instead look into taking actions that are within his power to take to clarify their lack of ownership of the code on the badges. (I believe in discord he may have gone so far as to say DMCA, but I need to double-check.)

bearing this in mind this does add a curious wrinkle to the statement about “unauthorized code” from DEFCON given… The obvious.

lawgimenez• 2 years ago

Thanks for the summary. Why was Entropic not paid or cut out?

pdoege2• 2 years ago

Can confirm. Dmitry saved the Fire tablet by finding an error in TI’s BSP while J.S. documented the repro steps, and gave me the info to get it fixed. This was during manufacture, 3 days before public release iirc.

He also rescued the Bowser pinmux that I had screwed up. And stepped in when the display IP didn’t work. And a ton of other heroic engineering.

The early Fire Phone engineering team was really talented and Dmitry was the best.

sneak• 2 years ago

The same Defcon that allowed NSA director Keith Alexander to keynote.

I even live in Vegas now and I don’t go anymore.

sschueller• 2 years ago

The event being named after a US military meeter to indicate how far away the US is from nuclear war should already be an indication.

There are some good people there but also a lot of people who do not care what happens with what they build and look away when it would be time to speak up.

throw_m239339• 2 years ago

The event being named after a US military meeter to indicate how far away the US is from nuclear war should already be an indication.

It's a clear reference to the movie WARGAMES more than a direct reference to the real world US military itself.

borski• 2 years ago

To be fair, there are a lot of hackers who work and/or worked for various intelligence agencies, either directly or as a contractor.

Some of them are people who have also clearly been hackers before and after their work there.

Was it weird? Absolutely. But let’s not pretend the government doesn’t hire hackers. It’s our biggest employer.

CodesInChaos• 2 years ago

IANAL, but I'm skeptical that Dmitry's interpretation that Defcon has no license is correct. It sounds like Dmitry sent them firmware images with the mutual expectation that those will be used on badges, and they invited him to the Badge talk which could be considered consideration. That should constitute a contract, either verbal, or through concludent acts. This should give Defcon the right to use Dmitry's on the badges, but not modify it. So legally the whole thing would probably be considered a contract dispute, not use of unlicensed software.

Defcon will probably argue that including the easter egg was some kind breach of duty of Dmitry's part, and gave them the right to remove him from the talk, and modify the firmware to remove the easter egg. My expectation is that courts would decide that Defcon has the right to use the firmware, but will require them to pay some kind of compensation for not living up to their side of the bargain.

kaliqt• 2 years ago

You can rescind license to use the software if you haven't been paid consideration, you do not and should not have to wait for a court to say so.

SR2Z• 2 years ago

This is a silly take. Unless there was a contact written down, DefCon gets to remove this guy for any reason or even no reason.

The incentive to not do it is because it makes them look like power-tripping maniacs, which is what happened.

I've never been to the conference but now I think I'll never want to go.

madaxe_again• 2 years ago

If including an Easter egg voids the contract, then they should also start a class action against Microsoft for frivolously including a flight simulator in excel.

robxorb• 2 years ago

IMO the thing that may matter most here is the PR effect on Defcon. It's the badge - every attendee takes this thing home and engages with it. It's a talking point, memento and representation of the spirit of the conference.

That's an unmitigated PR disaster for Defcon. It doesn't matter to this who was right or wrong or what laws were broken, even if somehow all legally ended up in Defcon's favour, the damage to the brand is huge, enduring and set aside from those issues.

To address this, whoever at Defcon ultimately actioned this series of events should be held to account, for this PR aspect, and the matter immediately and publicly handed to someone with an appropriate understanding of Defcon's culture & reputation.

clwg• 2 years ago

It seems to have been Dark Tangent[0] (aka Jeff Moss), the creator and organizer of Blackhat and Defcon.

https://x.com/dmitrygr/status/1822126826606739678

AbrahamParangi• 2 years ago

It would be surprising to me that even if DEFCON could be considered to have a license, that that license would be irrevocable. At the end of the day they have received work product for free which they do not own and the owner is saying they can’t distribute it.

znpy• 2 years ago

I just read the timeline of events at https://old.reddit.com/r/Defcon/comments/1eoe4u7/so_the_guy_...

Frankly… i’m not surprised. The whole industry is filled with this kind of fascistoid attitude now. Every organization takes any chance they can to silence opinions they don’t like (and this happens both left and right).

I see from the link above that the POLICE was called on dmitrygr for… speaking to people in a public space?

Really?

Defcon has gone from outcast meeting to full mainstream and interest-preserving. Kinda lost all of its hacker attitude, and this is proof.

orf• 2 years ago

Seeing as you’re in the thread Dmitry, what was the Kindle bug referenced here? Sounds interesting.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41207740

pdoege2• 2 years ago

See my reply below.

yyyfb2• 2 years ago

Streisand effect strikes again

Option A: let the dude have his talk. Nobody hears about it beyond the walls of defcon. Move along.

Option B: uninvite and call security. Guy becomes instant personality on reddit and hn. I didn't know that defcon had become a shitty, small minded operation that abuses volunteer time and can't take an Easter egg, well now I do!

Well played...

threatofrain• 2 years ago

I think this was going to blow up no matter what. Every single badge...

yyyfb2• 2 years ago

I'm pretty sure it would've stayed a defcon thing

katzinsky• 2 years ago

I stopped paying attention a few years ago because their leadership was visibly heading in this direction.

It's always kind of frustrating to see programmers and other software people participating/defending that kind of thing considering logic is our whole game to begin with.

cqqxo4zV46cp• 2 years ago

The premise of ‘tech people’ not at all succumbing to the same shortcomings as any other human is utterly language and the source of so much undeserved hubris in this industry. Developers are some of the worst, ‘illogical’ people I’ve ever met, especially when it comes to anything interpersonal.

nubinetwork• 2 years ago

I've watched defcon and ccc a lot over the years... was this the first time a presenter has been physically dragged off stage?

the_biot• 2 years ago

Stallman arguably was, one time at FOSDEM. Not over some disagreement, he just wouldn't stop talking and make room for the next speaker :-)

gus_massa• 2 years ago

Is there more context? Who wrote the original software? Were they paid or it was voluntary work? How they detected the additional screen?

gexcolo• 2 years ago

Am I missing something about how this story went missing from the front page? There is at least one story with less points posted 12 hours earlier that is still visisble there.

https://archive.is/dtRg2 https://archive.is/8HK5y https://archive.is/yk5uU

Is there any transparency that could tell us why this change was made?

beaugunderson• 2 years ago

entropic put out their own statement as well: https://www.entropicengineering.com/defcon-32-statement

Aeolun2• 2 years ago

Oh, that clears up a lot. Now we only need to know why Defcon felt like they could just suddenly stop paying.

dang• 2 years ago

Subsequent related thread:

DEF CON's response to the badge controversy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41211519 - Aug 2024 (41 comments)

Defcon stiffs badge HW vendor, drags FW author offstage during talk

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