So, unfortunately due to odd and very annoying circumstances I did not attend Defcon this year. I'm not quite sure I will in the future either. The growing mass of attendees, tiny hotel and Vegas is not optimal for my brain to handle for such a long duration. That doesn't mean I have been completely blind to the amazing things going on each year. One of the most fascinating tales I've heard come out of Defcon 18 was the new NINJA Networks badges for their annual party. Multiple people were raving about it and asking me how to hack the thing even though I was 3,000 miles away. Due to this simple observation I decided that I would make my own run of badges for myself and some friends. It wasn't until talking with Squire though that it actually happened. He immediately convinced me of the awesome-ness and sent me the NINJA filez so I looked them over and sent them out to my current PCB manufacturer to get a panel made up. The guys at GoldenPhoenix are awesomes! I hear they're a little bit pricey but you can't argue with results (see pic below) and they had them made and shipped out to me in like 3-4 business days; incredible! If you weren't 5,000 miles away I would hi-five your entire team. 

To get a little insight about what the capability of the badges are, check out their official site: http://ninjas.org/badges/defcon18.html The Ninja crew is incredible and super talented, I even hear they wrote their on 802.15.4 stack and the Ninja game you can play on these devices is just completely original, it's like a super elite Tomagachi! The only problem is I'm not a fan of FreeScale MCU's but whatever, I'll deal. This is just the first of many posts I'm sure because I have yet to assemble or play with the devices, as I do over the next few weeks be sure to check back for some cool information and if you have any questions don't hesitate to hit me up.

AdaFruit's "Ask an Engineer" series chatting about the badge:

http://www.vimeo.com/14357324

For now, sexy iPhone pic until I get home to a real camera! 

Cheers,