Hacker Con Badges

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Badge mesh network and MIDI keyboard teaser

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BSidesDFW 2026 Electronic Badge mesh documented in firmware published November 8, 2026; MIDI undocumented

official feature teaser

The official sessions page says the badge forms a mesh network with other badges and that somehow a MIDI keyboard is involved, and declines to explain how. The firmware published after the event builds the mesh on Thread through OpenThread; it contains no MIDI code, so the MIDI part stays unexplained.

Badge
BSidesDFW 2026 Electronic Badge
Type
official feature teaser
Status
mesh documented in firmware published November 8, 2026; MIDI undocumented
Compatibility
BSidesDFW 2026 Electronic Badge.
Source
https://www.bsidesdfw.com/sessions/

Badge context

Related Resources

badge firmware repository

wobbol/bsides_badge_2026

ESP-IDF v6.0.1 firmware repository titled BSides Dallas 2026 badge firmware, published November 8, 2026 with commit history from July 13 to October 13, 2026. The README credits original idea, testing, and collaborative effort with Malcolm Galland. It builds an OpenThread command-line shell on the ESP32-C6. GitHub reports no license.

Badge: BSidesDFW 2026 Electronic Badge

designer hardware repository

malcolmputer/bsidesdfw_2026

Designer repository for the BSidesDFW 2026 Electronic Badge: KiCad 10 project, schematic, PCB, BOM, placement file, custom footprints, and Gerbers, uploaded as version 1.0 as manufactured for the con. GitHub reports no license.

Badge: BSidesDFW 2026 Electronic Badge

Source trail

Evidence Sources

BSidesDFW · retrieved 2026-11-10

BSidesDFW home page

Official home page. After the November 7, 2026 event its Attend step and header button read See you next year instead of a registration link. Used for event completion only; it gives no attendance, badge count, or wrap-up.

Badge: BSidesDFW 2026 Electronic Badge

BSidesDFW · retrieved 2026-11-07

Sessions - BSidesDFW 2026

Primary official source. The Hardware Hacking Village (08:15-16:45, Room 111, presented by Malcolm Galland) invites attendees to build their badge and figure out what it does, says the badge forms a mesh network with other badges, teases a MIDI keyboard, and says the badge must be powered by a USB-C device, with a USB-C to USB-C cable supplied. The talk How I built the badge you're (hopefully) playing with currently (14:00-14:45, Track 0x01) covers the compromises, revisions, and hardware design.

Badge: BSidesDFW 2026 Electronic Badge

Malcolm Galland (GitHub) · retrieved 2026-11-07

bsidesdfw_2026 KiCad PCB

Designer PCB whose silkscreen credits badge design to Malcolm Galland, art to Olivia Fisher, and firmware to Robert Fontenot, lists solder jumpers JP1-JP3 for LED voltage and onboard-LED remapping with JP4-JP6 marked ???, and carries the Digital Demolitions tagline.

Badge: BSidesDFW 2026 Electronic Badge

Malcolm Galland (GitHub) · retrieved 2026-11-07

bsidesdfw_2026 README

Designer source naming the BSidesDFW 2026 Electronic Badge, designed by Malcolm Galland with art by Olivia Fisher (@livtostich), designed in KiCad 10.0 for order and assembly through JLCPCB. The repository API reports no license.

Badge: BSidesDFW 2026 Electronic Badge

Malcolm Galland (GitHub) · retrieved 2026-11-07

bsidesdfw_2026 commit history

The repository was created at 03:37 UTC on November 7, 2026, and commit c02b8a3 at 03:46 UTC uploads version 1.0, as manufactured for the con, hours before the event day began in Texas.

Badge: BSidesDFW 2026 Electronic Badge

wobbol / N. Fontenot (GitHub) · retrieved 2026-11-10

BSides Dallas 2026 badge firmware README

Firmware source naming the BSides Dallas 2026 badge firmware, crediting the idea, testing, and collaboration to Malcolm Galland, the BSidesDFW badge designer, and giving ESP-IDF v6.0.1 build and flash steps that end in an OpenThread command-line shell. The repository was created November 8, 2026, the day after the event; the newest commit is dated October 13, 2026. The README itself does not say which build was on the badges at the con; the v0.0.16 release does.

Badge: BSidesDFW 2026 Electronic Badge

wobbol / N. Fontenot (GitHub) · retrieved 2026-11-10

bsides_badge_2026 main/badge.c

Firmware source for the mesh behaviour: badges exchange UDP messages on port 1337 over OpenThread with link security, with message types for ping, ten GPIO LED brightness values, colours for 13 RGB LEDs on GPIO7, and starting an animation, plus a plain-text and a base64 input form. Console commands led and attract send LED states to a badge address and flash an alternating green pattern. Pins GPIO0, GPIO1, and GPIO2 pulled low at boot set hacker, ruser, and oper flags; the hacker flag XORs random noise into LED colours. No MIDI code is present.

Badge: BSidesDFW 2026 Electronic Badge

wobbol / N. Fontenot (GitHub) · retrieved 2026-11-12

bsides_badge_2026 release v0.0.16 (Conference version)

Release created by wobbol at 20:17 UTC and published at 20:20 UTC on November 8, 2026, the day after the event, with target main and tag v0.0.16 on commit 2e13a16 (Hack led_strip_set_pixel and esp_console_repl_t, October 13, 2026), the newest commit in the repository. The release text reads: The code that ran on the badges at the 2026 Dallas Bsides conference. It attaches no binaries. This is the firmware author's own statement; no organizer source confirms it.

Badge: BSidesDFW 2026 Electronic Badge

wobbol / N. Fontenot (GitHub) · retrieved 2026-11-10

bsides_badge_2026 sdkconfig

Build configuration targeting the ESP32-C6 with OpenThread enabled on the native IEEE 802.15.4 radio as a Full Thread Device, the OpenThread CLI, channel 15, and the default OpenThread-ESP network name.

Badge: BSidesDFW 2026 Electronic Badge