DEF CON 34 · United States · 2026
Completed independent three-radio ESP32-S3 RF-awareness badge
The public Friend or Foe project archive documents a three-board ESP32-S3 badge shown at DEF CON 34 Packet Hacking Village. Its hardware documentation records a 45-badge DEF CON run and the project root describes a wearable, passive RF-awareness platform with an uplink/display controller and dedicated BLE and Wi-Fi scanner boards. Packet Hacking Village's official DEF CON 34 programme independently establishes the completed village setting and the Friend or Foe presentation. These sources establish a completed independent electronic project, not an official DEF CON Human badge, conference-wide handout, admission credential, or recipient ledger.
People
The Friend or Foe project is published from the lnxgod GitHub account. This records an archive-publisher role only; it does not resolve a real-world identity or establish DEF CON/Packet Hacking Village authority, final production, distribution, or image rights.
SourcePacket Hacking Village's official DEF CON 34 talk page identifies Charles Grow as Friend or Foe hardware designer. This preserves the named role without assigning sole authorship, manufacture, release authority, organizer affiliation, event distribution, or image-rights responsibility.
SourcePacket Hacking Village's official DEF CON 34 talk page identifies Will Hatzer in the Friend or Foe presentation. This is a programme credit only and does not establish sole hardware, firmware, event, manufacture, allocation, or image-rights responsibility.
SourceIt preserves a newly public, post-event hardware and firmware trail for a specific DEF CON 34 village artifact while separating maker-published run and engineering statements from organizer issuance, attendee allocation, RF-performance guarantees, and image rights.
The maker's public archive documents a physical trio of Seeed XIAO ESP32-S3 boards: an uplink/display controller plus BLE-primary and Wi-Fi-primary scanner boards. The released build list also names three external 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi/Bluetooth patch antennas, a 1.8-inch 128 by 160 SPI display, two buttons, a lithium-ion cell, badge PCB, and printed battery cage. The hardware guide says the DEF CON run comprised 45 badges and documents battery-polarity, button-footprint, display-fit, and antenna-ground-plane caveats. It does not establish a universal final BOM, per-unit inspection, safe battery servicing, RF or electrical compliance, participant allocation, or that every unit matched the published files.
The public repository describes separate ESP32 scanner and uplink firmware, a USB-C-connected Android companion, local diagnostic status, and a post-event badge-firmware version label. The project says its scanner boards share an image and receive roles from the uplink. This catalogue records only that source-backed software surface; it does not present the repository as a supported flashing procedure, a release-to-unit map, a security audit, a privacy guarantee, a safe radio-testing guide, or an indefinitely maintained product.
Packet Hacking Village's official DEF CON 34 programme lists a completed Saturday talk, “Remote ID, ESP32s, and the Packet Trail to Friend or Foe,” and identifies Charles Grow as hardware designer. The project frames the badge as a passive, privacy and drone-awareness device that can later be repurposed as a fixed sensor node. That maker framing does not establish DEF CON or Packet Hacking Village issuance, endorsement, admission use, a sale or giveaway, an attendee benefit, a completed recipient handoff, or authorization to collect or act on detected signals.
Lifecycle
Packet Hacking Village's official programme lists the completed Saturday Friend or Foe presentation at DEF CON 34. It links the documented project to a completed village programme but does not say the village made, distributed, sponsored, sold, or endorsed badges, or that attendees received one.
SourceThe maker describes one badge as an uplink/display XIAO ESP32-S3 and two XIAO ESP32-S3 scanners that share one scanner image but receive BLE-primary and Wi-Fi-primary roles at runtime. It is a source-described architecture, not proof of a universal production revision, board provenance, field reliability, or authorized radio deployment.
SourceThe project describes passive observation of nearby broadcast RF evidence and a USB-C Android companion for live views, display controls, and diagnostics. It does not establish detection accuracy, identification certainty, legal authority, range, data retention, user consent, secure transport, a cloud-free operation in every mode, or a safe field-use procedure.
SourceThe hardware guide publishes a board BOM, single-board and panel Gerber jobs, and a battery-cage STL, and says the DEF CON run used a three-radio ESP32-S3 arrangement with external patch antennas. The files are preservation evidence, not a safe construction guide, a current supplier quote, a complete editable design-source release, or final-unit evidence.
SourceOperational history
The record avoids converting a project description into surveillance guidance, an identification claim, a privacy/security assurance, a supported update process, or a guarantee of behavior on any deployed badge.
Public fabrication material and candid build notes remain discoverable without becoming a universal build, battery-service, radio-operation, or electrical-safety recommendation.
The dossier preserves a completed event-associated electronic artifact without treating it as an official DEF CON Human badge, village credential, general attendee entitlement, or proof that any specific person received a unit.
The United States record remains source-backed and image-free rather than copying source-page media, documentation screenshots, event photos, social media, placeholders, or generated approximations.