NoNameCon 2019 · Ukraine · 2019

NoNameCon 2019 NoNameBadge

Ukrainian ESP32 badge and CTF platform

A Ukrainian NoNameCon 2019 electronic badge built by TechMaker around an ESP32 platform with Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, OLED display, LEDs, capacitive input, OTA firmware, SpyNet backend interaction, and a six-flag badge CTF.

NoNameCon Ukraine Kyiv ESP32 OLED WS2812 WiFi Bluetooth OTA CTF Europe

EventNoNameCon 2019

SeriesNoNameCon

LocationLavra Art Gallery, Kyiv

CountryUkraine

People

Authors & Credits

CTF write-up repository publisher

Coders in UA

Publisher namespace for the collaborative NoNameBadge 2019 CTF write-up archive.

Source

NoNameCon badge reverse-engineering talk author

Oleksii Sobolevskyi

SpeakerDeck page credits Oleksii Sobolevskyi for the talk using the NoNameCon badge as a hacking example.

Source

badge team and firmware publisher

TechMaker

TechMaker published the NoNameBadge 2019 making-of post and hosted the public firmware archive under its NoNameCon GitLab group.

Source

event host

NoNameCon

NoNameCon is the Kyiv cybersecurity conference whose 2019 badge is documented by the ticketing and TechMaker source trail.

Source

Why It Mattered

It adds Ukraine to the European badgelife map with a documented local cybersecurity-conference badge that was built under tight budget constraints and deliberately framed as both a conference ticket and an IoT vulnerability playground.

Hardware

TechMaker's making-of post documents early red prototypes with ESP32 dev boards, later PCBWay production boards, ESP32 mounting/test jigs, capacitive-button and LED self-test, a production batch where 400 boards worked, and four 100-badge boxes brought to the preparty. The public firmware tree further exposes SSD1306 OLED, WS2812 LED, buzzer, BMP280, MPU, Wi-Fi, NVS, shell, and CTF-related modules.

Software & Apps

The badge firmware and CTF story included root-access recovery, proprietary OTA updates with digital-signature verification, SpyNet server interaction, leaked ELF material, certificate-pinning bypass opportunities, a public post-event firmware tree, and a collaborative write-up repository covering challenge areas such as Rooting, NoNameCon SpyNet, Binary Hero, and Side Blennel.

Lore

The team chose a Wi-Fi/Bluetooth platform despite a budget several times smaller than comparable European badge efforts. By publication time, 127 badge owners had solved at least one challenge, 12 had solved all six, and a post-event OTA update added factory reset with a new unique identifier so badges could be passed to other people for continued play.

Lifecycle

Add-ons & Upgrades

challenge archive released

Collaborative CTF write-up archive

The public CTF repository preserves write-up entry points for Rooting, Mr Bean Walker, BruteSearcher, NoNameCon SpyNet, Ployka PWNer, Binary Hero, and Side Blennel.

Compatibility: NoNameCon 2019 NoNameBadge

Source

display and controls source-backed

OLED, LEDs, and capacitive input

The making-of and source tree document OLED firmware, LED behavior, capacitive-button/self-test production flow, and WS2812 control modules.

Compatibility: NoNameCon 2019 NoNameBadge

Source

event backend source-backed

SpyNet backend interaction

The badge CTF story used a SpyNet server that logged badge activity and exposed web/application-security challenge material.

Compatibility: NoNameCon 2019 NoNameBadge

Source

firmware challenge source-backed

Signed OTA firmware challenge

TechMaker describes OTA firmware updates with digital-signature verification, key recovery from badge information, and participant-signed firmware as a CTF path.

Compatibility: NoNameCon 2019 NoNameBadge

Source

microcontroller and radio source-backed

ESP32 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth badge core

The TechMaker writeup says the team chose a platform with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and the public firmware archive preserves an ESP-IDF project for the NoNameBadge.

Compatibility: NoNameCon 2019 NoNameBadge

Source

Operational history

Issues & Camp Impact

CTF/backend archive boundary note

The public firmware and write-up repositories document major badge CTF surfaces, but this pass does not prove that every private backend, provisioning script, factory image, key, leaderboard implementation, or organizer service has been published.

Software claims stay limited to the recovered TechMaker post, public firmware tree, public CTF writeups, and talk material.

Confidence: public firmware and write-up sources
Status: partial archive
Timeframe: post-event public release
Source note: NoNameBadge public firmware project and Coders in UA CTF write-up repository.

missing rights-cleared image note

No NoNameCon 2019 NoNameBadge image is published because the current public source trail has not been paired with a reusable original badge or artifact photo or official upstream raster render with source URL, license or permission basis, attribution, and processing notes.

The Ukraine record remains source-backed and image-free rather than copying source-page media, documentation screenshots, event photos, social media, placeholders, or generated approximations.

Confidence: local project policy
Status: needs licensed original replacement
Timeframe: current catalogue build
Source note: badge.gallery image policy and NoNameCon 2019 ticketing, TechMaker making-of, firmware, and CTF source trail.

production scramble and repair caveat note

The making-of documents production delays, hand assembly, volunteers, rejected or reworked ESP32 boards, self-test/update workflow, and last-week badge readiness rather than a frictionless manufacturing run.

The record preserves the practical production history and avoids presenting the badge as a fully polished commercial batch.

Confidence: badge-team source
Status: documented
Timeframe: May 2019 production
Source note: TechMaker NoNameBadge 2019 making-of post.

repository and image license caveat note

The public firmware project is useful evidence, but the GitLab project exposes no README URL in the project metadata and no top-level reusable image-license basis was recovered in this pass.

Repository files and article photos are cited as evidence only; no badge image is copied locally without explicit image rights, attribution, and processing provenance.

Confidence: GitLab metadata and repository pass
Status: no visible reusable image basis
Timeframe: 2026-05-21 source pass
Source note: TechMaker NoNameBadge 2019 article, GitLab project metadata, and badge.gallery image policy.

Resources

NoNameBadge 2019 CTF writeups CTF writeup repository · Collaborative public NoNameBadge CTF write-up repository listing challenge areas and links to the instruction page and leaderboard. NoNameBadge 2019 firmware main tree firmware source tree · Firmware source tree preserving OLED, Wi-Fi, LEDs, buzzer, settings, shell, NVS, and CTF-related badge code modules. NoNameBadge 2019 making-of badge-team writeup · TechMaker badge-team post documenting the Ukrainian NoNameCon hardware badge budget, ESP32 platform choice, prototypes, production batch, assembly workflow, firmware/CTF story, solved counts, and post-event reset update. NoNameBadge 2019 public firmware firmware source · Public GitLab project for the NoNameBadge 2019 firmware archive, preserving ESP-IDF project files and badge runtime modules. NoNameCon 2019 ticketing page event ticketing · Official ticketing source for the May 14-17, 2019 NoNameCon Kyiv event at Lavra Art Gallery. NoNameCon badge hacking talk talk slides · SpeakerDeck talk by Oleksii Sobolevskyi using the NoNameCon badge as an example for basic hacking techniques.

Sources

Coders in UA / GitLab: NoNameBadge 2019 CTF Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Public collaborative write-up source for the badge CTF areas, instruction-page link, leaderboard link, and post-event challenge reconstruction. NoNameCon / TicketForEvent: NoNameCon 2019 Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Event-context source for the NoNameCon 2019 Kyiv dates and Lavra Art Gallery venue. SpeakerDeck / MacPaw Tech Talks: Some basic hacking techniques via example NoNameCon badge Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Talk-slide source connecting Oleksii Sobolevskyi's NoNameCon badge reverse-engineering material to post-event educational use. TechMaker / GitLab: NoNameBadge 2019 - Public Version Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Primary public firmware source for ESP-IDF badge code, project metadata, and production firmware modules; used as evidence, not as an image reuse basis. TechMaker / GitLab: NoNameBadge 2019 firmware tree Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Source tree evidence for SSD1306 OLED, WS2812 LEDs, buzzer, Wi-Fi, shell, settings, NVS, and CTF modules. TechMaker Blog: NoNameBadge: How we created the conference badge Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Primary badge-team source for the NoNameBadge 2019 hardware-badge claim, ESP32 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth platform choice, production/assembly history, OTA/SpyNet/CTF firmware story, six-flag challenge set, solved counts, and post-event reset update.