NaClCON

NaClCON 2026

The completed first NaClCON hacker-history conference, held May 31-June 2, 2026 in Carolina Beach. Official registration included a NaClCON badge and Pirate Pieces of Eight CTF access, while the official schedule listed a CTF and Badge Intro. A founder announcement called the badge 3D printed/NFC, but the reviewed post-event sources do not directly confirm final badge fabrication, issuance, or technical implementation.

Courtyard by Marriott Carolina Beach Oceanfront, Carolina Beach, North Carolina · United States · 2026

NaClCON 2026 3D-Printed NFC Conference Badge

NaClCON's official registration included a NaClCON Badge and access to the Pirate Pieces of Eight CTF, while the official schedule listed a CTF and Badge Intro. A public pre-event announcement by founder Luke McOmie (Pyr0) describes a 3D-printed/NFC conference badge for the Pieces of Eight CTF and Pirate Scavenger Hunt. The event later occurred, but no reviewed post-event source directly establishes final badge fabrication, attendee handoff, or the announced NFC implementation, so this is retained as a source-backed pre-event artifact announcement rather than a shipped-hardware claim.

Lifecycle

Add-ons & Upgrades

announced event-specific NFC experience

NFC Pieces of Eight and Pirates vs British Navy games

Matt Aragon announced two custom-built interactive NaClCON experiences: an NFC Scavenger Hunt Pieces of Eight and a Pirates vs British Navy NFC social-networking game. The announcement does not identify which physical event artifact participated in either experience.

Compatibility: NaClCON 2026 live-event context; not evidence of a specific badge chip, protocol, software release, or completed deployment.

NaClCON 2026 3D-Printed NFC Conference Badge official registration and schedule

badge activity and introduction

Pirate Pieces of Eight CTF and Badge Intro

Official registration pairs the NaClCON Badge with Pirate Pieces of Eight CTF access, and the official opening schedule lists a CTF and Badge Intro. The sources do not publish a per-badge challenge mapping, scoring mechanism, reward, or final results.

Compatibility: NaClCON 2026 attendee-program context; no specific NFC tag, reader, software client, or credential behavior is documented.

Operational history

Issues & Camp Impact

CTF, game, and authorship boundary · official schedule and named first-hand announcements · activity relationship source-backed; artifact roles unresolved

The official registration pairs a badge and CTF access, the founder says the badge could be used in Pieces of Eight / Pirate Scavenger Hunt play, the official schedule credits DEAD MEAT SOCIETY and SHIPSTONE for a CTF and Badge Intro, and Matt Aragon announces two NFC games. The reviewed sources do not publish the exact badge-to-game mapping, operation, scoring, rewards, results, participant privacy/data flow, or a reliable badge designer/manufacturer attribution.

Schedule and announcement context remains discoverable without attributing badge design to the game host or scheduled organizations, or inventing a finished challenge system.

NFC hardware and implementation gap · founder announcement only · 3D-print/NFC terms announced; technical details unreleased

The founder's announcement calls the conference badge 3D printed/NFC, but no reviewed source identifies tag/card/embedded form, standard, chip, reader behavior, antenna, encoding, data flow, power, PCB, MCU, app, firmware, API, source code, licence, privacy model, or security properties.

The catalogue does not turn the word NFC into claims about a powered electronic badge, a contactless credential, a specific radio protocol, personal-data handling, or a reproducible implementation.

missing rights-cleared image · local project policy · needs licensed original replacement

No NaClCON 2026 badge image is published because the official event pages, ticketing, organizer announcement, game-host post, and attendee report do not pair a specific factual badge image with a reusable licence or explicit permission basis, attribution, source URL, and processing record.

The North Carolina dossier remains source-backed and image-free rather than copying official page graphics, social-media images, attendee photos, screenshots, event branding, or generated approximations.

pre-event artifact fulfillment gap · official inclusion pages and founder announcement · event completed; exact artifact fulfilment unpublished

Official pages promised a NaClCON Badge and CTF access, and the founder announced a 3D-printed/NFC conference badge before the event. A named attendee confirms the first convention happened, but the reviewed post-event sources do not directly confirm final fabrication, how many badges existed, attendee handoff, reuse, losses, replacements, variants, or whether the announced 3D-print/NFC form was delivered.

The record can preserve a concrete pre-event artifact claim without presenting planning language or an event-completion report as proof of universal delivery or a final production configuration.

source date discrepancy · official pages and founder announcement · official date retained

The official NaClCON site, registration page, schedule, and organizer ticketing all give May 31-June 2, 2026, while the founder's badge announcement says May 30-June 2. No reviewed source explains the one-day difference.

The event and badge record follow the repeated official May 31-June 2 date while preserving the conflicting first-hand pre-event wording for future archive recovery.

Resources

Sources