TROOPERS

TROOPERS11

A German IT-security conference whose attendee badge used a nixie tube, score programmer, Cat-5 LANyard switch, capacitive touch secret, and hackable pad fields.

Heidelberg · Germany · 2011

TROOPERS11 Nixie Badge

A source-backed early TROOPERS electronic badge built around a glowing nixie-tube digit, a programming station for badge scores, a Cat-5 LANyard switch, and hidden capacitive-touch and pad-field hack surfaces.

Lifecycle

Add-ons & Upgrades

TROOPERS11 Nixie Badge historical

badge challenge surface

Score programmer and hidden touch target

Hackaday documents a score programmer, a 0-to-9 digit collection challenge, a secret capacitive touch sensor, and pad fields intended for attendee hacking.

Compatibility: TROOPERS11 Nixie Badge

TROOPERS11 Nixie Badge historical

lanyard interaction hardware

Cat-5 LANyard switch

The badge used a Cat-5 cable through the board as a LANyard switch, making the physical lanyard part of the badge interaction.

Compatibility: TROOPERS11 Nixie Badge

Operational history

Issues & Camp Impact

TROOPERS11 Nixie Badge note

missing rights-cleared image · project image provenance · needs licensed original replacement

No reusable original TROOPERS11 badge photo has been cleared in this pass.

The catalogue publishes the record without a badge image until an original licensed photo can replace it.

TROOPERS11 Nixie Badge note

source-depth caveat · secondary article plus event archive · needs original design files

The current source set documents the badge concept and attendee-facing hardware, but does not recover original schematics, firmware, BOM, or a complete creator archive.

The dossier preserves the badge without inventing chip-level or high-voltage design details that are not present in the public sources.

Resources

TROOPERS11 event archive event page · Official TROOPERS11 archive page for conference context. Nixie Tube Conference Badge hardware article · Hackaday coverage of the TROOPERS11 badge, its nixie display, programming station, Cat-5 LANyard switch, capacitive touch trick, and hacking pads. TROOPERS12 CFP follow-up mailing-list archive · ERNW/TROOPERS announcement pointing readers back to the previous year's badge. TROOPERS11 official Flickr set photo archive · Official TROOPERS photo set for the 2011 event.

Sources

Full Disclosure / ERNW: TROOPERS12 Call for Papers Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Post-event lineage source that references the previous year's badge. Hackaday: Nixie Tube Conference Badge Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Main public source for badge behavior, puzzle framing, LANyard hardware, capacitive touch, and hack pads. TROOPERS: TROOPERS11 Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Official event archive for the Heidelberg conference edition. TROOPERS / Flickr: TROOPERS11 official Flickr set Retrieved 2026-05-15 · Photo archive for the event context.