Radiant Machines

While Josh Gourneau was tied to a bottle of wine and left to fend for himself at the last Neighborcon, he imagined a belt buckle so neighborly that it could break smart cards and Zigbee chips. This has been realized in the badge for Neighborcon Vegas, which is based upon Travis Goodspeed’s GoodFET20. It’s the shape of an idealized future in which East Tennessee annexes the Middle and Western divisions of the state, as well as select parts of Arkansas, as a means of making the perfect USB belt buckle. Goodspeed and Gourneau have done it again!

As Neighborcon Vegas will be colocated with Security BSides, attendees of that conference are welcome to join in the neighborliness. Also look for belt buckles in Black Hat badges.

We’ll be giving a gold-fingered GoodFET20 or something similarly neighborly to the best belt buckle photo taken with this new badge in Vegas. Examples follow.

Howdy y’all,

Last month, NYC Resistor manufactured a fake pink unicorn badge for Shmoocon. Kingpin’s Defcon 14, 15, and 16 Badges have been electronic, replacing a boring piece of plastic with hackable electronics. Neighborcon, Knoxville’s most neighborly conference, continues both of these traditions, but I’ve decided to publish some details on the badge well in advance of the conference, for those hoping to counterfeit one rather than pay the entrance fee. (Be a neighbor, do both!)

The badges will be a variant of the TV-B-Gone Kit, an open-source design by Mitch Altman and Lady Ada. (N.B., Defcon 16 badges had TV-B-Gone firmware.) It’s also a Tennessee Belt Buckle. Grab the CC-licensed Eagle Source, and expect a final revision to be posted when I have the badges fabbed. Counterfeits badges will get you in the door, and a contest will be held for the best of them. (Be creative, but all entries must be in the shape of a state with no income tax and a constitution-enforced $50 cap on municipal court fines. No exceptions.)

Full Disclosure: There’s no mounting mechanism or battery holder on this revision, and the border shape isn’t very accurate.

I will, of course, be counterfeiting my own badge. Perhaps I can get my Tennessee CMOS-inverter design fabricated by MOSIS?

The winner of the contest will be given a Bus Pirate kit, with which to do all sorts of neighborly things.

Neighborliness abounds!
–Travis Goodspeed
Engineer of Superior Buckles

The belt-buckle has made it to Berlin, where the locals call it Disco Crotch.  Extra-neighborly jigs have been danced, black-box software has been reverse engineered, and industrial quantities of Club Maté have been consumed.

Stay neighborly,
–Travis

Belt Buckle Tennessee!!

The belt buckle was a hit at Sassy Anne’s last night, and we’ve evidence to prove it. Chicks dig a guy with a good belt buckle!

–Travis

Josh Gourneau and I are proud to open this site with the Party Mode Belt Buckle that we’ve been showing around the neighborly city of Knoxville.

–Travis Goodspeed