ENTROPIC ENGINEERING DEFCON 32 STATEMENT

A statement from Entropic Engineering on the developing Badge situation at DEFCON 32 (2024)

August 10, 2024

Entropic Engineering was approached in January ‘24 by the DEFCON Badge Team, who were looking for a small company to partner with. They expressed that they specifically wanted to work with us as a woman-owned, queer- and POC-driven engineering firm to develop an electronic badge with a gaming element for this year’s conference.

The specifics of what they requested in January were extremely difficult / almost impossible, but we had been working with Raspberry Pi as a Design Partner and had early access to the unreleased Raspberry Pi RP 2350, a chip that would enable exactly the kind of device DEFCON was requesting. Dmitry and Entropic had already been working on a GB emulator and were thrilled to be able to contribute our work to a project directly for and by the community.

We then approached Raspberry Pi with the idea of collaborating to launch this chip at DEFCON. All negotiations, liaising, and access to RPi was orchestrated by EE. Like us, RPi was really excited about getting this tech into the hands of some of their most enthusiastic community members, especially packaged as a retro handheld gaming device. In many ways, this was a dream project.

Despite the near impossibly short timeline to achieve 30k unit mass production, our team of 5 worked tirelessly alongside Dmitry. He handled all of the emulator software while we sourced components, designed all of the hardware, wrote production test software, and organized all circuit board manufacturing, prototype manufacturing, facilitated large volume production manufacturing and logistics, and general project coordination. Through this period, Defcon’s responsibility was the game-specific software, badge accessories (i.e.: plastic case and lanyard), and the printed circuit board artwork including the cat shape, colors, and silkscreen.

We were clear as early as our first conversation in January that the risk in trying to push to mass production of this size and on this timeline was immense, even advocating for a DEFCON 2025 release of this particular badge. DEFCON’s Badge Team remained confident that they could meet and mitigate this risk.

Once a month, we billed for our work and submitted an updated estimated per badge final cost - committing as costs built to discount our work as necessary in order to hit DEFCON’s per unit cost targets.

In June, after 5 months of late night work, badges were fully designed, prototypes were working, and mass production was ongoing with the manufacturers we contracted on behalf of DEFCON. We billed DEFCON for our most recent work, discounting our labor by 25% in order to meet the agreed upon targets. Unfortunately, we were instead met with a work stoppage request and informed we would no longer be paid for services already rendered. 

At this point, all work had been completed except our physically attending the overseas production run and providing ongoing troubleshooting/debugging. In fact, the day we received this surprising news, we were actively working on the SD card debug that became a central concern earlier this week.

Ultimately, DEFCON chose to send a member of their own team to oversee onsite production while EE and Dmitry continued working for free behind the scenes to ensure that the badges delivered to our community would reflect the care we have for our community, this project, and the Raspberry Pi launch.

We take responsibility for and ownership of any oversights and mistakes that we have made in this project. We are a small team working with very limited resources trying to accomplish a very difficult project for our community while paying the bills. EE has tried multiple times over the past months to negotiate fair compensation for work completed prior to June 7th, but attempts at resolution have been unsuccessful.

Once the manufacturing was fully completed, we were offered a one-time “take it or leave it” amount worth well under half of what we were owed pre-stoppage. Given that what we were owed was already discounted by 25% in order to hit agreed upon cost targets, this has had a huge impact on our small team. We are also still owed substantial sums for parts that we purchased on behalf of DEFCON for use in the badge. Again, all subsequent offers to negotiate a settlement in good faith have not received any productive response.

We have also continued to pour lots of time, effort, and love into the project post-stoppage. I want to be clear that we never expected to be paid for this post-stoppage work, but simply did it as a labor of love for the community.

The DEFCON community is and has always been near and dear to my heart; I started my local DEFCON group as a kid growing up in Malaysia decades ago. We did everything we possibly could in order to make the badge happen this year as a love letter to the community we care about - the whole team poured everything it had, including many sleepless nights for many many months. I’m proud of my team: we weathered exhaustion, illness, robbery (ask Dmitry), and just about every logistical nightmare possible with the attitude that under no circumstances would we let this fail for a community we love and love being part of. 

We’re confused by and extremely disappointed in the decisions made institutionally by the conference this year. In addition to the agreed upon monetary compensation (which we have been only partially provided), we were promised visibility and representation as supporters and contributors to the community. Badges for the team (and conference attendance), participation in the Badge talk, and credit in announcements, signage, and on the Badge case were all promised in return for work rendered. 

We were especially hurt and confused by the conference's choice to revoke all of the above. If, as was offered as explanation, the Badge project was truly out of funds when we were removed, we’re especially curious how many thousands of dollars were then spent on the project of literally and physically erasing our contributions and credit. Modifying a plastic injection mold so late in the game is pricey and additionally risky.

While we as a company did not ask Dmitry to program the easter egg, the outpouring of support and community for EE has been appreciated and inspiring. We are especially grateful that Dmitry was not hurt in the physical removal he was subjected to as a result of his demonstration of solidarity. We want to extend our thanks to all attendees who have been asking questions, reaching out, attending surprise side-walk cons, displaying the about page badge on the con floor, and, especially, keeping a community eye on law enforcement and conference security to help ensure our friend Dmitry’s safety in the last 48 hours. 

The badge circuit board was partly designed by a young EE engineer in South America (shout out to George!). It had always been Dmitry and EE’s goal to use all proceeds after overhead and payroll (which still are recovering) to finance George’s completion of his engineering degree. In fact - this is why we started work on the original pre-defcon uGB gaming device in the first place. 

Please keep your eyes open in the near future for opportunities to help us meet this goal despite the disappointments and challenges of the past few months.

In appreciation and solidarity,
M Pang on behalf of the Entropic Engineering team