IC-01 // Hero Init

> loading cheeso.badge()

> event: [DEFCON 34 - 2026]

> status: shipped

THE
DEFCON 34
BADGE

[We did a thing. Andrew 'bunnie' Huang and the Cheeso team are responsible for the DEFCON 34 badge. But it’s so much more than just a badge. Thanks to the Baochip you have a full-fledged open source platform in your hands now. Oh, and a peacock.]

Read the story See the hardware

// Note: Shoutout: Thanks to The Dark Tangent and the DEFCON crew, Kingpin, Xous OS, bunnie studios, DC672, DC31, AQS, King, Jiada, Aqua Jiang, and many many more.

BADGE // FRONT

DEFCON 34 HUMAN badge with CHEESO core module

BADGE // [NAME - HUMAN]

The Story

IC-02 // Story_ops

[When Joe Grand (aka Kingpin) met with 2 friends for dinner in Amsterdam late 2025, he couldn’t have predicted this outcome. He introduced bunnie to Yafsec (who spun up the Cheeso team) and the DEFCON 34 badge team was born.]

[DEFCON 34’s theme is agency: the technologies we use and the choices we make that increase self-determination. So we created a badge you can inspect, remove, and keep using after the con which becomes agency you can hold in your hand.]

[This year also marks the anniversary of 20 years of electronic badges, the foundation of #badgelife. So the back is a well deserved homage to Kingpin who created the first ever electronic badge for DEFCON 14 in 2006.]

[The shapes of the badges combined are a reference to Solarpunk, while the white peacock (you probably can’t see yet) symbolizes protection, courage, and the triumph of good over evil. And protection you will always have from now on. Detach the core module from the badge base and you’ll have a state of the art -inspectable- FIDO2/TOTP security token in your hands.]

[DEFCON is not just a con. It’s 34 years of family. Family that should be protected. And with this badge, we hope we built just that. Go explore, go hack, and be curious but safe.]

// "It's a full-fledged, first-of-its-kind inspectable platform. Long after closing ceremonies we think you'll still be using this device to regain some agency and security in this rapidly complexifying world” - defcon.org

Project DEFCON 34 Badge

Type Electronic

Theme Agency

Event DEFCON 34, Aug 6–9, Las Vegas, Nevada

Year 2026

Status ▶ ACTIVE

Team [4] people

Developed in Singapore / Netherlands

By Baochip & CHEESO

Design Notes

IC-03 // Design_ref

HUMAN

// FRONT & BACK - HUMAN

ARTIST

// FRONT & BACK - ARTIST

CENTER MODULE

// bunnie - Baochip core module

Badge design choices

①

Two distinct badge shapes [The badges were originally designed with the solarpunk logo in mind. In the end the choice was made to split them, cogwheel gears for the INHUMAN ones, and the sun to represent the HUMANS.]

②

PCB materials [The HUMAN badges are a 2 layer PCB, matte black front and copper back, with a silver inlay. The INHUMAN version is a 4 layer PCB, with different colors to match every DEFCON department, and here the artwork has a gold inlay.]

③

Front artwork [The Inspiration is drawn from solarpunk and Peranakan styling: a callback to DEFCON Singapore’s inaugural year. Next to that, the peacock which you will see in all its glory once you remove the core module from the badge, symbolizes protection, courage, and the triumph of good over evil.]

④

Back artwork [The backside art is an homage to the very first electronic badge, made 20 years ago by Kingpin. Next to linking to that DEFCON 14 badge and honoring Joe on the edges, we gave the DEFCON logo the task of holding the batteries for you.]

⑤

Hexagons galore [Both badges carry the same hexagon shaped peacock, the HUMAN badges have the silver version, the other badges have the gold inlay. The 12 hexagons stand for the 12 different badges created this year, excluding the Uber badge.]

⑥

Fonts used [The font used on the badge is Leto Sans, chosen because it’s friendly for the vision impaired.]

⑦

Center module housing [All badges have a transparent removable core module that functions as a stand-alone, open-source hardware security token. The module can be removed and used after the conference as a hardware security token, giving the badge a second life beyond DEFCON.]

↕

Convert to a Security Token [Follow the printed instructions included with your badge conversion kit to turn your badge into a hardware security token. You will need a T6 star (Torx) screwdriver bit.]

// Want more info? Everything badge related can be found on the DEFCON server here.

Core Module

IC-04 // Module_spec

⬡

[THE CHIP]

[The core of it all is bunnie’s Baochip, specs here. A mostly open source silicon chip he designed based on RISC-V architecture, and ‘hitchhiked’ on a tapeout. You can shine infrared through the silicon and visually inspect what’s actually there against the published design. Hardware design and RTL are public. It’s a “high assurance” system, with crypto accelerators, true random number generation, secure key storage, glitch sensors etc. Detached from the badge, it’s meant to be an open source security token you can inspect all the way down to the bootloader.]

◈

[FIRMWARE / LOGIC]

[It runs on Xous OS, an embedded microkernel OS written in Rust. It features Hardware memory protection so each process has an isolated address space, and has a microkernel architecture where all the system services live in userland. Xous has a minimal code base and is targeted at high-assurance embedded applications.]

◎

[CONNECTIVITY AND I/O]

[USB-C on the module, and 2 SAO ports on the board. Specs here. Oh, and a camera yes. The camera is deliberately low-resolution and nearsighted: great at QR codes, bad at everything else. By default it only uses black-and-white data and doesn’t support photo storage, in line with DEFCON’s privacy culture. Next to steering the light and camera, this thing is not ‘just a badge’. After DEFCON you can remove the core module from your badge and use it as a FIDO2 token, TOTP device and password manager. Or develop your own applications for it, check out the helper page again for that.]

▣

[TECH SPECS]

Baochip-1x mostly open RTL SoC
- 350MHz Vexriscv RV32-IMAC/MMU + 4x 700MHz PicoRV32 RV32-EC/Zmmul I/O cores
- 2MiB on-chip SRAM + 4MiB on-chip RRAM (similar to FLASH)
- On-chip cryptography accelerators, TRNG, and more
QR code data exchange: low-res, nearsighted B&W camera (no photo storage); 128x128 black and white OLED display for output
USB-C interface

◑

[POWER]

[The badge is powered by 2 AA type batteries, that should last for 3 days with intermittent use (Not accounting for SAO’s!). The core module can be powered by USB-C, also when detached from the badge. There are soldering pads available on the badge to play with the leds after you detached the core module.]

◇

[THE SECRET THING]

[There are a few challenges. See a nice light pattern? Ask nicely and see if you can exchange patterns with other badges. Put your own picture on the screen if you can. And if you really want to go all in, find the 2 secure boot keys and let bunnie know you found them. But please note that if you put the module in development mode, the challenge keys will be erased. So choose wisely.]

How it works

IC-05 // Flow_diagram

STEP_01

Reveal nonce QR

Press the middle button on your badge to reveal a nonce QR code.

STEP_02

Donor scans your nonce

Ask the light donor to scan your nonce QR code (middle button activates the camera).

STEP_03

Scan light pattern

Scan the light donor's encrypted light pattern QR code.

STEP_04

Keep or rollback

Review the new light pattern and decide to keep or rollback.

// More tips, tricks and technical info Full documentation of the system, schematics, and interaction model will be published here. Need Help? Join the Baochip Community!
Discord (link expires Aug 15) or Matrix

The Team

IC-06 // Team_manifest

[bunnie]

[badge team ring leader. Hardware hacker, open source activist and general troublemaker]

[I am the designer of the Baochip-1x SoC, as well as the designer of the core module circuit board and plastics mechanical design. Next to that I am the author of the badge firmware, and the coordinator for manufacturing & operations. Follow me on Bluesky or Mastodon, or check out my blog. Good at following instructions. Bad at obeying rules.]

[Yafsec]

[NL team lead. Responsible for the badge design together with Delia and for fully exhausting Cheeso’s time in the process]

[Yafsec here, old hacker from the Netherlands, mostly known for something that prevents me from traveling to the US at this point in time. Check out Darknet Diaries episode 87 if you want to know more. Proud member of the GGOH, part of the DEFCON Holland group and lifetime member of DC672. And I am not Kevin Nash.]

[Delia]

[Cheeso lead. Responsible for the artwork, overall team sanity and making super weird ideas look intentional]

[Hi, I am Delia, a Romanian expat living in the Netherlands. I run Cheeso.io, where I spend most of my time creating or breaking things, and fixing details nobody notices while convincing myself it was worth it. So I hope you like the design, because I zoomed in to 420% more times than I'd like to admit.]

[Wietsman]

[Joker and time management wizard. Responsible for electrical wellness checks, placement & initial routing of the badge carrier PCB]

[I am Wietsman. Pentester by day, Lego builder by night, from the back corner of the Netherlands. I love hacking solar panels and other hardware, and I have built a couple of badges for different cons in the past years. If you think the SAO specs sheet is a spec sheet, bite me.]

THE DEFCON 34 BADGE

The Story

Design Notes

Badge design choices

Core Module

How it works

The Team

Prototypes

THE
DEFCON 34
BADGE