Much of this is presented as written by Cthaeh and Me, but we joined a team, and they should be mentioned as contributing a ton before most of the group vaporized when Council won. As such, the story ended up that it was just Cthaeh and me for much of Saturday and Sunday. Props to Jonathan (sciserax) and Madman, who came back and did most of the remaining parts with us. In the end, I was the only one left to hand 1o57 the last flag – or at least, I think I was last. Maybe Jonathan also hopped across that finish line later in the evening, but I needed to catch a plane, so I never found out.
Team credits:
Discordia
-sleep
-sloth
-d4e5
-sciserax
-madman
-metric
-cthaeh
The team credits are a little sketchy due to total implosion when Council took the victory, but everyone should be mentioned. Credit where credit is due.
-Metric
How this guide works – the blog post will contain only information gained by running around at the con, and the html comments will include hints, and there will be a link to the page with the full solution details and design speculations. I wanted to give a site that’s safe to read if you don’t want to be spoiled on the challenge at all, so here it is.
Later on, it gets into a string of semi-linear challenges, so each solution page
will link to another solutions page and so on.
Edit: Hoof, I didn’t realize the WordPress added such a big bunch of html to the top of it. Ah well, just scroll on past and you’ll find the bit where I’ve hid comments.
Part 0: Room keys
Gathered from various hotels on the Defcon Booking:Top two are from Paris and Planet Hollywood, next two are from Caesar’s Palace and the Linq (order?), and the last row are from Flamingo and Ballys.
Part 1: Standee Glyphs
These are gathered from standees about the con. Sorry about image quality, I’ve done my best to realign so that they’re square-ish, but that’s obviously pretty lossy. Or I just suck at gimp.
From outside the Arcade in Ballys
Near 1o57 room, in hallway
Also near 1o57 room
outside elevator to 26th floor
on 26th floor
entrance to contest area
Glyph Solutions
Part 2: Badge silk screen
First, the images of the badges (backs only for non-human) – again, courtesy of the Wikia folks (sorry the arrangement looks shit. I blame WP):
The top part of the hidden traces is common to all of the badges:
nonpareil bimil: Icnwc lsrbcx kc ntr-yudnv ifz xdgm yduxnw yc iisto-eypzk
The middle part, also hidden traces, also common to all:
10000100001 ΣA120215
Finally, the silk screen is different on each. Indexed by type of badge, the full list is:
Human: 010625110310031312 Goon: 032203011918071312 Artist: 02191718 Vendor: 182113 Contest: 110712072518191603 Speaker: 1718030310 CFP(?): 171825180701 Press: 11191803
Part 3: Badge serial dump
Disclaimer: due to certain inability to locate a soldering iron, I never managed to get to this myself; My team, and some folks on Wikia managed to extract these strings from the badge.
When the konami code is entered to the buttons
Konami Code unlocked! Aqw ogcp K ecp'v ycnm vjqwij vjg ecukqp ykvj c hcmg dcfig?
At various other times:
Uqog hqnmu vjkpm vjg gngxcvqt qpna iqgu fqyp
Uqhvyctg Gpikpggtkpi okijv dg uekgpeg; dwv vjcv’u pqv yjcv K fq. K’o c jcemgt, pqv cp gpikpggt. - Lcokg Bcykpumk
NRtkguv: ”Pqy vjcv dtkpiu c yjqng pgy ogcpkpi vq ’Jqpgarqv’”
Nqqm, jcemgtu!
Nkxg fgoqu pgxgt yqtm, fqwdna uq cv FGHEQP
Ctg aqw uwtg vjku dcfig kup’v urakpi qp aqw?
Nqqm c hgf!
”K fqp’v mpqy yjgtg K’o iqkpi htqo jgtg, dwv K rtqokug kv yqp’v dg dqtkpi.” -Fcxkf Dqykg
Part 4: Lanyards
Unfortunately, I don’t have any full pictures of the set and the lovely image that they form, just the data.
There were 4 lanyards of the ordinary set; say it with me : Lock, Floppy, Jolly Roger, Rotary; good.
But, there was one more that was preferentially handed out to people new to the con and during 1o57’s opening ceremonies T-shirt gun style into the crowd. The full data, aligned as the lanyard art design would have you think:
n00b rotary: Jolly Floppy Key:
Roger:
00x 00100y
x10 00000y
x01 10010y
00x 10010y 1426
01x 01010y 1413
x01 10001y 0314 0721 2201
01x 00110y 1624 1819 2025
10x 00011y 2612 2209 1219
10x 01000y 1502 1815 1810
x10 10011y 1110 0211 1722
00x 01011y 2207 2201 0616
01x 01111y 2119 2010 0207
x01 01111y 2209 2213 2118
01x 01011y 1817 1405 0408
10x 10000y 0213 1706 1806
00x 01011y 1801 2308 0305
10x 01100y 2522 2603 0209
00x 00110y 0408 0408 2217
x00 01110y 0205 2216 1823
x01 01000y 2308 2425 0824
00x 01000y 2006 12 1815
00x 01001y 0211
x01 01001y 1806
x00 01000y
00x 00100y
Part 5: Defcon CD
Files available from the Defcon media server
Part 6: The Program
On 1o57’s page, there are a bunch of equations. Written out in non-fancy-LaTeX typeset way, these are:
6(-(1/x) + 1) = 1/(e^(1/Sqrt(pi)))^2
(e - sqrt(x - pi^2))^(-1) = 7 - e^(sqrt(pi/7))
1/(x - (2/x + 9)) = (8 log(8))^2 + 1
(sqrt(x) - 1/pi)/pi = e^((1 - 1/log(2))^2)
(x - e^3)^2 = 4 - 1/pi^2
sqrt(e) x - 4 = ((2^pi)/pi)^2
Part 7: Synthesis
Now, we need to put together the things we’ve found.
Careful on this one. If you’re playing along, this contains all the solutions to all of the above steps. So.. you know, Red blaring klaxon spoiler alert.
Degenerate Metric 
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