Published October 4, 2019

Pirates of the Singapore Bay

An artistic badge based on Digispark and design inspirations from Captain Jack Sparrow and Barbossa.

IntermediateFull instructions provided1,142

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Custom PCB

DigiSpark

Red SMD LEDs 1206 package

Green SMD LEDs 1206 package

Male Header 40 Position 1 Row (0.1")

Battery Holder, Lithium CR2032

Coin Cell Battery CR2032

Software apps and online services

Arduino IDE

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Soldering iron (generic)

Story

Savvy?

The Story

I had made a prototype of Pirate Badge at home long ago but was on the shelf for a long time before I found the opportunity to launch it.

A very vague looking early handmade prototype.

Awesome folks at BSides Singapore loved the design and idea of Pirate theme for their conference so I started developing it further.

I was very intrigued about drawing design inspirations and parallels from the Pirates movie series. And the BSides team allowed me great liberty to explore the same.

Some of the ideas we explored were :

1.Pirate of the Singapore Bay: The Curse of the WiFi Jammer - A badge that jams the Wi-Fi signals or duplicates thousands of access points.

2.Pirate of the Singapore Bay: Dead Men Tell Few Tales - A badge that features some sensors that activate on a very particular set of weird activities.

3.Pirate of the Singapore Bay: At TV's End - Turn off all the TVs in the world. Everywhere.

Since it was BSide SG's first year, I focused on making a badge that everyone can find something to play with. And Digispark happened to fulfil the 3 key goals :

1. Accessibility: Easy to connect to the system. Digispark came onboard USB port so nobody needed jumper wires or cables, thus, allowing everyone to dive into it.

2. Versatility: Digispark allowed attendees to use Digispark as a replacement for Arduino board in the circuit. If needed, Digispark can be de-soldered and re-used in a new circuit. Or turn it into Rubber Ducky with automated keystroke scripts.

3. Feasibility: Entire badge needed to fit the limited budget without compromising on design or other key goals.

The Design

So I started with default Jack Sparrow look in the movie but wasn't able to give a strong personality to it. And then I stumbled upon this scene in the climax where Barbossa puts a sword through Jack but Jack doesn't die and rather turns into a skeleton yet alive figure under the moonlight.

That bought me to...

A red "X" mark on cheek, same on both side of the hat and same particular pieces of teeth in copper finish.

As we proceeded to manufacture first prototypes, I realised design could be much more aggressive with the skull effect. So the nose and cheek portion we turned into a cutout.

Jack Sparrow wouldn't be complete without an equally powerful villain - Barbossa. So we made it for the categories of the crew, volunteers, speakers and trainers.

Barbossa with a different hat design and feather. A shoutout to @s4n7h0 for being so supportive.

We faced delays when we ordered reverse mount LEDs but the vendor ended up sending us the wrong LEDs. But then we saw that using onboard LEDs on Digispark, we could glow the PCB around the mouth part. Hence, we carefully cut the top layer of the PCB and turned it into a translucent part.

To make badge interactive for everyone, we put a cryptography puzzle on it. That became the first challenge in the string of challenges interlinked together for the badge CTF.

For the Digispark, I wrote a script that opens notepad and types out a poem as a clue for the next challenge in the puzzle while ending that sequence with a Windows alert dialogue box. Our idea was to give a basic demo of how Rubber Duckies work and then leave it to attendees to explore a wide variety of things that can happen over it.

We worked on lanyards too and they came with the iconic word from the movie franchise. Savvy?

Troubleshooting

Some of the Digispark PCB thickness might not be adequate enough. So it may not get detected if plugged directly to the system. One way to solve this is to use a USB hub or USB extension cable.

Rubber Ducky

Programming the badge is very simple. Much of instructions for Digispark connection can be found here.

One thing to remember is not to connect Digispark before uploading. We hit "upload" and wait for the IDE to give notification about plugging in. After which, it should be programmed pretty quick.

For Rubber Ducky, we'll need to include "DigiKeyboard.h" and the rest of the code is pretty easy to guess if one has worked with Arduino before.

Find PDF attached with keystrokes and their programming implementation.

Also in the attachment is code for the badge. Feel free to modify it or write a new one. Possibilities are endless.

Pirates badge is one of my experiment with the Digispark and trying to make a badge equally capable of hardware as well as programming epicness. So that more people participate in badge hacking and bring their creativity in whatever they want to do with it.

Code

Pirates Of The Singapore Bay

#include "DigiKeyboard.h"

void setup() {
    pinMode(1, OUTPUT); //onboard LED
}

void loop() {
  
  digitalWrite(1, HIGH); // setting onboard LED On
  
  DigiKeyboard.sendKeyStroke(0);
  
  DigiKeyboard.delay(1000); // 1 second delay for system to process
  
  DigiKeyboard.sendKeyStroke(0, MOD_GUI_LEFT); // WinKey
  
  DigiKeyboard.delay(500);
  
  DigiKeyboard.print("notepad"); // Starting notepad
  
  DigiKeyboard.delay(500);
    
  DigiKeyboard.sendKeyStroke(KEY_ENTER);

  DigiKeyboard.delay(1000); 
  
  DigiKeyboard.print("                                      Ahoy, Me Hearties!                                            ");
  DigiKeyboard.sendKeyStroke(KEY_ENTER);
  DigiKeyboard.delay(1000);
  
  DigiKeyboard.print("                          Weigh Anchor and Hoist the Mizzen for BSides Singapore.                   ");
  DigiKeyboard.sendKeyStroke(KEY_ENTER);
  DigiKeyboard.delay(1000);
  
  DigiKeyboard.print("                 Go run a rig, Hearties or heave on the Hackerwares");
  DigiKeyboard.sendKeyStroke(KEY_ENTER);
  DigiKeyboard.delay(1000);
  
  DigiKeyboard.print("                       In search of coffer or Pieces of Eight");
  DigiKeyboard.sendKeyStroke(KEY_ENTER);
  DigiKeyboard.delay(1000);
  
  DigiKeyboard.print("                                  In a distant land");
  DigiKeyboard.sendKeyStroke(KEY_ENTER);
  DigiKeyboard.delay(1000);
  
  DigiKeyboard.print("                         You hoist your Jolly Roger high!");
  DigiKeyboard.sendKeyStroke(KEY_ENTER);
  DigiKeyboard.delay(1000);
  
  DigiKeyboard.sendKeyStroke(0, MOD_GUI_LEFT); //WinKey
  
  DigiKeyboard.delay(1000);
  
  DigiKeyboard.print("cmd"); //Opening CMD
  
  DigiKeyboard.sendKeyStroke(KEY_ENTER);

  DigiKeyboard.delay(1000);

  DigiKeyboard.print("msg %username% Eject the badge"); //Windows Alert box
  
  DigiKeyboard.delay(10000); //Longer time delay

}

Credits

Abhinav SP

23 projects • 21 followers

College dropout artist, hacker and entrepreneur trying to make hardware learning creative. Founder, Hackerware.io