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Comment by mvdtnz | Hacker News Reader

This is a great example of why both sides of a story are needed. From DEF CON's perspective, assuming this is all true, there's nothing unreasonable here.

It sounds like Dmitry was a subcontractor of Entropic and producing a screen asking for money after their contract had been terminated (for good-sounding reasons) was bad form. I'm not commenting on the legalities (I don't know anything about contract law) and I don't necessarily take either side's account at face value, but this response doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

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Dmitry has repeatedly stated he was not hired by Entropic nor was asking to be paid for his work. He did it for fun. I'm not sure where this misunderstanding is coming from.

He apparently put in extra code showing a wallet address (presumably his) and the request to "donate".

Does sound like "asking to be paid", even if it's then switched to "it was all a prank, bro" when it turns out that wasn't the greatest idea.

From what I've read, it's very difficult to access the easter egg. It's not clear if the address belongs to him or not. Despite that, he has refused donations the entire time.

> From what I've read, it's very difficult to access the easter egg.

The reports I've seen have said "Go to the about screen and press the select button". That's not difficult.

How often do you visit an about screen and press random buttons?

First of all, it's DEF CON, so lots of people are going to be doing that. But also, only one person needs to find it before word of mouth gets around.

Where did you read that it was very difficult to access?

He has stated that he does not own the wallet, EE does: https://www.reddit.com/r/Defcon/s/Ch5NvKWuns

The wallet address he put in there was Entropic's, not his own. He was soliciting donations for Entropic, presumably because he was unhappy that DEFCON stopped paying them.

To add: Dmitry has stated that EE owns the wallet address.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Defcon/s/Ch5NvKWuns

Why scrub their name from the badge though? That just seems like being vindictive.

According to DC: they scrubbed their name from a component of the badge Entropic had no part in creating; they retained Entropic's name on Entropic's actual parts.

OK, but also didn't credit them in any of the communication about the badge, uninvited them from the badge talk, and uninvited the firmware author when they found out he'd put credit to them in the firmware. Really isn't looking like they were keen to give credit.

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