ImagineRIT 2022 — CSHacked
Circa
One day I was over at a friend's house, discussing how CSH didn't have an Imagine project yet. We got to talking, and progressed through a variety of topics, involving tracking, Bluetooth, data privacy, and scavenger hunts. This rabbit hole of a conversation eventually led to an idea.
She had the idea that this project would be something fun, cool, educational, and not creepy. It was something that people, if they were curious about, could see how much time they spent at each booth, and see what they appeared (through our data) to be most interested in. However, seeing an opportunity to perhaps educate (and entertain) people, I decided it would be cool to do the idea through the lens of data privacy and anonymity. What could we learn from people just by snooping on the devices they carried in their pockets? What could we tell them that would be educational, memorable, and entertaining? What takeaways about security and privacy can we plant that will help them going forward in their lives?
But we didn't end up doing that, because that would require some seriously expensive hardware. Instead, we're using ESP32s to create BLE asset tracking tags. During ImagineRIT, we will run a sort of geocaching-eque game where participants use our BLE-tracking network to find CSH'ers (in costume, of course) and claim a prize.