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Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

entropicengineering.com

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Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#111

Post by firesteelrain »

trickstra wrote: post #98
krisoft wrote: post #72

As per usual nobody comes out of these things looking good. To really understand who is right and who is wrong here we would need to read the letter of the agreements between these entities, and cross reference them with facts. Of course neither the contracts, nor the facts are available to us. As is, the best I can do here is to put all participants on my personal “do not work with” list. Who needs the drama. In par…

So how do you deal with the claim that they were sending regular cost updates and estimations throughout the development? (assuming they really did that). Shouldn't DEFCON stop it as soon as they realized some miscommunication about the price?

We can only take that at face value because we don’t know what contractual communication mechanisms were in place to handle these scenarios. It could EE revising history here. We simply don’t know

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#112

Post by [deleted] »

krisoft wrote: post #95
red_trumpet wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The firmware author themselves write[1]: > I was not anybody’s contractor or subcontractor. I’m not employed by entropic nor by you [DEFCON]. I did this in my free time so attendees could have a fun badge. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Defcon/comments/1ep00ln/def_cons_re...

I’m aware of that claim. I can’t verify it of course. But even if I take it as true, doesn’t mean that DEFCON couldn’t have believed he was subcontracting for EE. Similarly if it was DEFCON who introduced the firmware author to EE, EE might believe the firmware author is with DEFCON. Obviously the contracts should be crystal clear about who is with who, and who is responsible for what. We hear that the fimware develo…

[deleted]

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#113

Post by [deleted] »

vextea wrote: post #85
flumpcakes wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a very balanced take and probably one that most people should follow. However, I do slightly favour defcon in this mess - why did Entropic take on a project that was nearly "impossible". Why did the firmware engineer add a crypto beg for a "joke".

Entropic wasn't the people that added the hidden screen with the credit

[deleted]

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#114

Post by waihtis »

maxlin wrote: post #110

Who starts an article, especially one questioning responsibility with the lines in the sort of "woman-owned, queer- and POC-driven ... " ?? It's impossible to try to remove the sense of entitlement one gets from this company after that, given the rest of the situation seems to weight in to that way especially given I've heard of procurement of these badges having no such problems before. EDIT: That said, Defcon doesn…

> Who starts an article, especially one questioning responsibility with the lines in the sort of "woman-owned, queer- and POC-driven ... " ??

Exactly those type of orgs which exist primarily to fill this quota. Any kind of capacity to actually fulfill project requirements is secondary

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#115

Post by neilv »

maxlin wrote: post #110

Who starts an article, especially one questioning responsibility with the lines in the sort of "woman-owned, queer- and POC-driven ... " ?? It's impossible to try to remove the sense of entitlement one gets from this company after that, given the rest of the situation seems to weight in to that way especially given I've heard of procurement of these badges having no such problems before. EDIT: That said, Defcon doesn…

> Who starts an article, especially one questioning responsibility with the lines in the sort of "woman-owned, queer- and POC-driven ... " ?? It's impossible to try to remove the sense of entitlement one gets from this company after that, [...]

FWIW, I noticed that line as I read it, but it didn't make me prejudge the situation.

I mostly noted it as a potential interesting bit of info that might reflect well on DEFCON organizers involved with the badges.

Are you critiquing the writer's PR savvy -- that they should know that progressive references can both help and hurt them, due to political polarization?

(Examples: Some people warm to them. Others feel skepticism or even anger. Others might be personally indifferent, but assessing the PR situation.)

Or are you saying that you think a line like that definitely hurts reception of the writer's argument much more than helps them, with whomever their target audiences are?

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#116

Post by jawns »

olalonde wrote: post #107

> They expressed that they specifically wanted to work with us as a woman-owned, queer- and POC-driven engineering firm Why would someone's gender, sexual orientation or skin color be relevant to developing a badge? This is so weird.

You're right, it's not relevant to their abilities. It's relevant to the historical opportunities that such companies have had available to them.

Likely, the thinking was, "We know that in the past such firms have experienced disadvantages. In years past, bias and discrimination against them may have hurt their chances of procuring a contract like this. Recognizing that historical disadvantage, we now want to give such firms opportunities to show the world that they are every bit as capable."

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#117

Post by jawns »

djfergus wrote: post #57

How does one reconcile the statement below with DEFCON’s claim that they were 60% over budget? > Once a month, we billed for our work and submitted an updated estimated per badge final cost - committing as costs built to discount our work as necessary in order to hit DEFCON’s per unit cost targets.

Just a guess, but the overall budget and the unit cost of the badges are likely two separate things. And you can express unit cost in two different ways: one that includes the cost to develop them, and one that includes only the cost to produce them.

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#118

Post by rincebrain »

LMYahooTFY wrote: post #35
tillulen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like a case of managerial miscommunication. Entropic seems to have expected that sending emails with higher budget estimates would give DEFCON the opportunity to say no if they did not agree, and took the lack of response as a sign of DEFCON’s agreement to the new budget. DEFCON seems to have either not read or ignored those emails and expected Entropic to work within the originally agreed-upon budget.

In what line of work/business can you proceed to incur more expenses without approval from the paying client? This can't really be what they expected.

It depends.

In a past life as a contractor, if we had a prior relationship with a company, we would absolutely sometimes start work on a new project without having all the ink dry, on the good faith assumption that they had reliably paid us before, and would, in turn, pay us again.

Re: Entropic Engineering DEFCON 32 Statement

#119

Post by daghamm »

chambers wrote: post #86

Reading this statement, DEFCON's, and Reddit: it looks like the lowest bidder was a hired to do a complicated and costly project that the client historically underfunded (paper badges last year). If it's true that DEFCON wanted dirt cheap badges produced in record time, then I think the fault lies not in the project's management & execution but in the client's expectations & resourcing. No accomplished vendor would a…

On the contrary, it seems like EE were chosen due to previous experience and close connections with the pi foundation. This is how they got access to the new chip.

For me, this is a clear case of mismanagement and bad communication. DC gave EE the wrong budget (cost for the whole badge instead of the PCB+fw) and then completely ignored the reports they received until it was too late. At which point they decided force EE pay for their mistake instead of man-ing up and accepting at least some responsibility.

Don't forget DC gets 460$ × 30k from ticket sales alone, they should be able to handle this better. And this is not the first time they have screwed suppliers.

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