SDCC 2016 PRE-REGISTRATION Discussion Thread

[SteveD]

This discussion peaked my interest, so I went back and scanned all the badges I have going back eight years.

What I found was that every badge, at least from 2008 and on, includes your name, full address, phone number, email address, and badge confirmation number.

Starting in 2012, the bar code also includes what looks like a public-key encryption string.  I'm not sure what that was used for.

So yes, if you let a vendor scan your badge, they will have a lot of personal information about you.

[trekster]

This discussion peaked my interest, so I went back and scanned all the badges I have going back eight years.

What I found was that every badge, at least from 2008 and on, includes your name, full address, phone number, email address, and badge confirmation number.

Starting in 2012, the bar code also includes what looks like a public-key encryption string.  I'm not sure what that was used for.

So yes, if you let a vendor scan your badge, they will have a lot of personal information about you.

Thanks for that!  I always wondered but never bothered to find out.  I never let vendors scan my badge.

[admiral-lira]

As far as the RFID scanners at the event go, I suppose that could happen, but it depends on the amount of information they encode and how they secure it.  I think using scanned information to create counterfeit badges would be unlikely because they not only need the chip information; they have to fabricate a plastic badge (presumably) with proper graphics and size which will not be known until just before the show.

They could only encode a serial number in every badge that can be deactivated if they detect unusual behaviour or go as far as a challenge based handshake.

[sylent_asassin]

Has anyone ever won anything from allowing vendors to scan your badge? I've gone for the last 10 or so years, and haven't met one person that won something. If anything, this is probably how we end up with spam emails.

[perc2100]

Has anyone ever won anything from allowing vendors to scan your badge? I've gone for the last 10 or so years, and haven't met one person that won something. If anything, this is probably how we end up with spam emails.

I have a few times; last time was a $250 gift card to a prop replica place (can't remember name right now)


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[sylent_asassin]

I have a few times; last time was a $250 gift card to a prop replica place (can't remember name right now)


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Cool! It's nice to hear a success story once in a while. Congrats!

[susanml10881]

Has anyone ever won anything from allowing vendors to scan your badge? I've gone for the last 10 or so years, and haven't met one person that won something. If anything, this is probably how we end up with spam emails.

Someone on a con group on fb won a huge prize a few years ago. I've never won though but so many people enter though

[perc2100]

Someone on a con group on fb won a huge prize a few years ago. I've never won though but so many people enter though

I haven't won in a few years; the spam my CCI email is general my spam email account anyway, and at this point monitoring spam calls or mail isn't a problem.
That being said, I only do the badge-scan thing when a) I'm buying something and I 'have' to or b) it's really cool swag.  I generally stay away from free posters, bags, etc. and I always have the mindset of "do I REALLY want whatever the swag is enough to potentially field a phone call or deal with spam?"  Sideshow always has really cool stuff that I don't mind getting on their mail list, and there are some really cool companies.  More often than not, though, I just pass

[Zero]

Forum Housekeeping:
Closing this thread because we're past both pre-registration and open registration, but I'll leave this as a stickied thread for reference for the time being.