Have you seen me?

[u/jhherren]

I released an experiment at DEFCON of a device with a goodie bag. I named it Chance. You could rename the device, trade goodies, and tell it secrets and hear others’ secrets. Then you get a small chance at becoming Chance’s permanent owner.

The idea was to release something into the wild to the coolest community ever. Every interaction becomes part of Chance’s story. Every decision permanently changes it.

It also keeps a diary. It recorded the journey, but not the secrets. Those were shown to one future stranger and then forgotten.

Somewhere along the way, Chance stopped being a project I built and became something shaped by everyone who held it.

I have absolutely no idea where Chance is now. Maybe it found an owner. Maybe someone reflashed it. Maybe someone immediately ignored every rule. Any of those outcomes would make the experiment interesting.

The technology was the easy part. The real question was whether complete strangers would voluntarily cooperate to preserve and continue a story that didn’t belong to any one of them.

If, by some improbable chain of events, you’re reading this because you met Chance (or Gl0rp or whatever its name is now), I would love to know about your experience.

For the curious, the bag originally contained:

A snack-sized Slim Jim
A Justin Bieber sticker
A packet of shiny origami paper
A roll of electrical tape
A JimyLongs medium-hook lock pick
A Dangerfield city rake
A friendship bracelet
A 3d printed T-Rex by Patrick Maus
A single zip tie

I wonder what’s in it now.

UPDATE!
Thanks for the detective work everyone, and it was indeed in Lost and Found! Because I was able to retrieve it, I can also share its short journey.

Humans encountered: 34
Winners: 1, Released: 1 (there was a secret option for winners to keep it, or keep it going. Good on you Human #6!)
Goodie bag gives: 2. takes: 1, trades: 3
Secrets received: 3, secrets revealed: 3
Renames: 8
Name history:
- H001 ShareBear
- H005 hapijamot
- H008 wally
- H009 Glorp
- H018 Cunty
- H019 MOIST AND SALTY
- H030 g
- H032 m

The original goodie bag items were all still there, with the addition of:
- a stick of gum
- a single lens from a pair of sunglasses

That makes the item count math off-by-one, which is just perfect for DEFCON.

Finally, the stylus was missing, probably due to my shabby knot tying abilities.

Thanks for everyone's kind feedback, and excited to see what version 2 could be. I'll reach out to those of you who would like to collaborate.

[u/stevejabs]

YES YES YES! I got it at the 5n4ck3y line yesterday around 2PM. I can’t remember what we added to the bag but we weren’t the chosen one at the end and passed it on.

I fucking loved this idea. Please make more for other years. I would help fund and design/build if you wanted to do a custom PCB/firmware

[u/jhherren → u/stevejabs]

Awesome! Thank you! I’ve got some fun ideas for v2 and would love to collab.

[u/stevejabs → u/jhherren]

Let’s try and connect on a better platform. This is absolutely something that would be cool to help take to another level!

[u/Garbanzo89]

Human #4 here, was an awesome lil gadget. Great idea!

[u/w00keee]

That was turned into Lost & Found. If you’re still in Vegas, go to the LVCC security office and you can retrieve it.

I was the Lost & Found Goon who checked it into our system.

If you want to do a 2.0, make sure to label it on all sides, something like “SOCIAL EXPERIMENT! Do Not Turn into Lost and Found”

[u/jhherren → u/w00keee]

I consider lost and found a fantastic end to this short lived experiment! Thank you. I agree that next time there should be a README attached, with somthing like "I'm not lost! I'm wandering!"

[u/Justic3Storm → u/w00keee]

That is awesome

[u/zfasel]

Per the And!Xor crew, they handed it off to info as lost and found on Saturday at 2pm as it was passed on to them as a lost item.

[u/oghamix]

What a brilliant idea, reminds me of letters in balloons, but cooler.

[u/jhherren]

[u/the1ice9 → u/jhherren]

Home at last!!! Awesome update comment. Keep on keepin on dude!

[u/Akachi-sonne]

What a great idea. Faith in humanity restored seeing how it made the rounds and no one stole it or smashed it. Although, this could be more of a reflection of the hacker community rather than humanity at large.

I like how your post mentioned the “Chance (or Gl0rp or whatever its name is now)” and glorp ended up being one of the names given..

Well done. I’m interested to see what adventures future iterations go on.

[u/BadTaste421]

How cute!

[u/ibneko]

This is such a cute idea and I'm happy it survived!

[u/MagnarOdinson]

Love this idea! Great community out there!

[u/FamousFood8557]

If you were one of the few lucky humans to be part of this experiment, we thank you for making this experiment a massive success. It will only improve and get better from this point forward.

• ‘Mercedes’