███████╗ █████╗ ██████╗ ██╗ ███████╗ ███████╗ ██╔════╝██╔══██╗██╔════╝ ██║ ██╔════╝ ██╔════╝ █████╗ ███████║██║ ███╗██║ █████╗ ███████╗ ██╔══╝ ██╔══██║██║ ██║██║ ██╔══╝ ╚════██║ ███████╗██║ ██║╚██████╔╝███████╗███████╗ ███████║ ╚══════╝╚═╝ ╚═╝ ╚═════╝ ╚══════╝╚══════╝ ╚══════╝ a mesh badge for hackers teaching hackers
"What's the matter, Colonel Sandurz? Chicken?"
Eagle 5 is a Reticulum mesh radio badge. It speaks to other badges over LoRa, relays through anchor nodes scattered around the venue, and runs entirely off-grid. No apps, no logins, no cloud. Cryptographic identity is the only ID you need. The Schwartz, as it turns out, is a network protocol.
the_badge
nRF52840 + SX1262 + helix antenna + 2× AAA. The whole bird, exposed.
mesh_networks
What a mesh is, why it matters, when LoRa beats WiFi at 5 km.
reticulum
The protocol stack underneath. Identities, destinations, paths, links.
the_manual
CLI reference, LED meanings, button shortcuts, recovery, gotchas.
ctf
Challenges live on the mesh. Some you can solve from your kitchen. Some you can't.
flash ↗
Drag-and-drop firmware updater. Web-based DFU, no toolchain required.
30-second pitch
A room full of these badges shows up at Hackers Teaching Hackers and starts talking to each other over LoRa. A couple of Raspberry Pi anchor nodes sit in the room as transport hubs and BBSes; the badges find each other and the network builds itself: an in-room playground of messages, flags, and easter eggs for the weekend. After the con, they keep working anywhere in radio range of another Eagle 5, or anywhere you can drop a LoRa transceiver on a Pi.
No app store. No account. No service to shut down. Just bytes on the air, signed by cryptographic identity and routed by every node that hears them. Your keys are the only combination that matters.
Where do I start?
Got a badge? Open the manual and look at the LED key + button shortcuts. Curious about the radio stack? Read about Reticulum. Want to play the CTF? Start here. Need to flash new firmware? flash.eagle5.network.
Who made this?
Designed and built by a small crew of security folks for the 2026 HTH community, over many PCB revisions. Firmware is a custom RNode board profile (Mark Qvist's reference design) with an Eagle-5-specific menu and a little Spaceballs flourish. The CTF lives on the anchor Pis, not in the badge's ROM.
Reticulum is the work of Mark Qvist ↗. We didn't build the network; we built a badge that speaks it well.