It's a bit of inference on my part, I'll give you that but the premise doesn't make sense if he wasn't paid.
If he was working as an unpaid volunteer with the "compensation" being a part of a talk on stage... What was he protesting before the event even started when he injected the screen asking for money? That's a pretty garbage thing to do, but he did it before the consequence he claimed he was protesting.
> What was he protesting before the event even started when he injected the screen asking for money?
The hardware vendor was stiffed and Defcon scratched their trademark from the badges, so this man added an easter egg asking for donations to them, not himself, as far as I understood.
If he was working as an unpaid volunteer with the "compensation" being a part of a talk on stage... What was he protesting before the event even started when he injected the screen asking for money? That's a pretty garbage thing to do, but he did it before the consequence he claimed he was protesting.