PatriotCTF 2023-My phone! (Crypto+OSINT)
Hey, it’s Dev Vijay from Team_Valhalla, back with another write-up!
Today, I’ve got a story to share about how I tracked down a weird triangle-shaped Yellow men who “stole” my phone and even i managed to locate his “City name” by using my OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence) and Crypto skills.
So, about a week ago, I was just chilling with my Linux laptop when I received an email from a weird triangle men. Yeah, you heard me right! he sent me an email just to mess with me. he included some encrypted location coordinates that seemed to be locked behind this crazy cipher I’d never seen before.
But hey, here’s the real kicker — my biggest concern at that moment wasn’t deciphering his code. Nope! It was all about how I could get my hands back on my legendary Nokia 3310, phone .which I used as a makeshift hammer to make holes in the walls.
I opened the email, and inside, there was a PNG image attachment. This image was a bit of a puzzle because it featured various symbols that resembled umbrellas, triangles, and what seemed like Egyptian hieroglyphs. However, I quickly realized that it was more than meets the eye, and there was something hidden beneath the surface. 🧐
I was scratching my head, wondering how the heck I was supposed to search for these cryptic symbols on Google. I mean, my keyboard wasn’t exactly equipped for typing out these bizarre characters.
That’s when a brilliant idea struck me: what if I tried using “Google’s image search feature?” 🤔?
I mean, why not, right? Let’s throw that crazy symbol into the mix and see if Google can work its magic!
Ha ha, seriously, dude! 😂 I swear my mind did a little dance of confusion. Google threw at me a whole circus of even weirder symbols, but not a single one seemed to match the image I was dealing with.
It was like Google was playing its own version of “Find the Weirdest Symbol!”.
so I decided to give Google another shot. This time, I typed in,
“Is any crypto cipher that includes crazy symbols? "
As I scrolled through Google pages, I stumbled upon some intriguing information about the dcode.fr website. It turns out this website wasn’t just useful for decrypting text but could also crack crypto symbols!
After some clicking and navigating, there it was — the very same symbols that had me scratching my head for so long!
So, at this point, all I had to do was enter those quirky symbols into the input box on the dcode.fr website, and voila! It worked like a charm, giving me this output: FOURSIX . SEVENSIXEIGHT , -NINETWO . ONETWOFOUR
After converting these words to numbers, I got the final output: 46.768 , -92.124, which is nothing other than GPS coordinates! 🌍📍 Where 46.768 represents the Latitude, and -92.124 represents the Longitude. Simple and ingenious! 🌐😄
The final step was to input those coordinates, 46.768 for latitude and -92.124 for longitude, into any GPS coordinate converter. And there you have it! 🌍
The result came out in DMS (degrees, minutes, seconds) format, which reads: “N 46° 46' 4.8'’ W 92° 7' 26.399'’.” 🌐
Gotcha! With those coordinates, i can now pinpoint the exact location. So, which city did that triangle man call home? 🌆
Flag: PCTF{Duluth}
Challenge solved! 🎉 Thanks for tuning in, everyone.
I know, I know, my write-ups tend to run a bit long, and trust me, I could wrap this up in 2–3 paragraphs if I wanted to. But you know what? I put a lot of effort into these because my primary goal is to make sure even beginners can easily understand the process. thankuuuuu by
Oh, wait ,hold on, guys ! I know you’re all pretty excited to hear what happened when I tracked down that weird yellow-triangle man.
Well, guess what? When I finally caught up with him at his house, It turns out he’s none other than SpongeBob SquarePants’ 🍍brother!
Yep, you heard me right, SpongeBob has a triangle-shaped bro. 😂
Now, whether he’s SpongeBob’s brother or not, one thing was clear: revenge was my top priority. Without hesitation, I snatched his precious iPhone and took off like a rocket!🏃♂️🏃💨
Looks like our yellow triangle-shaped friend is becoming very Famous as a meme , right? 🌟
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