August

Figured out the trick after remembering some random bit of trivia from college 20 years ago about the August component. Finally got it decoded, and the flag looked like the right format and made sense. Took me a couple of tries to cut-and-paste it correctly–seriously, how did I mess up cut-and-paste?! But all good now! It was a bit of fun outside-the-box thinking on this one!

I’ve seen the same encoding being used in Geocaching challenges, although the hints made it a lot easier then…

vaaaaaat

just read fucking wikipedia carefully. Once you found it read again the instructions of challenge. Hope it helps xD

PS: also this thing is in front of you

Type your comment> @jugulaire said:

Read all the clue. Still unable to get anything from this cipher. Any tips ?

Think about who is this August related to something in front of you (if you are using your PC ) …

Once you got it, it’s easy to find the cipher.

Could anyone help me with this challenge? I could tell you how far I have worked and you could give me some more useful hints for me to get the flag. Thanks.

I think this challenge is good, but has a very very vague hint, which resulted in a huge number of dislikes.
If you give an encoded text, and use such an unusual way of encoding it, you should at least give a clear hint to how one can decode it.

So, I’ll do that. Here’s a proper hint:
August still lives in the 80s and is left handed, and typed the flag for someone who lives today. Go back in time, and retrace his typing!

Can someone help me with the flag submission I have the flag but it’s not accepting it. Did all the right steps.

nvm solved it

Solved.

the hints on forum are enough
but i think the hint given with challenge is not enough, if i didnt read forum, maybe i spend hours

solved, pm me for help :slight_smile:

Who knew? Google University found me a cipher decoder for this…

Thanks to the hints I found some decipher online, from keyboards to keyboards, but none of the decoded messages are base64 encoded (As I think it should be the output, since the hints author gave). Am I missing something?

NVM, I got what i was missing.
Hint: use the correct hand.

I dont want to spoil this great challenge thanks to @StayNe made me think a lot and out of the box.
Hint (hope not to spoil): Read carefully hints given from @StayNe they will help you alot, just create your own cipher from the hints “August LEFT” and Chris. Than decode the message in base64 and you are done.
Sorry if this is a spoil, if you think yes let em know to delete the comment.

One more detailed tip and its done in an hour. th4nks for challenge

Solved. Literally NEVER would have gotten this without the keyboards hint.

Although I don’t think this was technically hard, and I would barely call it cryptography, I do like challenges of this sort because they force you to research what various encoding systems look like.

I agree with the previous poster who said DON’T spend any time in dcode with this one. What you need is not there. No, really, it is not there. Do some OSINT, find the right diagram, and do it by hand. The hints here are all you need. (And I’m with everyone else, I would never have gotten this one without the hints.)

Got it!! Thanks for all hints in this post, and @StayNe for this challenge!

I still am lost, I got as far as the keyboards, and converting it, but I don’t see how the left hand plays into it. Anyone care to help?

Solved!

I spent ages physically trying to translate and make up my own cipher.

Chris and August will guide you, keyboard is the word here… Understand what they did and how it’s playing into this challenge.

Any nudges feel free to PM!