misDIRection

importent :
When i was acctualy unziped (with winrar) i got CAPITALS open as lowers …

Not a difficult one, if you are stuck, go back to the start. Consider what you have and how those things may relate to each one.

The end result will have the full flag (including HTB). Make sure you do this in a case sensitive OS, such as linux/macOS. :wink:

It may happen that one loses the correct casing of directory-names when unzipping the archive that leads to scrambled data…

I need a nudge, I got a string but as others mentioned I get HZ… if i root Basically, I need a hand in the decrypt?

could someone PM me please.

Overall I liked this challenge, not too hard and kinda fun. But there are a few mistakes you can make along the way that will turn this into a headache.

Nudge:

  • Make sure you unzip the folder on a linux machine. If you don’t Windows will collapse files into one another (For example folder Z/ and z/ will be combined ) and you will not be able to complete the challenge!! If you unzipped on windows restart the challange on a linux machine.

  • If you are stuck try installing tree which will display the contents of the directories recursively and might give you a better idea of what to do

  • Lastly, once you have an idea run with it and don’t overthink the decoding

PM me if you tried these and still can’t figure it out

Man this challenge is pretty confused.

  1. unzip
  2. ls -R,
  3. try to notice a pattern with folders and character sets
  4. crack the cipher

Its too easy friends … you just need to encode this → HTB -----> then you will found the pattern.

Super Hint ! : the encode that you get shows the patern of folders sequence :wink:

Remind me that I’m still a NOOB for Linux text processing ^^

Kinda easy. Not possible on Windows, had to complete it in an ubuntu container. One liner was enough for this.

Type your comment> @sparkla said:

Guys you sure there’s no decryption needed? Cause there simply isn’t directories called { or } and the H has no file inside… how’s that supposed to become a flag?

Think around the problem. If you cant get HTB{} from the folders, what else could it be? If you think it might be something, try it. Even if its wrong you have learnt something about the problem!

P.s. I echo the not on Windows comments. I was doing it at work while waiting for something to run and wasted a good 10 minutes before I figured out why it was weird!

Type your comment> @ghostride said:

For those getting HZ… instead of HTB…, it may be a file system case sensitivity issue.

I got the same issue while using a Linux VM because the file system I unzipped the file to was a shared folder from my Mac OS host, which had a case insensitive file system. After unzipping to a case sensitive file system inside the VM instead, it worked

I just solved it. I was banging my head until I realized the files in the archive were not being extracted to the same path. I thought I solved it moving to my Linux VM, but then realized I was in a shared folder from my Mac OS host. Once I unzipped to a case sensitive file system I got the flag.

BTW - I solved this running a one-liner of chained commands.

Yeah, dont try this on an OS with case-insensitive filesystem :wink: !

Go back to the basics. Keep it simple. Imagine what a clever person first playing around with encoding might do. Charm the snake to make your life easier, and you will get it in no time.

Is necessary “order” and focus for solving this challenge :smiley:

“I created a script python to facility and solve the challenge”

If you’re trying this challenge on a Mac that uses APFS filesystem and you’ve managed to generate a key that looks like HZ…, this is highly relevant:

APFS, like HFS+, is case-sensitive on iOS and is available in case-sensitive and case-insensitive variants on macOS, with case-insensitive being the default

This is the reply that finally fixed everything for me.

If you’re stuck and you’re on Windows, switch to linux asap, even if it just means spinning up a docker container:

Here’s a quickie I used to get things done:

Dockerfile

FROM alpine:lastest
RUN apk add vim bash
WORKDIR /app
CMD /bin/bash

Then ran it from powershell like so:

docker build -t temp .; docker run -it --rm -v ${PWD}:/app temp

Just launch it from your working directory. Anything you need just use apk to install it as you go and/or switch to debian:latest or rhel:latest if you prefer apt-get or yum for package mangament.

All I had to do in terms of my existing work on the problem (which I was doing in python) was swtich to linux. All my code was ready to go and working…but because I did everything in Windows I wasn’t getting the right flag.

This was a fun one!

I would say if there are some “=” the hint will be more obvious…
This might be a spoiler …

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For all those that are stuck, there is a simple linux command called tree that can help you visualize the challenge and what needs to be done.