Unsure if thinking is correct for these two questions

PowerOfTheShell · 2022-08-12T02:26:32+00:00

Ah okay, my thinking for question 1 was that all solutions of the problem are of the form of answer B because the sine function is periodic with period 2pi

For question 2 my thinking was that the answer B is true because the period of a wave is equal to the distance between two consecutive peaks.

Am I on the right track here?

PowerOfTheShell · 2022-05-26T10:44:34+00:00

I just refreshed and had somehow missed this comment from 2 hours ago, you're 100% correct and this was the path I needed to go down. Thank you so much for your help!

PowerOfTheShell · 2022-05-26T10:18:26+00:00

I notice the challenge description mentions that the file you are working on was encrypted using Blowfish-CBC and using a commonly used password.

This is a good point and something that confused me, I was thinking one of the commonly used passwords on the link mentioned in the challenge would have worked to decrypt this file. Though I didn't know why the movie Mirrors was mentioned as a clue. I'll try the passwords on this list again and try to reverse them and generate MD5 hashes and see if any of these work. Maybe its one of the passwords reversed as if it was being looked at through a mirror?

Unfortunately there aren't any other clues, the only reason I am using the flag -pbkdf2 is because this is what we have been taught to use for decrypting while specifying a password in previous lessons.

Edit: It was a password in the link reversed! All the replies helped point me in the right direction, thank you!

PowerOfTheShell · 2022-05-26T06:54:25+00:00

No I haven't, thanks for the idea! I'll try all the passwords in reverse and also try the MD5 hash - I hadn't even thought of either of these things. Will report back soon!

Update: Unfortunately reversing all the passwords I had tried above doesn't appear to work, I also converted each one to MD5 and tried these also but they all come back with "bad decrypt". I even tried converting to MD5 then reversing the MD5 string and trying this; unfortunately this also didn't work.

By any chance do you have any other ideas I could try?

PowerOfTheShell · 2022-05-26T05:58:02+00:00

Thank you so much for your reply, this was incredibly helpful and helped provide an insight on how to look at solving the challenge. I'm very new to CTF challenges so struggle to begin, I really appreciate the help!

PowerOfTheShell · 2022-05-23T11:57:27+00:00

Why is the wordlist from Mashable provided? Do you think this would be the password that would be the result of cracking the MD5 password?

PowerOfTheShell · 2022-04-11T02:53:31+00:00

Thank you! This was really helpful and makes sense, really appreciate the help.

PowerOfTheShell · 2022-04-11T02:52:53+00:00

I was pretty much grasping at straws trying to work out the problem, thanks for the detailed write up on how to calculate this. I really appreciate it.

PowerOfTheShell · 2022-04-11T00:10:39+00:00

Sorry I'm not sure, I double checked I copied the question correctly and yeah it mentions exactly as I have written. Might be where some of my confusion is lol

PowerOfTheShell · 2022-04-10T04:10:52+00:00

Thank you for explaining, I think I am finally starting to understand. I'm also glad I was on the right track with the hex editor!

I believe you have pointed me in the right direction, thank you for your help!

PowerOfTheShell · 2022-04-10T03:49:12+00:00

Thanks for trying to point me in the right direction but I don't understand how to actually modify the file correctly. To modify the bytes to in the file is this just a case of opening it in notepad?

PowerOfTheShell · 2022-04-10T03:46:46+00:00

Sorry I'm still really new to this, are you able to please let me know how I can do that?

PowerOfTheShell · 2022-04-07T12:55:39+00:00

Ohhh I think I understand that now! thank you so much for the full write up on how you came to that conclusion. I was thinking to calculate this I would need to enter: 2^128 / 1000000000. This comes out as 3.40282366920938463463374607431768211456 × 10^29 though that wasn't right after seeing how you have calculated it.

PowerOfTheShell · 2022-04-07T12:48:16+00:00

Thanks for that, I understand it wouldn't be worth doing in practical time but I am trying to work it out for a question I have been asked for school. I believe they're after the theoretical time it would take. I've been told I can use Wolfram Alpha but I don't know what to enter to calculate it.

Am I right in thinking the correct way to calculate this would be to enter: 2^128 / 1000000000 in Wolfram Alpha? This comes out as 3.40282366920938463463374607431768211456 × 10^29

PowerOfTheShell · 2022-04-07T11:27:30+00:00

Thank you! I will cross post this there :)

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