

Too hard? - kator
http://izhack.com:12345/

======
kator
Working on a number of "gateway" challenges for a client.

Not sure if this is too hard with zero hints.

It's so hard to measure when you're the one who created the puzzle. I came up
with a couple solutions but again how do you separate the personal bias of
being the puzzle maker?

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rachelbythebay
A md5sum of the first thing you create and then use along with 'step 2' would
be a nice way to see if you're on the right track. Otherwise... it's hard to
say exactly where things are going wrong.

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kator
A couple hints:

1) You most likely won't solve it in a browser

2) The actual text is NOT encrypted

3) It will take 4 to 5 connections together to solve the problem

------
kator
Updated to hopefully make it a bit clearer.

Also there is an alternate challenge at izhack.com port 12346 but you can't
read it in a browser. :)

~~~
rachelbythebay
... just because you get a RSA thing (ahem) out of it doesn't mean it'll work
with your "Step 2". Those things aren't armored, so it's possible to corrupt
it and have no luck getting anywhere.

Or did you intend for it to be straight-up frustrating?

~~~
kator
No it's designed as a challenge not designed to be frustrating. Think of
reasons you think you see cipher text in it..

And there is nothing 'armored' about this thing, it's so plainly in your face
I'm stunned nobody had figured it out yet.

~~~
anonymous_
Kator, have you read Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid?

~~~
kator
If you are trying to say I created a puzzle only I can solve you would be
wrong. I have someone who solved it but they're into protocol analysis and
crypto.

~~~
anonymous_
No, I think it's solvable and even easy (depending on definition). Beforing
you gave the tips I saw that "scrambled" trimmed the response always at the
same byte length. Then I saw everytime it returned something different. Then,
doing a "for i in $(seq 0 50); do curl izhack.com:12345 | head -7 | tail -1 |
cut -c 1-250; done; I could see the pattern.

Doing the same for the other lines, replacing head -7 with head -8, head -9,
etc I grabbed the repetition columns for all 5 lines. Each line had different
columns repeated.

Creating a 5x300 grid and marking the cells where repetition occurs you see
there's a symmetry. The repeats 5 times, where at column 58 every line repeats
and it marks the repetition.

This is where I left, I still don't know the meaning of the last line. When I
first run, coincidentally the server returned "sAlt" :-)

I was only asking if you knew the book because you seem to like puzzles and me
too. As I liked the book I thought you might like and was trying to start a
conversation.

Sorry!

~~~
anonymous_
Ah, you need a 300-column terminal to avoid line breaks :-)

~~~
kator
I have a 254 column terminal :-)

That said you will want to use code to analyze it.. You're very close..

------
kator
If are attempting it please post your thoughts here.

I will give more hints if nobody pops it.

~~~
anonymous_
rsa-155

~~~
kator
The instructions are not encrypted they are interspersed at repeatable
intervals.

~~~
anonymous_
The pattern has a width of 57 columns. The decoded text looks like the
beginning of a private key to me.

~~~
kator
If you decode it you will know. :)

~~~
anonymous_
Yes, I liked the challenge I'll take another shot tonight.

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prout
Is figuring out a passphrase part of the step 2, or did I miss something ?

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givan
<http://xkcd.com/356/>

~~~
kator
Funny but this is a real challenge and it's solvable.

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edferda
A hint would be nice.

~~~
kator
See above for hits, it can be solved without any knowledge of the internal
process used to display the free text.

